Unexpected crashing while in game

ErinSparkblade

I’ve found that exiting Steam and the launcher before quitting lets the game exit normally without issue.

Plus less resources strain on my humble Mac

But that’s only useful for the usual crash when quitting

It’s a long maintenance, so I’m hopeful some Srs Bsns is getting patched

Ecstatica

ErinSparkblade wrote: »

I’ve found that exiting Steam and the launcher before quitting lets the game exit normally without issue.

If this works (launcher, I don't use Steam) I will be REALLY happy cos that is a HUGE pain - if the game doesn't exit gracefully, any changes I've made to setup are lost and it's SO annoying.

FierceSam

Ecstatica wrote: »

ErinSparkblade wrote: »

I’ve found that exiting Steam and the launcher before quitting lets the game exit normally without issue.

If this works (launcher, I don't use Steam) I will be REALLY happy cos that is a HUGE pain - if the game doesn't exit gracefully, any changes I've made to setup are lost and it's SO annoying.

I haven’t found I lose any settings when the game doesn’t quit gracefully. Although that is a rarity given I crash so often. That really would be upsetting.

Hoping today’s update is some kind of an improvement, not just a longer time period between crashes.

Ecstatica

Well - quitting the launcher first caused my game to exit properly so that's cool. I'll try again later - didn't get a single crash but I'm working so can't test 100%. Exciting though!

eleve

5 hrs in without a crash...if this is the new norm, I am not complaining
I find the texture quality in a few areas to be lower than it was this morning and enemies still often render so slowly that I can't see them and am essentially fighting invisible enemies. Also, I am still battling load screens all over the place but still...5 hrs up without crash and counting is some sort of progress

Dyvm

eleve wrote: »

5 hrs in without a crash...if this is the new norm, I am not complaining
I find the texture quality in a few areas to be lower than it was this morning and enemies still often render so slowly that I can't see them and am essentially fighting invisible enemies. Also, I am still battling load screens all over the place but still...5 hrs up without crash and counting is some sort of progress

Are you on test or Live? Live still shows as in maintenance for me.

FierceSam

Day 63

Hmmmm

Initial experience was OK, but then crashed again less than 1 hour in. I'm also seeing textures and items only appearing when they are very close (say 20m) so bushes and furniture will suddenly appear. It feels much lower res than yesterday ( the .12 update) and more headache inducing. And once again it does not quit gracefully.

So currently not feeling like even baby steps ahead.

Ticket #190211-001709

Kaytlin

Thank you dev's for the update. This whole problem would have been reduced if you would have let us know what was going on long ago. This is the one thing that you all need to improve-communication with your customers. Hiding, and ignoring customer concerns is what causes bad feeling and trash talk on the forums. Honesty goes a long way. If we know what was going on and when an expected fix was due it would have done much to reduce the friction. It was bad enough that the original change in early December was not thoroughly tested, but to provide little feedback etc only worsened the problem. Especially since this problem has dragged on for over 2 months!
I look forward to playing the game I have enjoyed since beta and improved communications from the development team in the future.

eleve

@Dyvm I was on live. EU showed as in maintenance but it was accessible.

So...i will stop playing shortly after almost 9 hrs playing in different areas without even 1 crash, incl, Cyrodiil, Vvardenfell, etc. Vvardenfell was full because of the event and that was when I saw the texture problems the most. Going through delves was an experience in fighting enemies I couldn't see or running overland collecting resources, finding out that I was standing in the middle of a populated camp after I stopped because of a plant or similar. I am sure some people thought me a real dummy still trying to attack my invisible enemies after they and been killed already.

Same for quest givers: I would click on the talk button then wait until the NPC deigned to respond. I could see several other players come, converse and leave before I got a response even once...ah well.

Cyrodiil was better though I generally only go there to do some quests and not to play in big battles...again, textures were often low res and enemy NPCs were often only rendered when I was almost on top of them. I am also observing more load screens in the middle of nowhere; there is a fairly consistent one in Grahtwood between the big tree and the place where the crafting quests are turned in; there was a new one in Cyrodiil as I was leaving the place where I had arrived.

So...all in all 1 step forward for me with far fewer to no crashes and several steps backwards with late rendering, low res texture, more and more load screens.

edi: ROFL...and just as I had written my msg above, it crashed. The error is the same as before:

Thread 0 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
0   com.zenimaxonline.eso         	0x0000000110c08d8c mvkUpdateDescriptorSets(unsigned int, VkWriteDescriptorSet const*, unsigned int, VkCopyDescriptorSet const*) + 76

Here, have a log and no, with the quality of your customer support, I refuse to open a ticket.

steven22

How many crahes do u guys have after the last patch? Is it getting better ?

FierceSam

Weird issue where you can’t enter your password on the login screen despite the cursor appearing in the field (so you have to repeatedly click into the field to enable typing) - still there

Odd noises playing during the many loading screens - still there

Random crashing to desktop - still there. I am not seeing any noticeable increase in playing time between crashes

Low FPS and lag - somewhat reduced at the expense of actually rendering stuff.

Ungraceful quitting - still there. This is by far the most significant issue as it indicates a profound inability to actually code for the Mac platform.

Now, if I can identify theses areas of continuing concern I fail to understand how ZOS cannot QA them.

The question remains, is ZOS prepared/capable of putting in the resource and effort to make this game viable for Mac users?

Ecstatica

Been playing 3 hours, not a single crash so far.

Dyvm

FierceSam wrote: »

Weird issue where you can’t enter your password on the login screen despite the cursor appearing in the field (so you have to repeatedly click into the field to enable typing) - still there

So with that issue (which I have as well) MY trick is to click just below the password area and then back into it. I only need to do this once. Hope that helps you a little bit (even if it shouldn't be there at all).

Kaytlin

haven't crashed in 3 hours, but the fps and lag are still the same as the were pre patch. graphics appear a bit better, might be my imagination. Still have the stutter when traveling, for example from Bruma to standing stones on the quest pronounced stutter.

Ecstatica

No crashes yet since the patch, played a good 4-5 hours last night. HAPPY!

Agreed on the graphics looking strangely better, but I can't tell you exactly how....

keto3000

I was always told, since beta, that it's best to quit the launcher as soon as you load the game. I've been doing that ever since.
Even still, I've been experiencing the endless black screen/spinning wheel upon quitting game requiring a Force Quitthat most here have described.

I'm about to go in and test PvE and PvP for first time since yesterday's update... will post results here.

Ecstatica wrote: »

Well - quitting the launcher first caused my game to exit properly so that's cool. I'll try again later - didn't get a single crash but I'm working so can't test 100%. Exciting though!

Rowjoh

crashing still present but now getting around 4 hours gameplay before crashing, so is improving.

stutter/short freezes still there but not quite as much as before.

entering guild stores can result in slow item-loading and even item page disappearing.

exiting the game still causes crash but some exits have happened normally.

ArranHS

Not had any crashes yet although I will submit a ticket if I do, thanks ZOS

otab

I've not experienced any crashes since this latest update, though the app still takes forever to exit on its own (though it'll exit from the black screen immediately upon Cmd+Opt+Esc).

@FierceSam just a thought, but have you tried a scan & repair on your game files? With as many crashes as you've experienced, I find myself wondering if you have a bad file or three lurking in your install somewhere...

Delsskia

I had 3 crashes yesterday. Once while getting sky shards on an alt, once in a dungeon with 3 friends and once in Cyrodiil.

Still had MANY instances where my fps would go from above 60 to the single digits and freeze my screen for no apparent reason and would last for several seconds.

Load screens are taking longer.

Still have to force quit the game when I quit it.

I didn't see as many muddy/washed out ground textures but they looked pixelated at times. Not normal pixelation, more like if the jagged edges measured a square meter and it persisted while settings were at low, medium, high and ultra.

Still have the text box bug on the password screen.

My fps were a smidge higher in Cyrodiil while away from large fights but tanked immediately while fighting was amongst 30 or more people.

Skills still don't fire in any way that resembles reliably while fighting in Cyrodiil, often getting stuck mid animation and spell not completing. Many times hitting Subterranean Assault and getting what looked like a light attack animation and no beetles popped. Had to hit the skill button 4 or 5 times to get a skill to fire. Light attacks on guards to get Ultimate often never landed, it was like I saw the guard there but it was really somewhere else.

To sum it up, fewer crashes but other weirdness and performance issues still there.

Wodinn

My performance has improved slightly. fps feels slightly more stable and I was able to play for a few hours with no crashes. I did however did have to force quit the game. I don't know if that is a memory leak issue still or what.

alterfenixeb17_ESO

otab wrote: »

I've not experienced any crashes since this latest update, though the app still takes forever to exit on its own (though it'll exit from the black screen immediately upon Cmd+Opt+Esc).

@FierceSam just a thought, but have you tried a scan & repair on your game files? With as many crashes as you've experienced, I find myself wondering if you have a bad file or three lurking in your install somewhere...

Also removing current shader cache may help too. If it is corrupted then it may cause issues too (lower performance, crashing)

Ecstatica

keto3000 wrote: »

I was always told, since beta, that it's best to quit the launcher as soon as you load the game. I've been doing that ever since.
Even still, I've been experiencing the endless black screen/spinning wheel upon quitting game requiring a Force Quitthat most here have described.

Yes, I can confirm this hasn't helped me either, I still get the endless quitting game process. But still no in-game crashes, not a single one so it's a huge improvement.

FierceSam

I

otab wrote: »

@FierceSam just a thought, but have you tried a scan & repair on your game files? With as many crashes as you've experienced, I find myself wondering if you have a bad file or three lurking in your install somewhere...

Thanks for the tip Otab, I will try that.

On the basis of 2 days playing, it feels a bit more stable with a slight nudge up in FPS at the expense of some graphical quality. I actually had to quit the game today, which was a bit of a shock

Glad to hear it seems to be working for others.

Kaytlin

sigh, 4 hours into game and it crashed. come on man didn't you test the patch before you released it?

Wodinn

I get great fps for a few minutes. Then it drops to 20-. This is ridiculous!

protofeckless

Yesterday: I got 2 hours of gameplay without a crash. Doing writs, the event dailies, and some skill point grinding.
Today: First crash after ~2.5 hours. Same content as above. Lots of zoning. Second crash after 3-3.5 hours grinding psijic and skill points (lots of zoning).

So there seems to be some progress this patch. I'm almost confident to run a trial if my guildies allow me to relaunch right before starting. But there's still lots to fix. It aint working yet. A night of PvP on a pop-locked server? Yah no joy.

Still have the issue of the game crashing on quit. Every time. Infinite spinner. Have to force quit.

Looking back at update 4.2.11:
"Mac Game Client
Fixed an issue where visuals would randomly flicker when moving around the world.
- Not sure what this means, but if it's erratic fps, then NOPE
Fixed an issue that would cause Mac clients to crash when quitting the game.
- Nope. Never fixed.
Fixed an issue where the Mac client would consistently restart in windowed fullscreen, even after changing it to fullscreen mode.
- I don't play fullscreen mode 'cause this game is the only app ever to lock MacOS (not crash, not kernel panic, not process dump - just lock the whole damn box into frozen state - after playing in full screen. Didn't even think this was possible on MacOS. Will never do fullscreen mode again. That said, every launch starts in a low rez / small windowed screen regardless and needs to be resized manually. I don't think it's relaunched into it's previous state once since Murkmire.
Fixed an issue where Command+Tab wasn’t working while in fullscreen mode.
- Nope. Well IDK, define "working". I can Command+Tab to put the game in the background, but that = death for this game. If I put it in the background and bring it forward again, no keyboard input is recognized by the game. Other open apps function normally. This game however, dies. I can't recall if this behavior started with Murkmire, but I think it goes back longer than that even. By my definition, Command+Tab doesn't work in any view.

In summary, the evidence doesn't suggest any of the reported fix code in 4.2.11 actually made it into that patch.

karpok

Just the same here. Time between 2 crashes seems a bit better (~2 hours instead if ~1 hour).
No change about fps. I tried a trial yesterday and was getting huge freezes (2-3 seconds) during random fight moments while fps was fine before and after the freeze.

Callah

I don't have a workaround for any of the other issues with the game client, but I was able to fix the launch size window issue be directly editing my UserSettings.txt file.

In my case 1440p I edited the file to read:
SET WindowedHeight "1152"
SET WindowedWidth "2048"
Set yours to your desired window size ... You could also edit your Fullscreen settings but I found those to operate as expected with the game controls

Hope this helps

protofeckless wrote: »

Yesterday: I got 2 hours of gameplay without a crash. Doing writs, the event dailies, and some skill point grinding.
Today: First crash after ~2.5 hours. Same content as above. Lots of zoning. Second crash after 3-3.5 hours grinding psijic and skill points (lots of zoning).

Looking back at update 4.2.11:
"Mac Game Client

Fixed an issue where the Mac client would consistently restart in windowed fullscreen, even after changing it to fullscreen mode.
- I don't play fullscreen mode 'cause this game is the only app ever to lock MacOS (not crash, not kernel panic, not process dump - just lock the whole damn box into frozen state - after playing in full screen. Didn't even think this was possible on MacOS. Will never do fullscreen mode again. That said, every launch starts in a low rez / small windowed screen regardless and needs to be resized manually. I don't think it's relaunched into it's previous state once since Murkmire.

In summary, the evidence doesn't suggest any of the reported fix code in 4.2.11 actually made it into that patch.

Wodinn

The 'fixes' did *** all. As always. I'm never buying + ever again! ZoS you are a bunch of greedy slimy ***.