Why are the “USERS”/“PLAYERS”, ALWAYS WRONG?

JimFord047

So 29th September 2024I am doing a west weald quest, I get to the end and I am Kicked from the server as I complete the quest, (Kicked again I may Add), But the quest is now not complete, though the Quest is not showing as complete.
I went back to try and refinish the quest, but I cannot get to the End as I have “completed it” . OK Put in a Support ticket.
1. I am Told to wait, and then go back in and try it again. This is a DAY LATER, I have finished the gaming for the night, went to bed, done a whole load of things on the computer, therefore going on and trying more than a few Hours later is to me the same as a wait a few minutes. No Still the same Situation, cannot completed the Quest.
2. I am Sent Written instructions, that I cannot see, so I get another person to follow them for me, the instructions DELETE THE ADDON FOLDER, this folder contained items other than the Add-On’s , and now they are gone. Not moved to the recycle bin as the folder was too large, Just Deleted. To get the Items back I am now going to have the drive Recovered, I now have to install a new Drive £227
3. The quest is tried once more, and once more there is no difference, I cannot progress or do anything as I have completed the quest.
4. The next thing I am told to do is REINSTALL THE GAME, ok, done, once more No Difference, I cannot complete the Quest as I have already completed it, it’s just not showing as completed
5. As to the Files Deleted Following Zenimax instructions, This is Now A ME Problem, As Zenimax takes nothing to do with anything on the local machine!!!!! THEN WHY DID YOU SAY TO DELETE FILES YOU KNEW NOTHING ABOUT?????????
6. So OK from the back and forth, IT IS NOT ZENIMAX, it is MY COMPUTER!! That can be sorted, New MSI X670E Carbon Wi-Fi motherboard, 3 New 2TB MSI NVME Drives, 1 New Crucial T705 2TB NVME Drive, 64GB Corsair 6400 CL30 DDR5 Memory, New Open Loop Liquid Cooling System, Clean Install of Windows 11 24H2, Reinstall All software, Try to once more finish the Quest, Once more it’s the exact same result. Support is informed of all of the Changes, and once more that fact that this is a ZENIMAX PROBLEM, NOT A ME PROBLEM. And once more on a completely different computer it is again back to being a ME PROBLEM, according to support.
7. I informed support that this has now cost me a lot of money, and that I expect ZENIMAX to pay for the recovery of the drive that they instructed folder to be deleted on, as well as some compensation for my Time Effort and expense to date!
8. All of this time I am updating the ticket with time I am updating the ticket with Error 103’s Error 201’s and constant kicks from the server . Which I am then informed by support that the more I update the ticket the further down the line it goes, and the more time it takes to respond to the ticket. And that I am advised NOT TO UPDATE THE TICKET WITH PROBLEMS!
9. I am Then instructed by Support to CHANGE MY ISP / INTERNET CONNECTION. This I cannot do, as I am under contract with them for the next 14 months and if I want to change, then I wilol have to pay the contract in any case! But I did request a new Router and an Engineer. The response from Support was to set up my Mobile Phone as a Hotspot and connect to the game that way. Again, not an option for me, as I do not have a Large Data allowance, being 80% blind, I cannot see the phone and have no use for using Data on it!
10. Then Low and Behold, on the 22nd of October, Support informs me that there is a Problem with the quest “Path to Chaos”, and it will be fixed in a later update, and that I have to “keep an eye on the website for any News or Updates”,
11. I lost my [snip] A nearly 2 weeks to admit that I was Correct, and it was not my computer, nor my internet, but a Zenimax fault… And Telling a Blind Guy to keep an eye on the webservers was just insult to injury.

No Offer of Gold or Crowns as a Compensation, ignoring the fact that SUPPORT instructed for files to be DELETED from a system that they were unaware of the setup / configuration / content. And the Ticket closed as answered!

The time that it has taken, and the problem is there for an indefinite time, its not closed, its still and active problem for me, and should be an active problem that the developers are fixing at some point. I am still out of pocket, and have had my time wasted.

If the computer was able to play RED DEAD REDEMPTION ONLINE - FALLOUT 76 – THE WITCHER – BAULDERS GATE – CYBERPUNK – DEATH STRANDING – LOST ARK – METRO EXODUS, do everything for work online, develop an azure network all with no problems, yet ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE, is crashing left right and centre , then the problem may be localised to ESO.

Having spent DECADES working support, I am well aware of the get outs. Do this (its wrong, but buys time), Do that (also Wrong but Buys More time), if you do not follow the instructions then we cannot help you, ticket closed, if you follow the instructions (buying more time) and it’s a fix, then problem over. If you follow instructions and the time is long enough then you might forget to come back, and the ticket will close due to time in any case !

The preferred fix, that would not have caused any problems… Mark the Quest as Completed
Alternative “Fix”, Own up to the problem, and get straight to the last bit, “you will have to wait until we fix it!”

Not acceptable has been the time, cost, and “It’s all my fault approach”.

I think that I deserve to be compensated in some way, and not just treated like a fool !!

[snip]

PS YES I AM ANGRY

[edited for demand/threat & profanity bypass]

Roztlin45

"Let them Eat Cake" attitude never ends well. What the game needs is for the people making these decisions to actually activily play the game! Spend a Min of 50 hours per week inside the live server. You would know the customers wants, needs and struggles. Looking down from an ivery tower makes the little peons seem very small indeed!

OccultNerd

ignore me I Missed the part about the quest actually being bugged.

johnjetau

What other files did you have in your addons folder not related to the game that totally crippled your computer?

To be honest it does sound like a you issue. Cause if you only had ESO addons in your Addon folder then you wouldn't have to buy a whole new setup, changes ISP etc's.

ghost_bg_ESO

next time run ESO through GeForceNow to exclude "me problem" ; google "quest problem + reddit", even include links to found reports - saves a lot of time.

Shara_Wynn

JimFord047 wrote: »

I am Sent Written instructions, that I cannot see, so I get another person to follow them for me, the instructions DELETE THE ADDON FOLDER, this folder contained items other than the Add-On’s , and now they are gone. Not moved to the recycle bin as the folder was too large, Just Deleted. To get the Items back I am now going to have the drive Recovered, I now have to install a new Drive £227

Why did you have other stuff (unrelated to ESO) in the Addons folder? And if you did have other stuff (unrelated to ESO) in the Addons folder, and you knew you had this other stuff in your Addons folder, why didn't you move that other stuff out and into another folder before deleting it?

JimFord047 wrote: »

As to the Files Deleted Following Zenimax instructions, This is Now A ME Problem, As Zenimax takes nothing to do with anything on the local machine!!!!! THEN WHY DID YOU SAY TO DELETE FILES YOU KNEW NOTHING ABOUT?????????

Well I kinda have to agree with them there, it's your computer, so you should be aware of what is on it and where. Zenimax couldn't possibly have known you had other files in the ESO Addons folder that had nothing to do with ESO.

JimFord047 wrote: »

So OK from the back and forth, IT IS NOT ZENIMAX, it is MY COMPUTER!! That can be sorted, New MSI X670E Carbon Wi-Fi motherboard, 3 New 2TB MSI NVME Drives, 1 New Crucial T705 2TB NVME Drive, 64GB Corsair 6400 CL30 DDR5 Memory, New Open Loop Liquid Cooling System, Clean Install of Windows 11 24H2, Reinstall All software, Try to once more finish the Quest, Once more it’s the exact same result. Support is informed of all of the Changes, and once more that fact that this is a ZENIMAX PROBLEM, NOT A ME PROBLEM. And once more on a completely different computer it is again back to being a ME PROBLEM, according to support.

So you went and bought pretty much an entire new set up just to complete a single quest in a computer game? That's dedication for you I guess

JimFord047 wrote: »

I informed support that this has now cost me a lot of money, and that I expect ZENIMAX to pay for the recovery of the drive that they instructed folder to be deleted on, as well as some compensation for my Time Effort and expense to date!

That's never going to happen.

JimFord047 wrote: »

All of this time I am updating the ticket with time I am updating the ticket with Error 103’s Error 201’s and constant kicks from the server . Which I am then informed by support that the more I update the ticket the further down the line it goes, and the more time it takes to respond to the ticket. And that I am advised NOT TO UPDATE THE TICKET WITH PROBLEMS!

I am Then instructed by Support to CHANGE MY ISP / INTERNET CONNECTION. This I cannot do, as I am under contract with them for the next 14 months and if I want to change, then I wilol have to pay the contract in any case! But I did request a new Router and an Engineer. The response from Support was to set up my Mobile Phone as a Hotspot and connect to the game that way. Again, not an option for me, as I do not have a Large Data allowance, being 80% blind, I cannot see the phone and have no use for using Data on it!

So at what point did your reasoning not tell you that if you can connect and play/watch everything else then why would it be an ISP/Internet connection issue that was stopping you from playing one single computer game? I assume you were able to browse the internet, play other online games, stream other online content during this time?

JimFord047 wrote: »

Then Low and Behold, on the 22nd of October, Support informs me that there is a Problem with the quest “Path to Chaos”, and it will be fixed in a later update, and that I have to “keep an eye on the website for any News or Updates”,

I lost my [snip] A nearly 2 weeks to admit that I was Correct, and it was not my computer, nor my internet, but a Zenimax fault… And Telling a Blind Guy to keep an eye on the webservers was just insult to injury.

Don't you just hate when that happens?

JimFord047 wrote: »

No Offer of Gold or Crowns as a Compensation, ignoring the fact that SUPPORT instructed for files to be DELETED from a system that they were unaware of the setup / configuration / content. And the Ticket closed as answered!

The time that it has taken, and the problem is there for an indefinite time, its not closed, its still and active problem for me, and should be an active problem that the developers are fixing at some point. I am still out of pocket, and have had my time wasted.

If the computer was able to play RED DEAD REDEMPTION ONLINE - FALLOUT 76 – THE WITCHER – BAULDERS GATE – CYBERPUNK – DEATH STRANDING – LOST ARK – METRO EXODUS, do everything for work online, develop an azure network all with no problems, yet ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE, is crashing left right and centre , then the problem may be localised to ESO.

You've just said it yourself, so I'm not sure why it was that you then believed all that stuff they were trying fob you off with? If you KNEW nothing changed your end and that you were able to carry on playing, streaming, watching, doing everything else online with your computer that you were before, then why would you think it was a "you" problem and not an "ESO" problem?

If only the "present you" could have travelled back in time and talked to the "past you" when the "present you" was the "future you" and the "past you" was the "present you", then all this heartache that could have been avoided!

Alas!

Also there is a mahoosive thread on the topic of connectivity issues that was a huge giveaway to it very much being an ESO problem.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/658253/zos-massive-spike-in-ping-lag-in-recent-days-what-gives/p1

JimFord047 wrote: »

Having spent DECADES working support, I am well aware of the get outs. Do this (its wrong, but buys time), Do that (also Wrong but Buys More time), if you do not follow the instructions then we cannot help you, ticket closed, if you follow the instructions (buying more time) and it’s a fix, then problem over. If you follow instructions and the time is long enough then you might forget to come back, and the ticket will close due to time in any case !

The preferred fix, that would not have caused any problems… Mark the Quest as Completed
Alternative “Fix”, Own up to the problem, and get straight to the last bit, “you will have to wait until we fix it!”

Not acceptable has been the time, cost, and “It’s all my fault approach”.

I think that I deserve to be compensated in some way, and not just treated like a fool !!

[snip]

PS YES I AM ANGRY

Ack don't be angry. It's not worth it. It was a lesson in critical thinking at least and at best you got to upgrade your computer! I don't think it was done on purpose, they (ZOS CS) just genuinely run through the check lists they are given in order to try to resolve problems. CS obviously had no idea the bug existed and sometimes Addons do cause issues (because they are peripheral to the game and ZOS doesn't always know how they will react to the changes they make).

[edited to remove quote]

JimFord047

Other stuff in the folder was DEV stuff, for Me as well as save data and a few other things related to the game

I am aware where everything is, but the person following the instructions was not! and as a PS, Zenimax is NOT RESPONSIBLE for the contents , as its YOUR computer, point being, if that's their attitude, they should NOT BE TELLING PEOPLE TO DELET ANYTHING, without making backup instructions clear!

The New Computer was a Coincidence, being built for another person, but a happy one, as it proved beyond ANY DOUBT, it was not the computer ( as 4 other computers were also being ignored Windows and Mac)

Present and Past me, same problem, You are WRONG until you are proved correct, Zenimax is NEVER WRONG, even when Proved, your on a NO WIN, but do not do as they say, ticket closed, no fix.

Given All of the problems World Wide with connection and crashing, Publicly verifiable, This is a mute argument , but your not allowed to say its the Supplier / zenimax, It has to be something else. OK Lets make it something else,, the actual servers ae on Microsoft Azure on the Akam network, Zenimaxx Support level 1 has to hand off the Network Stuff to them, therefor they are as hand tied as US. But for the end User, the person paying for the game, = I pay to play, You Sell to play the primary is on the seller not the purchaser!

LMAO....

Prior to the Closing, My response was " .... worked support, and i can tell from a distance when waffle is being spouted, Yours have cream and chocolate Sauce on" after that ticket closed as answered, correct answer ,theirs or mines,. not too sure

Vulkunne

I've experienced similar, so can understand your frustration. Getting mad about it in this instance won't do any good.

What's maddening to me is they keep making the same mistakes. Like I don't fault someone for being wrong or for learning from something, that's life. But when you're completely oblivious to the fact you are so willingly given to error and not compensating, not listening, never acknowledging the very people who support you and you continue to error or favor a very small minority when forcing these draconian changes on everyone something's undeniably wrong.

And that's what gets me, it's not that they made a mistake it's the fact they continue to do these things so freely which brings misery to so many who play their game, and I can't understand why any for-profit entity would not want to give its subscribers/gamers what they want out of their game. It's pure delicious crazy how some companies treat their fan-base these days, especially when even little features, like making minor character adjustments, cost so much from the Crown store.

katanagirl1

I am guessing you went through all those steps just to prove that they would not help. Personally I never delete even the save file, I mean how could that possibly cause the game to bug out? It’s just user settings. Also, deleting and reinstalling the whole game is uncalled for if there was no indication of a problem with the hardware, like it got physically damaged or something. I’ve never actually done those things, and my game is as good as anyone else’s.

kargen27

This doesn't help you in this situation but maybe going forward. I never delete a folder when troubleshooting. I instead cut it and paste to an external hard drive. That way I have the option to put it back if it turns out the folder wasn't the problem. Even if just deleting certain files in the folder I copy the entire folder to another location just in case.

Tandor

kargen27 wrote: »

This doesn't help you in this situation but maybe going forward. I never delete a folder when troubleshooting. I instead cut it and paste to an external hard drive. That way I have the option to put it back if it turns out the folder wasn't the problem. Even if just deleting certain files in the folder I copy the entire folder to another location just in case.

If you're confident it's not your drive at fault, then it's a lot quicker and easier just to rename the original file/folder and leave it where it is . That way if you want to reinstate it you just rename it back to the original name (as well as deleting any replacement file/folder the game has created).

Other than with the final stage of a long quest it's also often quicker and more effective just to abandon a bugged quest and restart it - although I've been lucky and only had to do that once in 10 years with ESO, and then my character was only a few paces from the quest giver so it took no time at all. Even before that, of course, it's worth logging out and back in again as that can fix things too.

As for the OP, I remain sympathetic to frustration in these circumstances, but only up to the point where anger and lawyers come into the discussion then it's time to move on.

old_scopie1945

To be honest, I never take a blind bit of notice in what ZOS says. It almost always ends up in heart ache.

loaganb16_ESO

JimFord047 wrote: »

8. All of this time I am updating the ticket with time I am updating the ticket with Error 103’s Error 201’s and constant kicks from the server .

A buddy of mine had similar problems with the server. He had to use a third party software like [snip] to route through a different server than his ISP would route him. Fixed all of the issues, but cost another couple € per month.

[edited for profanity bypass]

SkaraMinoc

There are many things that players are right about.

twev

Shara_Wynn wrote: »

If only the "present you" could have travelled back in time and talked to the "past you" when the "present you" was the "future you" and the "past you" was the "present you", then all this heartache that could have been avoided!

Alas!

You know, you could have saved me a lot of trouble if you had posted something like this before I got married....

JimFord047

So the system built for a friend, that i used to Prove it was not the system, has been having the [snip] knocked out of it since they got it. Guess What, they have had ZERO Problems with it. IN fact they have shown the thing to several other people and they ALL have asked me to built one the same for them,,,, I will accept the accolades, But it's Not going to happen. For a Blind guy to build a computer its a long and hard job. But the point here is that the system was GOOD / IS GOOD, There isn't no user problem here!

I can accept SOME of the Theoretical blame for the stuff in the folder going Bye Bye, It was a Drive upgrade, and I had (wrongly on my part) decided that to save time copying the files over that I would delete the backup, and recreate it later, I should have just wasted the time and done it.

The live apps, were easy enough to restore, as they are all in a 7zip file that can just be dumped back, and they were, the Point here though still does not go away!

Having Worked Support for Decade lvl's 3, 2, 1. I do know what they are dealing with ,, [snip]

I KNOW THAT THE FAULT IS NOT ON MY COMPUTER, But I also know that NO COMPUTER is 100%. From a Support / DEV point of view.

I write an application, that application in my arrogant misguided mind is why you spend between £$€500 - 20,000 on the computer. it should ONLY have my application on it, yes I am that important in my own mind! But they are still wrong!

the operating system is so full of Bugs and mistakes (unless your Microsoft, then they are Features), as they fix one fault they cascade others, then after a couple of decades they get around to fixing the fault, Now its not their fault, its the Application using the wrong memory locations, dll calls, and is generally outdated.

So the DEV rewrites their application, and its no longer their fault, and the cycle continues forever.

Also add in the Hardware, and the cycle grows arms and legs and your never going to find the fault. The best you can do is to lock it all down to a couple of point of failure and then produce a workaround. Not perfect nor correct, but it WORKS!!

With all of the above in mind, you can then work out a Timeline, and the workaround.

1. a few things going wrong, then the support teams can from a pile of solutions, get it all running again, easy
2. the application grows, sloppy programming, and deadlines cause inbuilt faults, solution waffle until they correct their faults, run out a patch, your back to 1
[snip]
4. Parent Company wants MORE PROFIT , they cannot cut any more Company Costs, the NEW STUFF is getting rolled out as fast as it can, they have opened up to other market areas, but still Not enough Profit. So now its the Hardware infrastructure that has to change!
5. The cost of your own servers is Very High, you have to have them all running all the time, even whilst not in use, you can optimise the racks for load balancing, but your still paying for power to have them in standby , so you now go to an outside data farm, they in turn run all of your applications on their servers , the downtime on the off applications give more space and bandwidth on the on uptime applications, [snip]
6. Server Latencies, a server of 20 CPU's might be running 80 applications, and there are 5 servers in the rack (6 including the failover), those servers have to talk to each other , that's done in the down cycles, which from 8am -6pm there are very few for the business high availability servers , so they use the "game Servers" to augment the processing, this causes Latency in the game servers , but in the financial way of looking at it, they are small potatoes.
7. now the Bigger problem, you have to get that data out onto the backplane with minimal error correction, as that's going to cause even more latency, from there its out onto the Switching racks, which have a QOS and the games are not that high up on this list, but static websites and high demand ones are below the games services, so the latency might get better , but never worse (lmao, that's the theory)
8. out onto the Branch propagation, the servers are replicated regionally, the highest demand ones get the higher QOS, so For example the NA ESO servers will more than likely be a lower QOS than the replicated China Servers as the demand for usage is Higher as there are more Chinese playing than Americans with Europe then the South seas Australian ones
9. Simply put the QOS will determine the routing of the data, so for an American attached to the server in say Houston, from their Dallas Location, may be routed from Houston to new york to London to joberg to Miami to Atlanta to Dallas. Where as a Chinese Player on the NA Server may route China to India to Africa to Dallas. the Number of Hops on the route will determine the Network Latency, for Load balancing, a person in California may find themselves playing on the Beijing server simply because its the emptiest.
10. Data Scavenging, All of the items on the servers these days are pretty much database orientated , now depending on the database setup, it may require Lots of RAM more than Disc Space , but either way it has to create temp files to sync around the servers, once more latency, but due to error correction, lots of lost allocation units where the server cannot just delete them as they have started and not finished, so are still in effect live units. this can overwhelm the server, so to get around that you have to take the servers offline to do a scavenging and compaction (space also costs company money and dips into the profits) 2 options here a mirrored set of servers that cut in when this happens, or scheduled maintenance downtime, the later being the cheaper
11. then its back to the local computer.... How many locations can cause faults or latency all based upon the time of day and the overall requirements of the server demands , not to mention the actual data errors and faults that are there and being created,

All of the server bits are known about by the network guys, and jigged as best as they can, but kat the end of the day, faults noted and diagnosed by them, are in fact actioned by the FARM Providers. So they get the same "Support Experience" that they are giving out.

And this is a bare minimum explanation!!

So having Designed / Maintained / Worked on these international systems, I am well aware of the pitfalls, and well aware of the pecking order, [snip]

My preference therefor is simple, a local single install single player game, cut out that massive big middle ground, but for the companies there is a lot less profit, and they are becoming a thing of the past... ie design a house, with the wages of the artists etc its going to cost you say $100,000. you need to sell 1400 of them to break even, after that it's all PROFIT, a profit that does not exist on a single player game!

But now at this point in time, I still want to get to the bottom of this, So aside from Microsoft Office, and a lot of Network monitoring & Diagnostic software the only thing on my £3500 Gaming PC is ESO.

And I am going to Keep putting in Support tickets, Every time it messes up, and posting on here, all with Data backing up the fact where it is failing.
possibly then, it will be fixed(ish), and i have a bill for the overall cost of trying to play a game

[edited for bashing & profanity bypass]

JimFord047

So as I was saying above..... 999+ latency, does not matter how good your computer is, this makes anything unuseable. Still not my computer

TaSheen

Mine's that high a lot, always has been, since my only available "broadband" is satellite. I have no problem doing the normal stuff I do in game (which does NOT include endgame or pvp, which is not my sort of content in the first place, and which it would NEVER occur to me to try even if I wanted to do it, because - yeah - satellite ping....) On a good day, ping for me is around 650 ms.

The one thing that's never a problem for me on satellite is FPS - unless it's the mess of players in Olyve's Brewery on opening day.... Don't have to be there long fortunately.

AngryPenguin

TaSheen wrote: »

Mine's that high a lot, always has been, since my only available "broadband" is satellite. I have no problem doing the normal stuff I do in game (which does NOT include endgame or pvp, which is not my sort of content in the first place, and which it would NEVER occur to me to try even if I wanted to do it, because - yeah - satellite ping....) On a good day, ping for me is around 650 ms.

The one thing that's never a problem for me on satellite is FPS - unless it's the mess of players in Olyve's Brewery on opening day.... Don't have to be there long fortunately.

FPS is determined by your video card and your system. Lag/ping is caused by the network in between you and ZOS and ZOS network.

If a person does not engage in any of the challenging content in game then they are not qualified to discuss performance.

pklemming

This is standard T1 support. They are given a checklist of things to tell customers to fix an issue. If you are certain it is not you, then get them to escalate the problem to someone who can work outside the provided list.

This is not a ZoS issue, it is a T1 support issue in most industries that need to deal with an end user. It is frustrating, and I have heard the story hundreds of time.

I have been T2/T3 in ISP and IT support. Unfortunately, one of the group of ISPs I 'supported' was Talk Talk. You would not believe the stupid things that customers have been told.

As an example, I went to a customer's house as an urgent escalation, no notes provided. As it turned out, the customer had no internet connection(a tree had taken the line down). The customer had been sent a replacement router to 'fix' the problem, despite the customer telling support that a tree had taken their line down. Yes, they had them turn their old router on and off several times, including getting them to test it on multiple machines, before sending them the router.....

Eventually, and after the customer shouting, they sent me out.

JimFord047

So in the spirit of the ongoing journey, I am going to keep this updated.

Sunday , I crashed out 10 Times, Several actually gave me fault sheets / crash reports to send in… most were just to desktop, and 2 were complete system lockups.

The Lockups were the “disturbing ones”, is my system to blame? Is there something going on on my end? Am I doing something wrong?
On Sunday night, I started moving everything that I wanted off onto the RAID, nice and safe.
So Monday at 04:30 I started wiping the system down, Ali the drives!

I downloaded the latest BIOS, installed it, then made sure everything was default on the physical setup.

Installed Windows 11 24H2, then installed All of the latest Up to Date Drivers, configured the system temps etc, then Tested ALL of the Memory, the Drives and stress tested the CPU and the system. No Problems.

Cleaned it all off again and reinstalled it all again, Downloaded ESO and got my snacks set up to play until it crashed, after all I was Confident it would.

Went through all of the accounts logging in, getting the mail and entering the codes, one after the other , in and out.
Everything BASIC, friends are talking with the wife on discord wondering where I am? So she explained what was going on, and told them as soon as it crashed , I would pout on discord and join in.

Well it did not take long!!!

How Long??

Well I logged into my main account, selected the FIRST little Toon, it went into the Loading of the Psyjic Manor, and CRASH!!!!!!!

Loaded in Discord, though it was not needed, they all heard the Abuse and cursing over the wives connection!
Within another 5 minutes…. BANG off again.

Got back in and everyone is now doing the Diagnosis By Committee… how is the RAM (Fine , Corsair DDR5 6400 CL30), How is the Storage, are you on an SSD or Hard Drive (Gen 5 Crucial T705 NVME), is it overclocked (nope Standard)…..

Just at that, My Latvian Friend screamed, He had Just Crashed. Wife had a Brain wave…. “Wait, You 2 Are using AMD Graphics Cards, He’s on a 6800 XT, you’re on an AMD 7900XTX, we are all on Nvidia Graphics and only crash every now and again!”

So Not as silly as it sounded, I went back into the dungeon I had just been kicked out of, apologised and explained the Crash Problem…. Guy in there said “thank god I am not the only one, 5 times for me!!”, I asked if he was on an AMD Graphics… “NO NVIDIA”, good theory whilst it lasted. But NO further forward


But we are Back with an annoying system that has nothing that I need when I want to do something , and the Game is Still Crashing, Randomly, and I get top pay for the privilege with ESO+ (for now!)

Since I have loaded a whole pile of stuff, and NOTHING HAS CRASHED or hiccupped or generally misbehaved. The logs are clean except for the reboots after the lockups (power off the only way to get out, but still logged)
I really want to know what’s happening, so Next couple of days, take all of the wives stuff off of her computer and onto this one, and see if she crashes here, rebuild her computer and see if I crash on there. Funny though, the old Apple MACBOOK PRO, Never crashes!!! But that confirms its not the internet / network, its for here a windows problem….

Might be a go back to Windows 8, then 10, then 11 and work until its either stable OR CRASHES, then go back to the one that does not.

Thank the wee man I have time to do this, I would hate to be some poor person, coming in from work, sorting out the family, to get nothing done, and feeling like they need a new computer (or game)

KV_Tootn

I only crash on ESO... there is no game on my playlist that crashes .. You start at the day. Watch some movies go on your social and then want to game .. First game on.. ESO.. Intro all cool. The login. BOOOOM ESO crashed.....
Restarting eso.... Playing 15 minutes Crash again.... In 3 hours gametime 12 crashes. IM done with ESO for the day , time to play RDRO for 2 hour online staright on ultra setings.. No crashes . Lost Arc for few hours ,,,,No crashes....
remembered i forgot daily login reward from ESO . Loged in and boooom game crashed. As JImy redowloaded the game and its were all games are on same 1TB ssd..Still crashes aeach day like hell ..But YE must be my pc...... As the ticket suport said to me..

JimFord047

The Journey for stability continues....

After several minutes of logging onto the game on the 6th November and getting Nothing but 201 errors, and multiple crashes , i spent All day on the 7th checking all of the computer, Stress Testing the CPU, Memory, Drives , all came back with a clean bill of health, in fact apparently according to the test data on different sites, I have a Very Well performing SYSTEM????

But onto ESO last night, just to collect the hireling stuff and do the basic dailies, I had 6 Crashes in less than an Hour, things still not right!!

So I have started pulling the ESO files apart, and much to my surprise the compiling of the files are in the Majority are all based upon Windows Vista / Server 2008. With only a Few including the system Checker for WINDOWS 10. Nothing is set for Windows 11, let alone the Windows 11 24H2 version.

Meaning that It might be My computer after all - Not that its a wrong Setup, but its a fully updated setup, the OS / Drivers etc are in fact the point of error, I have to turn the good computer into a POS, back to unsupported end of life to actually Run ESO

So today its is going to be going through the system setting it all for ESO to run as windows Vista. My expectation is that there is going to be MORE crashes, as the things compiled AFTER Vista are going to error faster. but we will see...

so the trial,

Setup a Windows XP system and try it out, then windows xp-64 bit, then Vista, Vista 64, Windows 7 , windows 8, windows 8.1 windows 10 and then windows 11 basic up to 11 r24h2 and find out which is the most stable.

this is to be done on Different Platforms, Intel i7 based X99 , intel i7 / i9 on an x299 platform, Amd Ryzen 7 5800, Ryzen 7 5800 X3D, Ryzen 9 7900, Ryzen 9 7950

Vary the memory, 16GB / 32GB / 64GB / 128GB, using 1 / 2 / 4 sticks of DDR3 / 4 / 5

At the same Time Changing the Graphics Cards to see if that makes a difference. Nvidia GTX 980ti, RTX 2080 Super FTW3, RTX 3080 FTW3, AMD 7900XTX. Once I find the most Stable Configuration,

once i find a stable Non Crashing one, then the computer is going to stay as that, until the crashing resumes.

and leave the Current computer for Work and playing ANY game other than ESO.

I will keep you updated on the Journey of failure that appears to be only ESO, but you cannot say that until you have done all of the above.

PapaTankers

Just out of curiosity since you said your friend was Latvian. What ISP and router are you using?

JimFord047

ISP is Virgin and its their supplied router, the newest model for the high speed internet.

BUT.... Here is where we get a little bit different than support, instead of always saying its your fault, and never owning up to the actual faults, I found ONE, on MY Computer, so part of the problem IS actually my computer!!!

It has not stopped all of the crashing but it HAS reduced it down!!

After Stress Testing the Memory, the crashing actually increased, So I went back to Cyberpunk, which now also Crashed , I checked the logs and then the Microsoft Technet for the ERROR Decodes, they came up with 2 options.

Minecraft and an Anti Virus, neither of which I had , but the actual diagnosis related to a memory interleave issue. I decided to then Switch the Memory around. When I had installed the memory it came out of the packet and was installed in the same order (Bottom to top), as soon as i did this the crashing got even worse, now just about everything was having issues. This one I had come across in the past, the AMD AM5 motherboards have a lot of issues with any more than 2 sticks of memory from different sets . sometimes you have to put them AA & BB rather than A1 B1 A2 B2, but this was a pack of 4 Corsair Vengeance 6400 CL32 and should be all matched.

Into the BIOS and turn off XMP, and do a clean memory training,,, NOW I got a Very unusual issue, the speed was Still 6400, Not the 5600 that I expected , back into the BIOS and double check, yes its all off, restart , memory training, Still 6400.

So I Ran HWI800, an excellent little tool for looking at the hardware direct and i found a little surprise. I had 2 different Sets of Memory. All the correct Speed and latency , but the actual SDD manufacturer Names were different, as were the Build Weeks 2 were Week 35 2024 and 2 were week 38 2024.

one set was running at 1.4 Volts the other 1.8 Volts , So I switched them to single set only , both ran Quite happily until you started to fill the memory and use the interleave. the 1.4v set just failed, the 1.8V was ok, but still running at 6400 with XMP disabled, and HWI reported that inside windows the XMP was OFF.

I have left the 1.8 set in as it is the most stable (it actually works) ran multiple things and they all were ok, until ESO, then it Crashed. So try it again and this time it was Fine, and lasted the rest of the night without any more crashes.

Not claiming a Victory on getting to the bottom of things, but one has been cleared off of the list. New Memory Set Corsair Dominator Titanium 64GB (4 x 16GB ) 6400 cl32 will be here sometime Sunday and all of the testing can then continue.

So there you go, It looks like I BROKE the memory fully by stress testing it. But it HAD PASSED!!! So you cannot believe all results!

LOL But Support, Do not Get Smug, You were NOT CORRECT, because i had not broke it when the faults were going on, and this set of Memory is not in Every Computer world Wide having the problems.

Funnily Enough after 36 years of Fixing Computers, I hate Computers, But this part of the Diagnosis of the faults, is still the part I love doing! Man Vs Machine, Machine always looses in the End!!!

davidtk

Shara_Wynn wrote: »

So at what point did your reasoning not tell you that if you can connect and play/watch everything else then why would it be an ISP/Internet connection issue that was stopping you from playing one single computer game? I assume you were able to browse the internet, play other online games, stream other online content during this time?

What I'm about to write It's a bit off topic from what the OP is writing, but it's actually on the part where the support is instructing OP to use a different ISP / connection.

I've had the experience of having ability lags in ESO where simply the ability wouldn't fire, the lightning staff wouldn't fire either (some LA and most of HA). Everything else like other MMOs and stuff worked fine. Only ESO had a problem.
I thought it was a problem with either the game or my ISP. I had a router from Asus (when the wife made pars on dummy unplayable for both, disconnects) and from Tenda (ability lags and occasional disconnects but playable pars or trials together), so for the needs of my own big home network (little nerd home so) I was looking for a better router and went the route of an expensive Mikrotik.
All the problems with the ESO disappeared. Even loading screen are shorter. I'm not saying it's always a device issue, I'm just pointing out that I've been blaming ISP and ZOS all along and in the end the problem was on my device.

Of course I didn't buy it because of any game, but the needs of my own network. Anyway, I have personally convinced myself that some of the problems are not really ZOS as I assumed by many thread here, but there may be a problem on my side as well.

And of course, one can argue about how the game is written and how it works with the network, because the player cannot know what router and ISP to buy and use to play the game without problems, it is the developer's responsibility to program the game to work on most and not on some network devices.

I_killed_Vivec

davidtk wrote: »

And of course, one can argue about how the game is written and how it works with the network, because the player cannot know what router and ISP to buy and use to play the game without problems, it is the developer's responsibility to program the game to work on most and not on some network devices.

My bold.

I don't believe that it is. The network is nothing that ZoS can compensate for in any way. They can only build the game to run on specific operating systems with minimum hardware requirements. The way that your local system communicates with their servers is not relevant to them - how would you suggest that they compensate for incredibly slow or unreliable communications?

It has to be your responsibility to provides a system that meets the game's requirements, and that includes your connection with the server. Particularly if you are experiencing issues that other people aren't.

Clearly it is ZoS's responsibility to provide adequate bandwidth and servers that can meet the demand. But that's another story

TL:DR If you are the only one with the problem then it's probably you, not them.

DenverRalphy

davidtk wrote: »

Shara_Wynn wrote: »

So at what point did your reasoning not tell you that if you can connect and play/watch everything else then why would it be an ISP/Internet connection issue that was stopping you from playing one single computer game? I assume you were able to browse the internet, play other online games, stream other online content during this time?

And of course, one can argue about how the game is written and how it works with the network, because the player cannot know what router and ISP to buy and use to play the game without problems, it is the developer's responsibility to program the game to work on most and not on some network devices.

Incorrect. It is the developer's responsibility to ensure that the game works on the type and configuratoin of network they adverstise it will work on. It is the buyer's responsibility to purchase a game that is known to work on the network they're using. And yes, the player can and should know what limitations are imposed by the service and hardware they're using.

davidtk

DenverRalphy wrote: »

davidtk wrote: »

Shara_Wynn wrote: »

So at what point did your reasoning not tell you that if you can connect and play/watch everything else then why would it be an ISP/Internet connection issue that was stopping you from playing one single computer game? I assume you were able to browse the internet, play other online games, stream other online content during this time?

And of course, one can argue about how the game is written and how it works with the network, because the player cannot know what router and ISP to buy and use to play the game without problems, it is the developer's responsibility to program the game to work on most and not on some network devices.

Incorrect. It is the developer's responsibility to ensure that the game works on the type and configuratoin of network they adverstise it will work on. It is the buyer's responsibility to purchase a game that is known to work on the network they're using. And yes, the player can and should know what limitations are imposed by the service and hardware they're using.

There is nothing more about what connection to use. How much bandwidth should my router have how demanding ESO is on communication. Most people have an ISP router at home or have bought a "gaming" router but I would still expect, for example, in this logic (and the post above you) to work normally on my "broadband" connection (what is exactly broadband connection?). And I have a 2Gbit/1Gbit fiber optic and I've had problems with this game and this game only.

Sarannah

Nice train of thought OP. Hopefully your trial and error may help someone else figure out their problems too. And hopefully you get your issue fixed as well.

I read it all. Just a few notes:
-You keep mentioning updated all drivers, have you also installed the chipset, audio, and lan drivers for your motherboard?
-It could actually be a memory overheating error, have you tried setting the speed 200 mhzs lower than its max? (this is something I always do)
-Are you sure the memory speed you selected is supported by your motherboard?
-Have you checked your motherboard specs to see your possible maximum CPU ghz, and made sure it is below that? (When I bought my new computer, my CPU was set to run at 6.0 ghz, while my motherboard(Z790) only supported cpu's up to 5.8 ghz)
-Make sure to set your ram to run with similar voltage. (there is no reason ram should run at differing voltages)
-Turn off AA in-game, not all videocards support all AA types. You will have to check the manufacturer website to check this.
-Last possible thingy, which is unlikely to happen: Is anything in your case overheating? With watercooling, people often forget the air inside a computer gets hotter and hotter, which still needs to flow to the outside of the case. For example memory cooling most often depends on a good airflow, even if your cpu and gpu are watercooled the airflow needs to be there.

Maybe this info can help your train of thought and solutionfinding a bit. Goodluck getting it fully fixed!

peacenote

Ugh that does like a tough experience. I will say the very first thing I do if I experience an in-game issue is search to see if other people are having it. if they are, I don't write support (I think I've only written support once or twice in my whole history here)... I just watch the forums and wait and set aside the quest or whatever for later... especially if I've done the usual things (reload ui, logout, reboot, disable addons, try with a different character).

That's just me though. I find there is a very small cross section of things where it makes sense to contact support. Super tricky/niche things they won't know about. Super common things it's easier to find the answer online. I kind of feel that the best use of support is the reporting piece of support... it helps them fix the game ultimately if they see a trend of a certain issue.

Sarannah wrote: »

-Last possible thingy, which is unlikely to happen: Is anything in your case overheating? With watercooling, people often forget the air inside a computer gets hotter and hotter, which still needs to flow to the outside of the case. For example memory cooling most often depends on a good airflow, even if your cpu and gpu are watercooled the airflow needs to be there.

I second this as a version of this just happened to me recently. It turns out a fan on my computer stopped working, which then seemed to kill the pump on the cooler, probably because it was older and working overtime. I tried all kinds of stuff including a different video card before I figured this out. A replacement fan and cooling system fixed the issue. It can be an annoying problem to chase down if you forget about it, but not too bad to identify with tools to check the temperature if it occurs to you.