Hello There Clammers!
Have you noticed your game crashing a bit more than normal lately? Ever get an Epic (or rare) item to finally drop from a character, only to lose it a few seconds later to a game crash? Starting to wonder if your game is trying to break up with you? Giving you the “it’s not you it’s me” routine? Well look no further because I’m popping in with some much requested info about why your game might be crashing a little more than usual these days!
We’ve been noticing more and more of you mention in the comments that your game is crashing at various points during game play. Or even worse…you FINALLY land an Epic Eyeball only to have it stripped from your grasp by a game crash. We see you commenting about these daily frustrations and I decided to do a little digging to see what I could find out about the issues.
I reached out to our friends at TinyCo to bring them YOUR frustrations and I’m happy to report I’ve got an answer and a solution….sorta. Read on to find out more…
As I’m sure many of you already figured out, here’s the deal on the game crashing…as they add more and more content to the game it requires more and more memory. The more memory required the more draining it is on the game, especially “during memory-intensive actions”…this in turn causes your game to crash.
Need more specifics? Here’s what TinyCo has to say about Memory usage:
“It’s not technically true that adding more content means more memory. Ok, it’s KIND OF true, because the more items you have on screen, the more memory it takes. Likewise, loading other players’ games means you may be loading decos you don’t own, or a much larger Quahog.
When your game crashes it doesn’t save. Instead it restores the most recent auto-save, usually a bit behind your last action. This is why you may lose out on your STUFF that just dropped. Because the game is restoring to an earlier point, the items are random & boom…lost stuff.
So, what are those Memory-intensive actions? Here’s what TinyCo has to say:
- Loading the multiverse/ollieland. Because this involves loading another player’s whole game, including stuff you may not have in your Quahog, it takes up a lot more RAM to complete the action. This is why many players report crashes during multiverse visits.
- Leveling up a character or completing a costume. This one’s a bummer, because when a player FINALLY gets their last eyeball, they want to finish Tweaker Peter in their excitement. We believe this is why more players see lost items after a crash.
So what’s the solution? Here’s what TinyCo has to say at the memory usage:
“Memory usage is something we work on every update, as it’s something we always want to keep optimized. We’re currently working on reducing memory usage in the recent features we added. Our goal is to get it back down to before the Event update, so if you weren’t crashing before that, you should be good once we hit that mark.
Mobile devices allocate a certain amount of memory to a game. When you use up that memory, the device “kills” the game. Harsh. This is different than a crash due to a bug in the code. Those crashes we can fix. With memory crashes, though, the solution is to reduce the memory the game takes up. The phone will always kill an uppity app that reaches its limit. So, improving the memory usage will mean fewer devices hit the limit,and those that do, hit it less often.”
In the meantime here’s what TinyCo recommends doing to avoid losing any STUFF….
“If a player was afflicted by this before, or if they know they’re on a device that has more crashes than normal, we strongly recommend minimizing the app (hitting the home button) after they get a super-rare item. Minimizing the app triggers the game to save. If the game crashes, it should still retain the rare item.
If you get a super rare item and want to make sure your game is saved, simply minimize the app to your home screen. This triggers a save, and you can reopen the app as normal. Force closing is not required. We suggest doing this before you attempted to complete a costume or visit the multiverse, because each of these are memory-intensive actions.”
Of course their goal is to fix the problem completely so this isn’t a necessary step, trust me they don’t want you to lose your stuff. Their goal is to BUILD a player community, not destroy one. However, this is a good fix in the meantime while they work to fix the crash problems all together.
So there you have it…the mystery behind the crashing. At least now you have a way to keep that hard to earn STUFF around.
Special thanks goes out to one of our TinyCo friends, you may have seen him around the comments here, Tiny Matt. He’s the one who graciously took the time to help us get to the bottom of this! So thanks a ton Matt! (and the entire TinyCo Team!)
What are YOUR thoughts? Have you experienced any crashing issues? Lose any Epic items as a result? Sound off in the comments below, you know we LOVE hearing from you!
Family Guy Addicts 
Would love to point out that it is now February 2015 and the crashing is even worse now than it has ever been. The recommendation now is to reduce decorations with animations…which is saying that on a game called the quest for stuff, you can’t keep all that stuff on display.
LikeLike
My game started crashing today so I just left it alone and would check every few hours I’ve spent close to $300.00 on this game now when I try to go in the game has started over and everything is gone help
LikeLike
Try this:
LikeLike
I have just finished building the PF Chinese. When I tap on it to complete it, the game crashes. What should I do? I’ve tried closing the app and restarting the phone. I also have lots of memory left.
LikeLike
That’s a new one. You might need to uninstall/reinstall the game. Make sure you have an email account made or the game is linked to a Facebook account.
LikeLike
I recently noticed this last week ot crashing when you hit the hime button all the time. I’ve reported on the crash notce, but is there someone else I need to report it too?
LikeLike
No…the in-game “contact us” feature is your best bet. They are aware of the problems and pretty much will “clean house” with the end of event update.
LikeLike
I have a problem with NEVER being able to open multiverse without crashing. I have never seen any FB friends towns. So frustrated at this point I may just delete the app & bid it a fond farewell sadly. 😦
LikeLike
Have you contacted TinyCo through your in game menu?
LikeLike
my girlfriend can’t get herbert’s house, everytime she tries to scroll over to it the game crashes, she’s stuck because she can’t buy it, anyone know what to do? plus in her game Lois often comes as a shadow of peter? what is up with that?
she wrote a comment on google play store and we both wrote to TinyCo and still no help…
LikeLike
Did you contact TinyCo directly from the game with the issue? Or just via email?
LikeLike
My game crashes on my Google Nexus 10 every time I try to visit my friends. It doesn’t do it on my much older, much more rubbish phone that has considerably less memory. I’ve tried uninstalling and reinstalling and nothing. Reported it, nothing. Not sure what else to do! I hope they fix it.
LikeLike
Sometimes the newer devices are the hardest ones to meet, because they’re still trying to have it work on the older devices too. I know for Tapped Out on my GS4 (running kit-kat) it constantly crashes BUT on my Galaxy Tab (running Jelly Bean) it never crashes. You’d think it’d be the opposite problem…
LikeLike
I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this, but sometimes (often) when I minimize my game as instructed, the game actually crashes in the shutdown process.
I’ve found that the best way to avoid losing items is to let the game “rest” for a while. I leave it open, but touch nothing, until the iPad shuts itself down. I also close all my other apps and hard reset my device before opening the game.
It doesn’t elimate all crashes or completely prevent losing items, but that strategy allows the game to feel playable.
LikeLike
I just lost clams because I opened up the new crypt and before I even saw what it did it glitches and froze the game. I wound up losing my clams and not even getting the reward from the crypt, when I emailed tinyco they told me to write them from the in game help screen and I apparently don’t have that on my android download, if I do I can’t find it..so now I’m out of all those clams
LikeLike
Check out this post to see the contact TinyCo option. If you don’t have it still email them that same way, just include your 32 digit game id code.
LikeLike
The thing about it is I have lost items several times to force closing, and it wasn’t during any of the described actions. Actually, most of the time when I click the character, the item pops out and the game force closes immedietly after, so there isn’t time to take their advice. Before you mention it, I have already contacted tiny co. I recieved an email back along the lines of, and this is my loose interpretation, “tough sh*t, fat boy.” Honestly, I’ve lost items, which translates to lost time essentially, and I don’t feel like Tiny Co gives a rats hind quarters about it. Aside from time, i have put real money into this game and I probably would put more in if I felt like tiny co actually proved they are as interested in us enjoying the game as they are in taking every last cent they can off us.
LikeLike
Never mind. The old “take the battery out of the phone while it’s on The Quest For Stuff (Google Play page this time)” trick worked and I got the game back. 🙂
LikeLike
So, I just went into the game and a screen came up saying “new update want to do it now or later”
Foolishly I clicked now.
Go to Google Play, install update, click on open, nothing happens.
I can no longer access the game. Talk about a crash 😦
LikeLike
Nothing to do with a bug, but I noticed that with today’s Android update you can now buy Brian and Stewie sarcophagi with clams for a chance of different prizes.
LikeLike
Uh huh…we got it 😉
Thanks. Post will be up soon…just testing some info on it
LikeLike
I figured as much, you guys always seem to be on top of things! I do wish they’d add a confirm clam menu on them though, as I accidentally bought a Stewie sarcophagus. I ended up getting lucky and won 250 clams.
LikeLike
I haven’t been able to visit Ollie land for almost a month. Every time I try the game crashes. I’ve emailed tiny co several times and they’ve only replied once. When they replied, they asked me to tell them easy exactly what happened even though I just sent them an email three times telling them in great detail what happened. Very frustrating!
LikeLike
Grunching the post but “This is why you may lose out on your STUFF that just dropped.” A simple solution for the peeps at TinyCo: run the RNG (random number generator) for the drop when the action is begun (alea iacta est!) not when it completes. 🙂
P.S. I accept free clams in return for sage advice!
LikeLike
lol
LikeLike
Whelp, it’s an old joke… http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1989-12-05/ 🙂
LikeLike
hahaha that’s great!
LikeLike
Alissa or Bunny, have either of you noticed the change in the mummy spawn rate? For me, they have spawned about 2 or 3 each minute for the past 2 hours straight! I’ve also noticed the female mummies are showing up much more frequently. About 2 or 3 of those female mummies dropped 40 butts each! Just from mummies alone, in that 2 hours I got about 1000 butts! Have you heard anyone else getting this crazy spawning rate, or if this rate is staying this way until the end of the event? Do you know if TinyCo has something up their sleeves in relation to this? It would be so nice if it did stay like this!
LikeLike
Pretty sure something will hit tonight…which is why i’m holding off on posting just yet. Waiting to see if anything finally hits.
LikeLike
Just downloaded a new update from the android store and it has wiped all of my clams away, then it forced closed my entire phone and now won’t let me into the game at all. This update came out today.
LikeLike
Best bet is to make sure you contact TinyCo and let them know. They should be able to help restore it for you.
LikeLike
Alissa, how would we contact them if we can’t get in the game and have no idea what our game ID is (seeing as I always contact in game there was no need to find out)?
TIA 🙂
LikeLike
We placed their email on our contact TinyCo page for those that can’t 😉
LikeLike
I just recieved the party camel and it has a glitch that makes it 4x the normal size after it is placed. It’s twice the size of the houses. Also the open flame garden does not face right without glitching out and reversing it’s image. It should be listed as a leftward facing object only…… Anyone else noticing these glitches?
LikeLike
That is the size they intended the Camel. Crazy, huh? No glitch.
As far as the gardens. You need to make TinyCo aware of that via you in game menu, help & Settings.
LikeLike