Crimson Skies - BFM - Black Screen

[NokSueCow]

I've been trying some CCI games with BFM Cerbios and Crimson Skies only boots to a black screen. However, if I disconnect the ethernet cable, it loads the loading screen, but freezes as well, just gets a tad bit further. I've tested on 3 different xbox's, all v1.6. Two are fresh BFM softmods, another has Dashloader BFM. I've only tested a handful of games so far, but Crimson is the only one that has issues.

I've changed language in the MS Dash, reset, changed back to English.

The dashloader xbox has the v1.6 xtf fonts, K.1.0.5838.1.xtf, renamed to xbox.xtf.

I've disabled 480p/720p in both the MS Dash, and XBMC4Gamers. Issue persists across hdmi and component, 2 different tv's.

I've deleted all gamesaves and dlc for the game, as well as folder 4D530021.

Deleted the game, downloaded another redump from Archive. Tried both the repacked and unpacked versions.

I loaded the 480p script in 4Gamers, and it said I didn't need it for this game.

 

The fresh BFM's are 2TB, WD20EZBX, The Dashloader BFM is 3TB, HUS724030ALA640. Startech adapter and 80 wire on all three. Formatted in FatX using Hazenos guide. 2TB's have 128KB clusters, the 3TB has 256KB, Maxed F, deleted G. Everything else has worked fine so far, other xbox games, emulators, demos, homebrew. All are registered with Insignia, but haven't created gamertags yet.

What does removing the ethernet cable have to do with loading just a bit further into the menu? With the cable connected, its a solid black screen. Disconnected, my tv flickers, as it does when a resolution change is taking place, a tiny green horizontal line appears for a split second, loading screen appears, then freezes.

Attached are logs. One is after Crimson fails to load, another is after Halo loads successfully.

Crimson.xbmc.log Crimson.xbmc.old.log Halo.xbmc.log Halo.xbmc.old.log

[PRince404]

What's BFM? 

[FrostyMaGee]

25 minutes ago, PRince404 said:

What's BFM? 

Whenever I see it I always think Bus Functional Model lol but I’m guessing he’s referring to Bootable From Media or something similar. 

[NokSueCow]

9 hours ago, FrostyMaGee said:

Whenever I see it I always think Bus Functional Model lol but I’m guessing he’s referring to Bootable From Media or something similar. 

Sorry, Cerbios Boot From Media, yes.

[NokSueCow]

I've made some progress, but it went back to not working again.

I thought it may have something to do with keeping time, as I've noticed the past month or so, XBMC4Gamers doesn't show the correct time. Aero's post got me thinking to manually change the time, and the game finally loaded to the menu. I rebooted and it black screened again. The MS Dash displays the correct time/date, but 4Gamers wont automatically update. It's been an hour off for a while now, but I thought nothing off it.

I have Language set to English (US), Region is USA, Daylight Savings enabled, connected to pool.ntp.org.

Does anyone else display incorrect times when connected to a time server? What server should I pick, if this isn't the right one? If manually setting the time allowed the game to finally load once, but never again, is there a theory that I can pursue?

Edited April 1 by NokSueCow

[NokSueCow]

 

13 hours ago, FrostyMaGee said:

How very odd. I wonder what the hell is causing that? Have you tried an xiso version off of vimms? Just trying to think of a non redump version. Just bizarre it would work with Ethernet plugged in and crash without it. 
 

Edit: I should probably make further comments on your post rather than here. Doh!

I downloaded a redump from Vimms, and black screen again, but I've made progress today. I've learned it only black screens when I have 'enable Internet time sync' enabled in 4Gamers. This forces my clock to turn back 1 hour, and the game doesn't like an invalid time setting.

I loaded the game 5 times in a row, worked great, enabled time sync, black screen, disabled time sync, game works again. Transferred my original CCI game files back and deleted the Vimms lair one, same thing, only works with time sync disabled.

Also, after enabling time sync and disabling it again, I have to launch a few random games to the main menus before Crimson will work on its own repeatedly. Once the game loads though, it works fine over and over until time sync is enabled again.

I just noticed that accessing the Game Demos portion of the game, and trying to back out to the main menu, black screens as well. Relaunching the game black screens, and I have to load a random game, restart, load Crimson, in order to keep playing Crimson again.

Edited April 2 by NokSueCow

[FrostyMaGee]

34 minutes ago, NokSueCow said:

 

I downloaded a redump from Vimms, and black screen again, but I've made progress today. I've learned it only black screens when I have 'enable Internet time sync' enabled in 4Gamers. This forces my clock to turn back 1 hour, and the game doesn't like an invalid time setting.

I loaded the game 5 times in a row, worked great, enabled time sync, black screen, disabled time sync, game works again. Transferred my original CCI game files back and deleted the Vimms lair one, same thing, only works with time sync disabled.

Also, after enabling time sync and disabling it again, I have to launch a few random games to the main menus before Crimson will work on its own repeatedly. Once the game loads though, it works fine over and over until time sync is enabled again.

I just noticed that accessing the Game Demos portion of the game, and trying to back out to the main menu, black screens as well. Relaunching the game black screens, and I have to load a random game, restart, load Crimson, in order to keep playing Crimson again.

How very odd. You wouldn’t think that would cause issues. I wonder if any other games have that issue. I also wonder why mine works but yours does not. Now I’m very curious as to the root cause of this problem. 
 

On a positive note at least you know how to recreate and avoid the issue!  Are you on the most current xbmc4gamers? 

[NokSueCow]

Yeah, v2.0.003.

I've found something else. I was looking at the logs, and it mentioned not finding Root, and that's what I loaded into before all this testing. I was trying to save time finding the game each boot, so I set the default to Games instead of Root. I know about Favorites, but I wanted to eliminate every possibility. This is the only way I can accurately produce results, and play the game. Defaulting to Root black screens no matter what, but when set to Games, and time sync disabled, it always plays.

If feels like a mix of invalid time in xbmc and something to do with Root. I've attached 2 logs, one right after a successful game loading into the main menu and resetting the xbox. The 2nd is with time sync enabled, black screen, and a reset.

Attached 2 new logs. This doesn't explain why the game won't launch in UnleashX, though.

Crimson.works.xbmc.old.log Crimson.doesnt.work.xbmc.old.log

CrimsonWorksWithGamesAsDefault.xbmc.old.log CrimsonDoesntWorkWithRootAsDefault.xbmc.old.log

Edited April 2 by NokSueCow

[NokSueCow]

Turns out this whole thing was a known issue with the BFM version of Cerbios, I just didn't know. Jade on xboxscene discord informed me that he reported it a while back, along with some other ones. I done wiped the hdd and reset to factory, was going to start all over and see exactly where it happened. No longer have to. Jade said he would get dirty disc errors, but I only get black screens. Probably different versions of xbox/cerbios.

[FrostyMaGee]

4 hours ago, NokSueCow said:

Turns out this whole thing was a known issue with the BFM version of Cerbios, I just didn't know. Jade on xboxscene discord informed me that he reported it a while back, along with some other ones. I done wiped the hdd and reset to factory, was going to start all over and see exactly where it happened. No longer have to. Jade said he would get dirty disc errors, but I only get black screens. Probably different versions of xbox/cerbios.

Well it’s good to know what is causing it. It was bugging me. I felt like it had to be something with the dash or cerbios since we eliminated the game files. Then we figured different dashes weren’t the issue as well.   Good to know for the future! 

[nikeymikey]

Are you using a BFM bios because you have softmodded 1.6 consoles? Have you considered going down a hardmod route instead? 

[NokSueCow]

8 hours ago, nikeymikey said:

Are you using a BFM bios because you have softmodded 1.6 consoles? Have you considered going down a hardmod route instead? 

Yes, all of the ones I've been working on just happen to be v1.6. I already have the circuitscribe pen ready to go for the others. I rebuilt a trace on a garage door opener with the pen a few weeks ago, and its still working. So I feel pretty good about it.

[neakmenter]

Ive been getting dirty disc errors from hdd ntsc version on crimson skies on cerbios, but seems okay when loading my pal version - I’m gonna see if they use the same gameid for tdata - there may be a DLC region issue - or possibly even the DLC is unsigned or something. Or maybe the ol dvd2xbox processed some dodgy acl or something. I’ll do some digging if I get time. Theres a surprising number of variables here! Lol!

[NokSueCow]

1 hour ago, neakmenter said:

Ive been getting dirty disc errors from hdd ntsc version on crimson skies on cerbios, but seems okay when loading my pal version - I’m gonna see if they use the same gameid for tdata - there may be a DLC region issue - or possibly even the DLC is unsigned or something. Or maybe the ol dvd2xbox processed some dodgy acl or something. I’ll do some digging if I get time. Theres a surprising number of variables here! Lol!

Not sure if you saw my comment, but my issue had already been documented to the Cerbios team. Are you BFM or hardmod?

[neakmenter]

Im Tsop not bfm - cerbios udma2 (the one previous to latest alpha thing - the last beta - cant remember the version - I’ll check when i get a chance). And im running from directories not cci or xiso. My ntsc copy is origins my pal is ripped from disc.

Edited April 9 by neakmenter