GTA: IV Game Freezes and Rockstar doesn't know why.

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I have tried running the PS3 in a bare minimum mode. Not using my DS3, using a usb cable instead of BT for the controller, making sure extra devices are unplugged. Unplugging the network cable. Disabling all unnecessary extras. I have reloaded the game several times to no success. Disabling the autosave feature was the first 'change' that gave me positive results.....for about 5 minutes.

Glad to see you game hasn't locked up on you.....

I would take stuttering over complete system lockups, although, still unacceptable in my opinion. I guess we aren't paying our programmers enough.
 
Right ok this may just be an isolated problem on my PS3 but I couldn't get onto the game server via the phone, for 2 days! I had friend requests to join games come up but that didn't help. I just got the message "Game servers unavaliable at this time please try later" also when tring to look at online stats the PS3 kept telling me I wasn'tsighned into the PSN although I was! Ok so this along with 2 freezing instances!
I subsequently turned off the option to start the PS3 up remotly via the PSP, this is in the XMB.....and lo and behold I got straight into the servers for MP on GTIV with no waiting or error messages, plus no freezing instances so far........Not sure if this will help anyone but worth a try! Certainly worked perfectly for me.
 
Just see if you can check your online scores, it's in the pause menu, mine said I wasn't conected to the PSN although I was and was still getting friend online/offline notifications! This pointed me in the PSP networking options direction. I've not had freezing problems since doing this but that may be coincidential, the multiplayer game servers and online stats were working imidiatly after the change I made
 
Sorry to hear everyone's having problems. It just seems to strange to have this problem when the game must have been played by the reviewers on similar specification systems. The only other thing I can think of is a dodgy batch of games maybe.

Just read on another forum that disabling your wireless internet connection on the PS3 may help stop the game freezing.
 
My game will froze from time to time. Sometimes it will fix itself but sometimes I have to restart the machine.

Looks like it is a problem for everybody.
 
There seem to be two different problems associated with GTA, at least on PS3. One seems to be that the game is freezing up due to software, the other seems to be that the Blu-Ray Drives are simply failing, giving people disc-read errors, causing the system to lock up when it tries to load a cut scene or even load a saved game.
 
Personaly I've had 2 lockups on my PS3 60gb in about 7 hours play and a PSN connection issue....these have subsequently been cured for me, the unusual thing is my son has a 40 gig PS3 in his room and borrows my copy of the game, he's put in about 10 hours......no freezes, no connection issues.....same disc! This points to me it's a hardware/software error with the 60gig model, which has been reported elsewhere. So in this instanceit's"simply" a case of rockstar hunting downthe problemand patching it. Really feel for the guys having serious issues with the game but I'm sure Rockstar will have it patched real soon, I know it dosn't help but the game is worth it. Bit sloppy though this issue getting through the testing stage it was in production long enough!
 
Two freezes in about 10 minutes, all I was doing was driving along. But it might be the PS3 since it froze up today while doing F@H a few times.
 
Short version of my GTA4 Freezing experience.
Played the game on my friends ps3 last night for like 8 hours,only 1 freeze.
Now today i'm playing at home and during a mission the game froze. Then i was online in a race, game froze again.

Its horrible. I hope RS comes out with a patch or so to fix that issue.

Chris
 
as soon as i connect the ps3 to internet the game freezes!!!!
very anoying,hope they fix it soon guys!!
spyrrari.
 
I'll put my GTA4 aside 4 now, Even though I've never experienced any lockup, it just doesn't feel right playing a game like this, you know, playing this game doesn't bring the "peace of mind" feeling that I've been having with the PS3.:sly: I'll come back to CoD4 and GT5P until R* has something to say about this.
 
My 360 version has froze several times during the loading screens in the single player mode. During the multiplayer online it has not froze once.
 
Mine froze four times in the last hour and a half. Twice during the black screen before you start in your apartment and twice during normal play.
 
Three freezes in about an hour, this is starting to get on my nerves quite a bit.
 
This is what Rockstar has recommended to help solve the freezing problems... seems like just a rubbish troubleshooting guide to me because I bet the game has a major flaw which is causing this and they need to release a patch to fix it...

Gamespot
Take-Two suggests PS3 GTAIV fix​

Publisher's tech support department unveils an elaborate 12-step program to address frequent freezing by deleting saves, disabling online and rumble support; 360 remedy still MIA.

Reports of Grand Theft Auto IV freezing up have been circulating message boards since the game's launch Tuesday, but Rockstar Games has been tight-lipped as to the reason or the remedy, passing off requests for public comment onto Sony. While the majority of complaints appear to be coming from PlayStation 3 users, Xbox 360 owners with glitch-ridden game experiences have also voiced their frustrations online.

Take-Two representatives may not have been willing to go on the record about the issue, but the publisher's tech support team does not have the same luxury when it comes to customer complaints. An inquiry into the Take-Two tech support site yielded the following array of suggestions on how to fix the problem. The 12-part response follows below:

Please run through the following, go through in order.

1) Delete the game's install data. This is done via the PS3 options. Scroll along the cross media bar until you reach the 'Game' tab, now scroll up / down the list until you reach the 'Game Data Utility' Enter this and locate the GTA IV option. Highlight this and press triangle once, from the menu select Delete. This will delete the game's install information.

2) Delete the game's save files. To delete any save files you will need to do the following. Scroll along the cross media bar until you reach the 'Game' tab, now scroll up / down the list until you reach the 'Save Data Utility' Enter this and locate the GTA IV option. Highlight this and press triangle once, and from the context menu select Delete.

3) Disable your Internet connectivity for the PS3. To do this scroll along the cross media bar until you reach the 'Settings' tab, now scroll up / down the list until you reach the 'Network Settings'. Now scroll down to the Internet connection option and press x, now select the disable option. Once this has been done unplug the ethernet cable if you are connecting to the Internet if using this.

4) Disable the console's information board. To do this scroll along the cross media bar until you reach the 'Network' tab, now scroll up / down the list until you reach the 'Information Board', highlight this and press triangle. From the menu select 'Do not display' Press X to confirm this.

5) Disable Media Server functionality. Scroll to Settings, now scroll up / down to 'Network Settings' select Media Server connection. Once this has been done press triangle and change the option Disabled.

6) Delete all of the system's Internet cache. To do this scroll along the cross media bar until you reach the 'Network' tab, now scroll up / down the list until you reach the 'Internet Browser', highlight this and press X. Once you browser opens press the triangle button once, from the new menu highlight the 'Tools' option and press X. Scroll down the menu until you reach 'Delete Cookies' and press X. Confirm the files deletion. Repeat this for 'Delete Cache'.

7 ) Turn off the PS3 screen saver. Use the cross media bar to scroll to 'Settings', select 'Display Settings'. Now highlight 'Screensaver' and set this to 'Do not use'.

8 ) Once this has been done, manually restart you PS3 by holding down the power button for 5 seconds it will beep once and then shut down. Release the power button and re-press it and hold for about 5 seconds. The system will then boot and reset all display settings. You will be prompted to reset your display settings to how you require them.

9) Once restarted please try the game again, you will be prompted to reinstall.

Once the game has started please turn off the following features:

1) The game's auto-save. Press Start, Game, and locate the Auto-save option. Turn this off.

2) Turn off the game's flicker filter. Press Start, Display and locate the Flicker Filter option. Turn this off.

3) Turn off the controller vibration feature. Press Start, Controls and locate the vibration option. Turn this off.

If that doesn't solve the problem, Take-Two allows tech support users to reopen their cases within seven days.

As for Sony, earlier today, a representative with the company confirmed a 'freezing' issue with GTAIV on "a limited number of PS3s." He added that Sony has received "an extremely low volume" of complaint calls to its customer service line, and that it is working with all concerned parties to pin down and fix the issue.

Microsoft has not yet responded to GameSpot's inquiries on problems with the Xbox 360 edition of the game. GameSpot editors have yet to receive a response to a Take-Two tech support ticket filed for that version of the game.
Click to expand...

Don't know if it will help, let me know if all these steps do work!

Robin
 
You know if they just figured out all the issues before rushing out the product there wouldn't be a problem. I hate how games now are just rushed out without proper testing.
 
ROAD_DOGG33J
Delete the game's save files...best fix ever
Click to expand...

Especially for a game like GTA....... Epic! :sly:

Actually I do have a question, can you finally in this game replay any particular mission you want or is it still the same way it has always been?
 
Same as it ever was....unfortunatly, say it the lyrical stylings of talking heads and it won't hurt sobad LOL

Looks like RS are buying time with that list of "stadard trys" about 7 days time if I'm reading it right LOL

Expect a patch in the next week, Don't like MS lack of a response?
 
my friend and I both got hit by some weird bugs this morning, at exactly the same time. We were playing against each other in free roam, shut down our PS3s, and when we started them up again neither of us could get the game to load. My friend tried backing up and then deleting his game saves, and I found a fix - you have to disconnect from PSN. It works for both of us, but if we then try to get into multiplayer once the game has loaded and sign back into PSN, the console hard locks.

We've both got 40GB models, both playing copies bought on release day, from the same branch of Game, and were both connected to the same gateway at the time.


Apart from that I've never had the game freeze, but it has stopped responding to the controller from time to time. The game itself is still running, if it happens on a road I can watch people and vehicles go past, but none of the buttons do anything, not even the PS button. I really want to love this game, but bugs like this are driving me nuts. :ouch:


*Edit*

It's been semi-confirmed by people on another forum I read that the problem is the game not being able to connect to the multiplayer servers. Either disabling your PS3's internet connection or signing out of PSN seems to fix almost everybody's problems. I can only assume that you have to do similar with the 360 version. Might be worth trying first, before nuking your game data and reinstalling.
 
I think I have a new plan. My PS3, 60gb is 18 months old and has a 2 year extended exchange warranty with Best Buy. I'll wait until the 120gb version PS3's come out, then do my one time exchange. I would exchange for an 80gb also, but they're all out of those to.
 
If you tried deleting everything and then reinstalling the game and it still hasn't worked, try disabling the internet connection.

Unfortunately for me, I tried deleting and reinstalling before shutting my internet connection off and lost everything.
 
jammyozzy
It's been semi-confirmed by people on another forum I read that the problem is the game not being able to connect to the multiplayer servers. Either disabling your PS3's internet connection or signing out of PSN seems to fix almost everybody's problems. I can only assume that you have to do similar with the 360 version. Might be worth trying first, before nuking your game data and reinstalling.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I experienced the same thing yesterday. I thought my save was corrupt when it just froze at the loading screen, but for the heck of it I decided to sign out of the PSN and everything worked once again.
 
Deleting the "Profile" save on the PS3, NOT the gamesave, seemed to work sometimes for me, but later today connecting to the PSN causes it to freeze straight away, so I haven't be able to go online at all. Odd thing is it was completely fine yesterday.
 
I called Sony customer support yesterday regarding the disc drive of my PS3 no longer reading after playing GTA IV a while (which eventually led to it not reading any other Blu-Ray discs until the system cooled down for a few hours). This meant that when the game attempting to switch from a cut scene back to the game, or vice-versa, or when I was respawning or loading a map during an online game, nothing would happen, and the disc drive would just click away.

The Sony service technician that I spoke to had me run through a few setup changes, resetting the system settings and stuff, and attempting to once again play other Blu-Ray games and movies. She flat out told me do not play GTA IV, and to attempt to continue using the system with other discs and see if the failures still occur. They would replace my PS3, still under warrenty, if the problems still occured with other games.

Since that time, I've played GT5P without a single glitch for several hours yesterday and today.

The Sony service person also gave me the number for Rockstar/Take-Two, and they emailed me the same list of fixes as shown above. I have not attempted them yet as I've been still making sure that my system is ok.

The Take-Two service person acknowledge that Rockstar is aware of the problem, and do not have a solution, nor a time frame for when a solution can be found.

In contract to what the press release above says, the Sony service person told me that they have been getting a large number of calls regarding problems due to GTA IV.
 
My GTA 4 froze yesterday at start load screen, I tryied deleting my install, profile and my saves (backed up on USB) and reinstalled and attempted a fresh game, this still failed. Frustrated I finally tried the rockstar 12 step 'fix' and it worked perfectly, put my original save back on and havent have a problems since.

Still not happy though as I do want to reconnect my internet to the PS3 and other features, hope a patch comes soon.
 
Im kind of glad now I havent bought the game yet because its probably better to wait till Rockstar sort the problem out via patch... or maybe even release new game stock with the problem solved...

Robin
 

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