Always Restart PC First

ChalupacaBro

Hello!

So every time (every single time) I want to play ESO, I have to restart my computer.

If I just turned my PC on, Eso will get a stopped working error and I'll have to restart my pc; it'll work perfectly then.

If I've been playing games, or working all day, and I want to play ESO, I'll get a stopped working error and have to restart my pc. Every. Single. Time. But after I restart my PC, it works perfectly!

Who here knows why that could be? I don't think it's an ESO thing per se, but I feel like someone who is more computer savvy than I would see this and be able to say what's wrong.

Any thoughts?

Saturnana

I'm just spitballing here, but it sounds as though starting up ESO conflicts with an already running process or application that's hasn't booted (yet) on starting up your PC - since that solves the problem. Having to go through all combos of apps on your system is a real pain, so maybe start with retracing your steps? Has this always been a problem, or did you start noticing this after installing a new program or update (of either ESO, your OS, or any drivers you have installed)?

If not I'd advice to check & make note of your running services & processes through Task Manager (CTRL+ALT+DEL) before starting up ESO, but after you've already done your other daily things - so in a situation where you'd expect ESO to crash. Then restart your PC, check your Task Manager again (& compare) before starting up ESO again - which we're expecting to work now.

Edit: reading back I realize that the above is confusing. You could do it two ways; either close all running applications the way you normally would before checking your Task Manager, or keep them open when you do - if that's what you also do when you start up ESO. Basically, keep whatever you're doing the same, apart from checking your TM.

If there's any difference between your TM observations, see if you can find out to what applications the differences belong, and work from there. And if you've kept applications open during your first check, then keep in mind that it's OK if you're not seeing those in your second check (unless they should boot on start-up). That's what I'd do initially at least. If that's not insightful in any way, I'd probably check the applications that boot on start-up, turn those off & repeat, or do a clean install of ESO.

The last would be a pain since you'd want to keep a copy of your save-file ideally (I haven't checked if any of it is kept locally or if all your info is on ESO's servers) and delete everything else on your PC related to ESO; through starting up your PC in safe-mode, if you have to.

I hope that helps, or at least it's a start?

Asardes

If it's windows, check your running processes in task manager. Does this error occur when you have already played ESO, then close the program, then open again without restarting the computer? In this case the problem could be ESO itself, as sometimes the process does not end correctly upon program closure. Sometimes it crashes on exit and may leave some "junk" processes hanging. Ending those processes with end process/process tree may fix your problem without restart.

The_Protagonist

lnsane wrote: »

The last would be a pain since you'd want to keep a copy of your save-file ideally (I haven't checked if any of it is kept locally or if all your info is on ESO's servers) and delete everything else on your PC related to ESO; through starting up your PC in safe-mode, if you have to.

I hope that helps, or at least it's a start?

The only information that is saved client side is Addons and settings usually found in C:Users\<your user name>\Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live\SavedVariables.

In my experience some security softwares are the usual culprits, if you have an antivirus or similar program, just add ESO to that software's exception list.

Disclaimer: Do this at your own risk, we cant really know what is the actual problem on your side

Really hope things get sorted out mate. Cheers.

Saturnana

Asardes wrote: »

If it's windows, check your running processes in task manager. Does this error occur when you have already played ESO, then close the program, then open again without restarting the computer? In this case the problem could be ESO itself, as sometimes the process does not end correctly upon program closure. Sometimes it crashes on exit and may leave some "junk" processes hanging. Ending those processes with end process/process tree may fix your problem without restart.

Yes I'm also thinking a 'stuck' process might be the problem here.
Checking to see if there's any lingering processes of applications you've already closed (and killing those processes) is a good tip.

unhander_2 wrote: »

The only information that is saved client side is Addons and settings usually found in C:Users\<your user name>\Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live\SavedVariables.

In my experience some security softwares are the usual culprits, if you have an antivirus or similar program, just add ESO to that software's exception list.

Disclaimer: Do this at your own risk, we cant really know what is the actual problem on your side

Really hope things get sorted out mate. Cheers.

That's good to know (and a relief really xD).
And I don't see much of a problem with adding vanilla ESO to your antivirus/firewall per se, but I personally wouldn't do it if you're using add-ons.

FleetwoodSmack

It'd also help knowing your system specs that way we can get toward more of an idea on what type of system we're dealing with.

Regardless, if you have some kind of event viewer and are able to identify things like ESO and what not, you could try peeking through there. If it has a crash like that, chances are it'll be logged (unless it's Windows 10, which it's still logged though more complicated in terms of trying to identify the error) and able to troubleshoot that way.

It could also be that certain programs either haven't fully finished their background load (svchost and processes it handles comes to mind), or something is just hogging things. When you open up the task manager and view all processes (different ways to do that on different OSes) try and see if that's happening.

If not, I'm afraid we'll need more information. Sorry this is happening though!

ChalupacaBro

I started getting crashes since the last ESO update, I've changed a few things around and haven't received a crash in-game yet; however, if I turn my PC on, then I know I will receive a "ESO has stopped working" error.

After I restart my computer, if I try to play ESO now, or if I try to play ESO hours later, I will not receive an error. So it seems to me, that restarting my computer fixes what ever causes my ESO to not work.

With that said, I already:
1. Port forwarded on my router-
-TCP / UDP Ports 24100 through 24131
-TCP / UDP Ports 24300 through 24331
-TCP / UDP Ports 24500 through 24507
2. Added ESO to my whitelist/exceptions for AVG, Spybot and my firewall
3. Flushed DNS and Reset my Router

So my next step is going to be monitoring processes on TM, and see if I can see anything lingering, or different from a restarted computer.

As far as my rig goes, it was a great setup when I built it a few years ago, but I may just need upgrade? Don't laugh at my graphics card.

Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit (10.0, Build 14393)
BIOS: BIOS Date: 11/16/12 09:51:50 Ver: 09.08
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3570K CPU @ 3.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.4GHz
Memory: 8192MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 8144MB RAM
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti

Thank you all for the help!

Rastafariel

last patch is causing me to crash also. was stable until then.

xRIVALENx

Launch Msconfig and switch to selective startup (keeping Networking, Graphics and Antivirus services and applications loaded of course) and see if you have any issues. May be an easier way to narrow down the culprit if it is indeed an application or service.