Emulator

I tried skipping the area to the boss in the next room - same problem leaving the game at a stopping point until resolved.

I can confirm that this issue does not occur on 3.0 (x64)

Kara did you have the same problem on 3.5 though?

I had progressed to this part of the story before 3.5 was released, on 3.0 thus I can't observe the behaviour of that exact same part of the story, however I have backtracked to this dungeon (to form a pact with Sylph) on 3.5 (x64) and couldn't recreate your problem.

This problem might have something to do with a specific trigger at that point of the game, such as the fan puzzle (which can't be operated anymore on my savefile) or the skull enemy (which is absent at my point of the game). It might also have something to do with your settings (all this is merely baseless conjecture).

You mentioned that you tried 'EFB access (from the CPU)' but this option should have been active by default. Have you tried using default settings?

Tested on:

3.5 (x64) : Couldn't recreate the issue
3.5-108 (x64): Couldn't recreate the issue

I don't understand how 'issue' turned into a link, please ignore.

I'm using default settings, I made a new game and got to that point today - now it crashes after beating the boss of the area, just after the seal is starting to break.. I'm going to try to continue the save again and see if it occurs again. I'm not using save states this go around as last time I was.

So either the crash is random depending on certain unknown elements - this go around was successful - no crash. The only thing I did not do was use TAB to "fast forward" through the Cutscene. That would be only a guess. I'm attaching a save for anyone who wants to fiddle with this part of the game to discover what elements are involved in the crashing.

Using savestates seems to cause serious problems in that area along with TAB fast forwarding the game - which recreates the problem for me each time now. No more of that for me - hopefully I can play through however without the luxury of speeding through the game. :D

I would put the blame on savestates. Games like Skyward Sword also have issues when using savestates such as not being able to load a new area.

Actually, I played Skyward Sword using only savestates - I had not encountered a single issue with them. I use Dolphin 3.0-261-dirty for that game.

Getting back on topic with the issue, I encountered another crash with ToS after the battle that starts after you move and enter the boulder to enter the Desian Human Ranch near Balacruf - No savestates saved or loaded - Just TAB fast forwarding...I'm starting to believe fast forwarding is causing the problem as well, like it's skipping over important bits of information that keeps the game running as it should, again just another theory.

Could you try with the latest Dolphin master revision? (3.5-138 or newer)

It fixes some random crashes that can happen when GPU runs behind the CPU.

I'll give that a try now! I've been so caught up with experiencing the new stable release I forgot to keep track up the latest SVNs.

Using 3.5 - 141 the game's behavior while fast forwarding is completely different. Where before the side conversations activated by pressing Z before this version would progress in real-time rather than the speed of the emulation move through as fast as time is being forwarded in emulation, sound I noticed right off based on the "static" kind of sound mixed in with it, voices as well are now being forwarded with the dialog as one should expect it to while fast forwarding. To clear up the crash problem in that area, none at all and I'll finish the area fast forwarding and post my results. (btw, just noticed my typo on the game title, "Tales of Symphonia..not Symponia -_- Too late to fix that now though.)

Seems this resolved my issue, I've started using savestates out of curiosity and no problems from them either. Thanks for the suggestion delroth!