U41: closing the game when in an endless loading screen causes Discord to hang/crash

virtus753 · March 27

Since U41, I've encountered the endless loading screen when porting out of my house quite a few times. (This is documented in Bug Reports.)

Each time, closing the game through the task manager (my only option short of restarting the computer) also causes Discord to hang completely. Restarting Discord results in the same hangup until I restart it a sufficient number of times or wait a sufficient amount of time to get it to clear up. (Right now I'm on attempt #6 of restarting Discord, and it's been over 15 minutes since ESO hung and I had to restart it.) Over time, the functionality slowly returns. First I can't see any servers, then I can see them but not individual channels, then I can see the channels but can't switch to any, then I can finally get full functionality back. Update: Discord just returned to full functionality 17 minutes after I had to shut down ESO.

This results in me being unable to speak with any group I'm in voice chat with for the duration, since PC has no built-in voice chat of its own. Until I can get the game back up and type in chat (which many players ignore, it turns out, even in core groups), I cannot hear the group or speak to them. This is frequently delaying activities like dungeons and trials, or causing me to be left behind because the rest of the group isn't aware of what's happening.

I'm not sure what's going so wrong with ESO that it causes an independent program to become nonfunctional for over 15 minutes, but Discord crashes every single time I have to close the game - and it only becomes unresponsive when ESO hangs to the point where I have to shut it down manually. This is directly tied to whatever is happening with ESO and shutting it down. Otherwise Discord behaves just fine.

This is new since U41, and I am not the only one experiencing it.

Update 2: Apparently Discord is not done crashing and reloading. I'm at 24 minutes past the ESO hang/crash. I will have to try restarting the whole computer.

Necrotech_Master · March 27

my guess is that discord is getting hung due to the force close on eso, probably not eso causing the issue but the discord overlay itself has some bug

there are times ive encountered bugs with overlays in various games (steam or discord overlays) and have to disable the overlay to make the game run right

personally i havent experienced any hung load screens myself, though im not regularly porting into and out of my houses frequently (i sometimes port a toon into a house and then log out, or i load into a toon already in a house and port out with no issue)

virtus753 · March 27

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

my guess is that discord is getting hung due to the force close on eso, probably not eso causing the issue but the discord overlay itself has some bug

there are times ive encountered bugs with overlays in various games (steam or discord overlays) and have to disable the overlay to make the game run right

personally i havent experienced any hung load screens myself, though im not regularly porting into and out of my houses frequently (i sometimes port a toon into a house and then log out, or i load into a toon already in a house and port out with no issue)

Thank you for the quick reply.

I have not changed anything about the Discord overlay on my end in years. I'm sure there have been some changes with the overlay behind the scenes that I'm not aware of. But there is also the fact that this issue only started with U41. Having to force close the game prior to U41 did not result in this issue, and I did used to have to do that sometimes, including fairly recently before U41 dropped. It was not a problem then.

If Discord overlay is only set to show who's in voice, and not to interact with ESO in any way, then I'm not sure why closing ESO should impact Discord at all. Is there some setting I need to play with?

Necrotech_Master · March 27

im not sure, its kind of hard to tell exactly whats going on as ive not had any issues myself since U41 patch (or to date since i been using discord)

i also do a different kind of setup where i primarily do my voice on discord through a separate computer, and if i want to stream, ill use a discord on my gaming computer, but its not a common occurrence

if you disabled the in game discord overlay, you could test to see if this resolves your issue at least with discord getting hung up, it would not prevent you from being in calls or anything not having the overlay running

SeaGtGruff · March 27

@virtus753, if you're on Windows, try pressing Alt-Tab to bring some other process to the fore when you get a long loading screen. For some reason, this seems to help speed up the loading screens whenever I do it.

The only time I actually have to shut down the process is if the Ouroborus in the bottom right corner stops spinning, which indicates that the graphics have gotten frozen for some reason (I've actually had the sounds of whatever location I've ported to-- merchants hawking their wares, players' mounts "exploding" into existence when summoned, etc.-- play in the background while the loading screen remains frozen with a motionless Ouroborus).

If it turns out that Alt-Tab doesn't help in your case, then at least you tried it-- but you'll never know until you try it.

virtus753 · March 27

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

@virtus753, if you're on Windows, try pressing Alt-Tab to bring some other process to the fore when you get a long loading screen. For some reason, this seems to help speed up the loading screens whenever I do it.

The only time I actually have to shut down the process is if the Ouroborus in the bottom right corner stops spinning, which indicates that the graphics have gotten frozen for some reason (I've actually had the sounds of whatever location I've ported to-- merchants hawking their wares, players' mounts "exploding" into existence when summoned, etc.-- play in the background while the loading screen remains frozen with a motionless Ouroborus).

If it turns out that Alt-Tab doesn't help in your case, then at least you tried it-- but you'll never know until you try it.

Thank you for the suggestion. I did try this several times during today's endless loading screen, as I was texting to people in (the not-yet-hung) Discord about the loading issue, but it didn't bring me out of it.

When I did not have the game focused, the ouroboros spun much more slowly, since I have an fps cap set. When I refocused the game, it spun more quickly. I can try removing the fps cap in the hopes of letting the game load faster and will try the alt-tab again next time this occurs.

In the past, it seems to have been a pattern for me that the ouroboros spins but hitches slightly every so often while the game is moving our characters somewhere. If it ever starts to spin smoothly without hitching for a while, that in the past has typically signaled that something is wrong. Today it kept hitching (presumably a good sign), but I've also noticed that when others port out of my house into a dungeon or trial instance and get stuck in these loading screens, the game appears to be removing them and replacing them in a loop. At least I see the "...arrived" and "...departed" notices over and over every second until they close the game or get kicked. The game seems to be processing all this loading but gets stuck in a loop where it is continually porting us out of the house and back in for some reason.

It also definitely charged me the gold to port out today, even though it didn't successfully send me anywhere out of the house.

Necrotech_Master · March 27

i believe it charges the gold as soon as it finishes the port animation, but if your game gets hung on the load screen, you will likely just be put back to where you tried to port out from

one of the reasons i usually prefer porting to the outside of another house and then wayshrining to my desired location, or beam me up to get to a wayshrine as both options are free lol

virtus753 · March 27

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

i believe it charges the gold as soon as it finishes the port animation, but if your game gets hung on the load screen, you will likely just be put back to where you tried to port out from

one of the reasons i usually prefer porting to the outside of another house and then wayshrining to my desired location, or beam me up to get to a wayshrine as both options are free lol

Yes, I usually use EasyTravel for that

It's a great tip, though.

Today I was in a bit of a hurry to get into a dungeon with a few friends so I could get some of that gear for testing, so I figured I'd pony up the 131 gold and port directly. But then it ate my gold and I spent so long getting Discord to work again afterwards that I didn't have time for the dungeon after all. rip.

wilykcat · March 27

Try contacting Discord's customer service?

virtus753 · March 27

wilykcat wrote: »

Try contacting Discord's customer service?

I have done that as well, yes.

This wasn't an issue before Update 41, which suggests to me that it was a change with ESO that caused this to start happening. ESO has been known to interfere with Windows and other programs before. That's why I'm posting it here too. If one is affecting the other like this, both parties need to be aware of it.

Braggar · March 28

virtus753 wrote: »

Since U41, I've encountered the endless loading screen when porting out of my house quite a few times. (This is documented in Bug Reports.)

Each time, closing the game through the task manager (my only option short of restarting the computer) also causes Discord to hang completely. Restarting Discord results in the same hangup until I restart it a sufficient number of times or wait a sufficient amount of time to get it to clear up. (Right now I'm on attempt #6 of restarting Discord, and it's been over 15 minutes since ESO hung and I had to restart it.) Over time, the functionality slowly returns. First I can't see any servers, then I can see them but not individual channels, then I can see the channels but can't switch to any, then I can finally get full functionality back. Update: Discord just returned to full functionality 17 minutes after I had to shut down ESO.

This results in me being unable to speak with any group I'm in voice chat with for the duration, since PC has no built-in voice chat of its own. Until I can get the game back up and type in chat (which many players ignore, it turns out, even in core groups), I cannot hear the group or speak to them. This is frequently delaying activities like dungeons and trials, or causing me to be left behind because the rest of the group isn't aware of what's happening.

I'm not sure what's going so wrong with ESO that it causes an independent program to become nonfunctional for over 15 minutes, but Discord crashes every single time I have to close the game - and it only becomes unresponsive when ESO hangs to the point where I have to shut it down manually. This is directly tied to whatever is happening with ESO and shutting it down. Otherwise Discord behaves just fine.

This is new since U41, and I am not the only one experiencing it.

Update 2: Apparently Discord is not done crashing and reloading. I'm at 24 minutes past the ESO hang/crash. I will have to try restarting the whole computer.

You has to restart your PC? Wow that is heavy! I guess the only thing you can do is, wait until ZOS fix Update 41. Whatever that means. Good luck.

Vinterskald · March 29

Oh! I have this issue as well, I think, or at least something similar! It worried me a lot, because I hadn't found anyone else with the same problem. Good (?) to hear then that others are experiencing it as well!

The first time it happened I wasn't even sure what was going on. I was trying to do some dungeons with friends, but Discord was loading at less than snail's pace, and the whole process of opening Discord, clicking on a server, scrolling down to the voice channels, and clicking on one to join it took about 15 minutes, and even then voice chat didn't actually work. I tried it in the browser in the meantime, and that was fine, but I ended up deciding to just restart my entire PC, and then all worked fine again.

Since then I've encountered the exact same issue again, but only ever if I try to open Discord while ESO is already running. When I do it the other way around, nothing out of the ordinary happens. But opening Discord with ESO open somehow ruins Discord's day. (I've been wondering if it's struggling to load the in-game overlay, maybe?)

When that happened, Geforce Experience also seemed wonky (I use it to take screenshots, and I take a lot of screenshots, so I notice immediately when the little notification for taking screenshots doesn't pop up), which would point to a similar direction of it being unable to load the overlay.

But I don't know enough about any of these things, I'm afraid.

moderatelyfatman · April 1

I have the same problem and notice that it most frequently happens when I try to port into trials.

Lari · April 5

If you use Windows 11 then it could be a Windows 11 bug and not an ESO bug. Windows 11 has some issues with Chromium based applications. But Micros~1 will release a fix for that in some weeks.

Cheers

Aorys · April 8

I'm having this issue too