I've run into the same old bug and I can't figure around it

Following "The Circus of Fools", Sarah jumps into hole dug by Timber. This initiates the start of "The Cave". It loads fine, but the game freezes & the screen turns black if you press anything (although the magnifying glass is still visible). It takes a few attempts to access the task manager in order to close the program.

Anyone else having this problem. Anyone know of a fix?

Problem resolved... for now.

Changing the compatibility seemed to do the trick. Right click on sntrm.exe file. Under properties -> compatibility switch to Windows XP (service pack 2). Otherwise try another Windows version.

On opening the .exe file a warning may popup notifying that "Operations under Windows NT is not support. Continue game?" - click Yes and the game should start up fine.

Interesting that I had to change the compatibility halfway through the game.

Thanks for the info, I had to change compatibility mode several times in this game because of crashes, not just this once.

Seems weird but it works, thanks again.

I had many crashes after cutscenes, the first one at the beginning of "The cave" (after jumping into the hole).
I managed to pass through them after I changed the compatibility (to Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows XP (service pack 2 or 3), Running in 256 colours) but after a while I found out changing compatibility does nothing.

For ex: I had Windows 95 compatibility, I had a crash, I changed compatibility to Windows 98, reload the save games and have another crash. I changed it to Windows XP > crash. Back to Windows 95 and now it worked ok.

Now I'm stuck at the end of "The Hive", I restarted for 10 time already.

On the game page says: "ATI/AMD compatibility notice: Sanitarium requires graphic card drivers version 13.4 or older."

I have an AMD video card, but I don't want to downgrade my drivers, I'll try again later, maybe I'll have some luck.

EDIT: after 2 tries I got to the next chapter, which was ok, no crashes at all at think, but now I'm stuck in "The Lost Village" chapter. This time there are 2 cut-scenes with no posibility to save between them and each one has a strong chance of giving an error. Playing this game is starting to become a pain in the ass.

Changing compatibility to XP SP2 helped me with cave bug too.

I have the same problem too. After the Cave level loaded, the game got stuck and I had to force quit the program. I'll try and change the compatibility to see if it fixes the problem.

UPDATE: Yay! It works. Changing the compatibility from Windows 98 to Windows XP (SP2) did the trick. Thanks, guys!

Here is another solution, just tested by me:
Create a new shortcut for sntrm.exe or modify the existing one then add the following command line to the target: -e. (i.e. ...\Sanitarium\sntrm.exe -e) This also fixes other issues such as mouse flickering, game slowing down when mouse is moved etc.

Thanks - it helped me too.

Thank you, good sir!

I really should get into the habit of saving often while playing adventure games. I had to re-do about one hour of playing, but fortunately it only took a few minutes since I already knew what I was supposed to do.

And, as a moron, I forgot to save just before entering the hole the second time. I would have been pissed if I had yet again triggered the freeze. >_<

Oh, thanks!

P.S. Now the colors are broken... and resetting compatibility doesn't fix 'em for some reason.

P.P.S. And then it crashed.