Game crashes when Process Explorer from Microsoft's SysInternals is running

Elsonso · March 30

Estcarp wrote: »

This is the answer for my ticket ... They closed it!

Greetings,

Thank you for contacting The Elder Scrolls Online Team!

We greatly appreciate you bringing this potential bug to our attention. This information has been collected and will be passed on to our development team. You will not receive a further response to this ticket.

We encourage you check the Bug Reports section of the ESO Forums as well. The development team checks these regularly and it allows you to add video and screenshots more easily to help describe the issue you're experiencing.

Thank you for your continued interest and support!

Kind Regards,
The Elder Scrolls Online Team
06:48 AM - 3/15/2024

What is this with whitewashing bug reports … IT HAS NOT, REPEAT, NOT BEEN RESOLVED

[240315-001590] Elder Scrolls Online Support Ticket

Not unexpected, as ZOS does not track the progress of bugs in the tickets. They probably get transferred to some internal database, like Jira. When that happens, they close the ticket as it is no longer being used.

Estcarp · March 30

This is ludicrous that I cannot monitor any processes while Zenimax ESO is active - even other processes since I have 16 cores that are all available for other processes besides ESO.

I will permit Zenimax until the end of the 10th anniversary event to resolve this issue with Process Explorer or Process Monitor otherwise I will elect to discontinue ESO completely.

Zenimax should not be able to dictate what other applications I am permitted to execute while ESO is active, TOS or not. Next ESO will prevent me from running backups or file downloads while ESO is active and that is entirely unacceptable.

Zenimax is probably laughing their backsides off because they already have my money and they could give a flying

Estcarp · March 30

... and to put a fine point to it ... there are many, many other less invasive games to play!

I don't run bots and I don't cheat in ESO. Why am I being penalized?????

ZOS_Bill · April 2

@Estcarp

Please check your forum inbox as we've sent you some information regarding your ticket.

Elsonso · April 2

@ZOS_Bill, any chance we could know is if this is something that is being looked at so I know if I have to check on it after every patch.

ZOS_Bill · April 3

@Elsonso

As mentioned earlier in the thread, there were some crash issues being looked into after Update 41. It is recommended for anyone having issues to open a support ticket to help us look into this further.

wilykcat · April 4

Estcarp wrote: »

Zenimax is probably laughing their backsides off because they already have my money and they could give a flying fork!

Bugs unintentionally come with new updates for every game, its no laughing matter.

Zenimax is aware of the current issue of when the game crashes while process explorer is running. As ZOS_Bill stated, they are investigating the issue. Let's hope this gets resolved before or during the next maintenance.

Hobotron · April 17

Here we are over a month later without any update. @ZOS_Bill : can you give us an idea when this will be fixed? I don't feel comfortable playing games that won't let me see what's going on with my machine by running a process monitor.

Elsonso · April 17

Hobotron wrote: »

Here we are over a month later without any update. @ZOS_Bill : can you give us an idea when this will be fixed? I don't feel comfortable playing games that won't let me see what's going on with my machine by running a process monitor.

Based on the reply I got from the ticket I submitted, the players are expected to adjust to this. I don't expect a fix. They are doing what they want to do and will do that until they don't want to do it any longer.

KlauthWarthog · April 17

Then I am going to continue not playing the game, and not paying for it.

Elsonso · April 17

KlauthWarthog wrote: »

Then I am going to continue not playing the game, and not paying for it.

On the positive side, because I had ESO uninstalled on my main PC gaming system, I neatly dodged all of the PTS drama this week. If it had not been for their insistence on crashing when Process Explorer was detected, I would have the Live and PTS client installed and would have logged into PTS on Monday. I would probably be waiting for my PC account to be fixed.

LostScot · April 17

It's weird that Zenimax permit Windows Task Manager, but Process Explorer from the same vendor, with its 'Replace Task Manager' option is not allowed. This is despite both products from Microsoft sharing the same calls and methodology underneath their respective GUIs.

Hobotron · May 4

Well, at this point it appears that they have absolutely no intention of fixing the issue, let alone addressing it. As an on-and-off player since Beta, it's been fun, but I just can't continue to run an application that is so disrespectful of an individual's personal hardware and its security.

LostScot · May 12

@ZOS_Bill I am fed up of ESO crashing every time I start the game. This issue has never existed prior to update 41.

Zenimax has seen fit to ban a legitimate tool from Microsoft that has zero ability to modify the game client in any way whatsoever. As pointed out already, Process Explorer shares the EXACT SAME CODE for analysing running processes as the Windows Task Manager, because Windows Task Manager IS FORKED FROM the Process Explorer code and merely has a different UI.

I would be grateful for an official response on this.

Elsonso · May 12

SysInternals was around long before ESO, and if I had to make a prediction, will be around after ESO, as well.

Bucky Balls · May 12

LostScot wrote: »

It's weird that Zenimax permit Windows Task Manager, but Process Explorer from the same vendor, with its 'Replace Task Manager' option is not allowed. This is despite both products from Microsoft sharing the same calls and methodology underneath their respective GUIs.

This suggests the mechanism used to detect it(process explorer) and that suggested mechanism is naive at best.

Unfortunately, I am too damned old to test/confirm it. *shakes walking stick at zos*

@ZOS_Kevin - can you please convey this issue with UTMOST urgency to devs upstairs (or downstairs...?) - eso is NOT behaving properly and this seems to be by appallingly bad design. This MUST be fixed - zenimax has absolutely NO right whatsoever to hamper the use of our machines and other Microsoft software in such a cavalier manner.

Speak to your overlords at microsoft - they built the OS and can presumably advise you on optimum ways to protect the game's processes and memory without bullying other legitimate Microsoft processes while doing so.

@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_JessicaFolsom
@ZOS_Bill

Jediarmy · May 13

If you want the game to work then play nice and disable everything.

Type msconfig in seach if you are on windows 10 or 11

Click service tab

Click "hide all microsoft services"

Now disable everything part from Windows Security 9 out of 10 this work

You will have to restart the computer.

Jediarmy · May 13

I'm using cfosspeed to lower ping rate that does not mean i'm cheating lol

Hobotron · May 13

Jediarmy wrote: »

If you want the game to work then play nice and disable everything.

Type msconfig in seach if you are on windows 10 or 11

Click service tab

Click "hide all microsoft services"

Now disable everything part from Windows Security 9 out of 10 this work

You will have to restart the computer.

@Jediarmy : your comments are in no way relevant to this post. Do people really try to reputation farm on this forum?

LostScot · May 13

Bit of nostalgia, a couple of Microsoft techs used to do a regular video show called 'Defrag Tools' where they broke down the main benefits of various useful utilities. This is from 12 years ago so in their side-by-side comparison you can see the old version of Task Manager before Microsoft unified the code and released the revamped version based on Process Explorer for Windows 8.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/shows/defrag-tools/2-process-explorer

Jediarmy wrote: »

If you want the game to work then play nice and disable everything.

I appreciate your input Jediarmy. Thing is, I already know exactly what the problem is, if you take a few moments to read through my prior posts in this topic you'll see I've already discovered that the game runs through a list of active process names and checksums and if Process Explorer (or a few other utilities that are actually of a questionable nature, unlike Process Explorer) are running then the game closes and presents the permissions dialogue.

The only option (and one that doesn't involve using MSConfig or suchlike, I'm old-school and remove startup applications and services by their roots, but if I were so inclined to use a GUI then I'd use Microsoft's AutoRuns tool which gives far greater insight and control over startup configurations) is for me to close Process Explorer prior to starting the game.

The oddity of this is that I have to fire up an even heaver-handed tool to change processor cores affinity for ESO, something that I was able to do with ease using Process Explorer (as in set it once, and never have to set it again). If I use other tools I have to set the core affinity each time I load up ESO.

LostScot · May 13

Jediarmy wrote: »

I'm using cfosspeed to lower ping rate that does not mean i'm cheating lol

You can improve your computer's performance a fair bit by ditching the Corsair iCue software completely and installing OpenRGB. It's very lightweight, it'll even control any Aura RGB headers on your ASUS motherboard. I only suggest this because iCue uses a lot of resources even when configured to its optimum and the computer is idle. OpenRGB even has a decent plugin for fan and pump control, so you won't be losing anything by ditching iCue.

I'm familiar with cfosspeed. A friend gave away a few license keys for it some years ago on his radio show, useful for low bandwidth connections for sure. Tweaking parameters within the TCP stack is optimisation (when done right!), don't listen to anyone who says otherwise!

Elsonso · June 5

So, I am back on PC temporarily because I pre-ordered Gold Road and forgot to cancel it.

Naturally... day one... I was in ESO and noticed the game was not performing well. I remembered that I had a game launcher from another game that was probably still running in the background. These "store launchers" like to stick around and one in particular is rather annoying. It has to be killed. Every time. It has no option to exit that does not leave it running in the background. Naturally, I opened Process Explorer to kill it so I could play ESO. I use Process Explorer because it is simply a better tool than the built in Task Manager. I killed the offending store launcher. I closed Process Explorer right away, but not before ESO noticed and abruptly terminated the game.

@ZOS_Kevin ... this is one reason why I no longer want to play ESO on PC. Please tell who ever thought this was a great idea thanks for me.

LostScot · June 5

Elsonso wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin ... this is one reason why I no longer want to play ESO on PC. Please tell who ever thought this was a great idea thanks for me.

I have to echo this sentiment. My gaming time has taken a serious nose-dive since ESO introduced this ban on running Process Explorer. Although it's fair to say that gaming time is reduced during the Spring and Summer months, I can see a direct correlation with the amount of time I used to invest in the game compared to after the U41 release.

My typical gaming session has gone from being 2 or 3 hours, to typically enough time to do the dailies, say hi to friends and to do a quick inventory tidy-up. 20 minutes, or thereabouts.

This has also negatively impacted the amount of money I'm spending on the game (aside from the known payments issue) because less time played means fewer ideas of ways to spend crowns - especially if I'm not actively looking at the crown store!

When v17.06 of Process Explorer was released towards the end of May I tried it, hoping it wouldn't be picked up by ESO (even with a binary rename, but as we all know that won't hide the manifest name). Unfortunately even today with U42 released Process Explorer is a naughty word in the offices of Zenimax. I have no idea why, and I'd love to understand the reasoning behind it. I don't expect to hear an official statement though because everyone who uses Process Explorer knows that it's harmless. We'd be able to refute pretty much any official reasoning. So how about some basic honesty? Just say "Yes, we have added Process Explorer to the banned processes list, there will be no further review of this." We, the players, will respect you more for the openness.

BetweenMidgets · June 5

Sure would be nice to get some semblance of an update. It has been over 2 months.

nk3002 · June 13

@ZOS any update about this problem ?