Hi guys!
So I tried searching for this issue but haven't found anything here or on Google. I have a very specific crash that occurs every time I complete the Advanced Space Scanner research. As soon as the new discovery screen exits, the game crashes. With no exceptions. I replayed a few times and eventually as luck had it I did not get the scanner completion and game continued until the next time the scanner completed, it crashed again. Not sure what to do at this point, it's very frustrating as that particular session was getting to a very interesting point and now I can't go further.
Hope someone out there can help. I've tried reinstalling (kept my saves), adjusting dosbox cycles, copying original CD over the GOG files, nadda.

Thanks for the assist! To answer your questions, I have not made any modifications to the game or races.
I changed a save file extension to jpg, this one consistently crashes and Adv Scanner is pretty much guaranteed on the turn.

Your save crashed for me too, got following line:
"Colonies.lbx [entry 1001] exceeds number of LBX entries"

edit: Played it on the 1.40m fan patch.

Mine didn't display that. At least now there's a reason!
Now to figure out what to do about it...

Same for me.. You have to keep the dosc-console window open to see it.

And that is NOT specific for the GOG version. I tried with my original version and the same.

I had a look prior over the colonies, nothing really strange, except one colony had waste, but not a lot or negative.
Spending was also not over any funny number......
AND

as I said, never seen this one before.

And it is really on EVERY game you play with advanced space scanner?

LOL, I was thinking of giving you the original colonies.lbx file, but as it happens on my system as well :D

While it doesn't make much sense, I'm thinking just maybe somehow the Colonies LBX has a limitation to names and ran out so if it scans all planets it throws an error? But like I said doesn't make much sense because I mean I used to play it on DOS and never run into that problem. I'll try another run through later using a smaller size galaxy and see if it comes up.

I must admit I didn't look at the specific names.....Used to rename each planet as well....never did run into a problem.

I always used to play on huuuge maps. So Size shall not matter (ok in this case ;) )

I must admit I didn't check for anything special names with special characters....(like Å Ö or similar=...but didn't remember to have seen those)

Also no exceed in 8 characters as well (IIRC)

So really no idea

I used (and still use) to play this kind of maps as well.
Aaaaand your save DOES cause the problem on 3 computers......

BUT you never answered:

"And it is really on EVERY game you play with advanced space scanner?"

To the last question, this is actually my first time picking back up the game in awhile. I tried to play 3 other quickie games with a small galaxy but both didn't give my Adv. Scanner on my tech tree. Unlucky. This weekend I'll be out of town so it won't be til Monday that I figure out if it happens on every game.

One thing you might want to check: Were did you installed it too?
Maybe, really maybe your installation did corrupt something. Do not install in program (86) whatever.
Try not to use non-latin characters. Spaces in the installation path shall not matter, I am using spaces as well.

Like in my case: D:\Program Files\Master of Orion 1 and 2\Master of Orion

Let us know if this was just bad luck or not (I hope for the first! ;) )

It's installed in C:\GOG Games so I don't think that's an issue.

Anyways I ran another few playthroughs using a medium size galaxy and it didn't have any issues with the scanner.

I'd really like to know how just this game ended up dying like that. Oh well.

Thanks for all the help guys!

Faulty memory or bad sectors on a hard disk might have caused it.

^^ this
or pagefaults, even radioactivity cellphone next to the computer.....the possibilities are endless. Just some form of corruption which just like flipped ONE bit, that could be all ;)

Yep, not to worry too much.

I have never encountered that adv scanner problem myself even I have played the game quite a lot.

I do remember that in the old days with DOS ......ok let's start different.....

Once upon a time in DOS-land there was MoO ......:D

I did have some unexpected reboots when I originally bought this game, hence I always did save every single turn and I always kept this practice till nowadays. The GOG version does not have any crashes (knocks on wood).