Bounty/Guard screenlock bug

DarthCarnate

Since I started playing a few months ago, I've been having this problem pop up when a guard catches me when I have a bounty. About 75-80% of the time when they come up to me, they will start a conversation, but then move straight to combat as though I chose the "flee" option. Not only did I not choose that option, I never got the chance as no dialogue showed up at all. Worst of all I'm still stuck in conversation mode, and nothing gets me out of it. Not Alt, not escape, not resetting the UI, nothing. My character has no choice but to stand there doing nothing while the guard beats them to death. Afterwards, when I try to revive, the screen is still locked up, and all I can do is log out/quit the game to get it to reset. Sometimes after I revive I find they took all my stolen items but left me with my bounty intact, though this is not consistent.

I've seen it happen to other people. I've also found some threads asking about this issue with no response:https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/286234/city-guard-bounty-bug-is-there-a-workaround-or-so#reply-anchor
Another one shows this problem affects XBOX users:https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/293293/guard-bug

I'm hoping with the Thieves Guild event going on that this issue will finally get some attention.

kmarple1

I'll second this one. One additional thing I've noticed: the controls will work again after you open and close the mail screen. This doesn't save you from the guard, as you can't view that screen during combat, but it will let you keep going once you respawn.

KylerF

Same problem. Everyone is talking about it.

Mystrius_Archaion

This sounds like what happens when I'm lagging badly and lose sync with the server, which also waits until the second I reconnect to disconnect me to login rather than after a set time.

Guards also have trouble triggering conversation mode if they get stuck on geometry, or you are, and can't reach you perfectly. If it is that, it's a problem every game has and will have forever. The only thing you can do is try to avoid being an acrobat to escape the guards as once they trigger on you they lock you down wherever you are.

I know the "flee" option triggers automatically after a very short time from when the guard triggers and opens dialog with you, likely even if you don't see the dialog yet.
Is this on console? Have you had any connection issue indications at all, any ping indicator enabled in your options? Though, if you do have that ping indicator it won't always be visible in conversation and doesn't show issues until after they occur so that won't help every time.

Need more information on circumstances of this happening to track it down.

DarthCarnate

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

This sounds like what happens when I'm lagging badly and lose sync with the server, which also waits until the second I reconnect to disconnect me to login rather than after a set time.

Guards also have trouble triggering conversation mode if they get stuck on geometry, or you are, and can't reach you perfectly. If it is that, it's a problem every game has and will have forever. The only thing you can do is try to avoid being an acrobat to escape the guards as once they trigger on you they lock you down wherever you are.

I know the "flee" option triggers automatically after a very short time from when the guard triggers and opens dialog with you, likely even if you don't see the dialog yet.
Is this on console? Have you had any connection issue indications at all, any ping indicator enabled in your options? Though, if you do have that ping indicator it won't always be visible in conversation and doesn't show issues until after they occur so that won't help every time.

Need more information on circumstances of this happening to track it down.

No, it doesn't just happen with lag. No, it doesn't just happen with geometry problems. When it happens, they engage in combat immediately, not after the 15 seconds you're supposed to have before it uses flee automatically. I had thought for a while that it was connected to being in stealth when caught, but it happened once when I deliberately strolled up to a guard to turn myself in because I was going for an achievement. I think I saw that someone was able to stop it from happening by switching to third person camera, but don't know of any details, and, if true, I still don't count that as a solution to the problem. Other than that the only thing I can figure out about this is it just happens no matter what you're doing or any obvious circumstances.

EDIT: Oh, and I play on PC, but one of the threads I linked that describes the problem was from XBOX discussion, so it happens on both PC and consoles.

Mystrius_Archaion

DarthCarnate wrote: »

No, it doesn't just happen with lag. No, it doesn't just happen with geometry problems. When it happens, they engage in combat immediately, not after the 15 seconds you're supposed to have before it uses flee automatically.

By "they engage in combat immediately" do you mean you stop and then are being attacked immediately or there is a delay as he tries to reach you and talk and then he attacks?

You also didn't mention anything about terrain. Are you on any sort of incline such as stairs or a ramp? Yes, it's not like being up a ladder or on a shark rock but simple elevation differences or pathing errors can occur easily.
If you want an example of this, go to the delve "Del's Claim" north of Vulkhel Guard n Auridon and into the boss room where all the water is. You can walk in all the water, not swim, but the boss bugs out and leashes back to where he appears if you stand in a particular spot of the deepest water where your character walks slower. The boss can and should be able to attack you there but he has no ranged attacks and avoids that water like the plague for no other reason than a slight elevation difference in the water level.


If it has nothing to do with any of this then you likely need to try the standard troubleshooting. Use the launcher repair option on your game files. Make sure all drivers are up to date. Increase the lua memeory limit in your game user settings text file(use notepad/wordpad to edit it) from 64MB to 128MB or more.
It could be any of those things causing it or something different.

If all else fails, reinstall the game, preferably from a backup just before this started happening. I have such a backup I update just before every larger patch from a definitely working time in the game because I have had to reinstall before just to be able to login to the game.

DarthCarnate

I'm starting to think you should go back up and read the initial post again, as it was quite clear on how the issue happens, but I'll go ahead and state it here again.

When a guard catches the player with a bounty, they approach the player like normal and engage in dialogue like normal then immediately start attacking the player without any text or dialogue options ever showing up, however the player is stuck in dialogue mode and unable to move, fight back, access menus, or anything that would be able to unlock the screen and prevent death. I didn't mention terrain as it doesn't seem to be an issue, as this has happened to me on any and all forms of terrain I happen to be on at the time, from stairs to flat even ground.

As for your "standard troubleshooting" methods, I have repaired repeatedly over the few months I've been playing, and I've also reinstalled due to a separate issue. This still happens.

TekHousE

Same for me. Happens nearly every time. Screen totally locked, can see the borders flash red as guard is killing me. But prior to that I do not get the chance to pay, flee etc. ZERO dialog box coming up.

DarthCarnate

Seems there are a lot of threads about this issue, and from what I can tell every single one of them has been ignored.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/359361/guards-not-interacting-immediate-fugitive-status-causing-lock-ups#latest

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/337358/bug-when-caught-by-guard

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/338538/guard-catches-me-then-glitches#latest

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/339734/guard-bug-report-ps4#latest

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/305175/game-freezes-when-guard-attacks-me#latest

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/310540/when-caught-by-guard-stuck-in-dialogue-window#latest

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/337951/being-caught-by-guard-causes-controls-to-freeze-guard-attacks#latest

Vrienda

Had this happen to me recently. Over 4000g worth of stolen loot gone because I couldn't exist dialogue, yet was still being attacked.

Most infuriating thing in this game.

DarthCarnate

Welp, been over a year since I made this discussion, and I know for a fact it's still an issue today...

geøstigma

Hey, I see that this is a very old thread but at the same time this is a very old problem. I remember it happening when I played ESO years ago and today I encountered it again and lost my stolen items due to it. I also remember that back then I had a way to get around this nasty bug.

From what I remember is that you should be able to consume a quick-slot item, a potion or similar and I think that it will force the fixed dialogue camera to close.
I've yet to test it to be 100% sure but I can't seem to get it to glitch again. Probably if I fetch a couple of thousands gold worth of stolen items it will happen again but I'm not willing to do that just yet.

If anyone tries this, please post you results so that others may know if it actually works or if I just remember it wrong.

Slick_007

DarthCarnate wrote: »

Welp, been over a year since I made this discussion, and I know for a fact it's still an issue today...

so is theft, and murder. The guards tolerance has grown thin.