Spontaneous logging out of computer user in macOS Catalina

upquark · October 2019

NA megaserver
Northern Elsweyr (sorry, can't remember exact location)
macOS Catalina 10.15 (prior to today's system update)
Launch from Steam
Issue occurrence: 15 Oct during the morning PST (-7 GMT).

ISSUE:

-- ESO freezes during normal non-combat behavior and simultaneously logs me out to the user login screen at computer level. (The user login screen appears approximately one second after freeze and doesn't show any indication that ESO itself quits or that I have been logged out.)

-- When I log back into my user (computer level), no ESO-related activity is seen in Activity Monitor and both the ESO launcher and app are completely quit, but I hear game sound effects and music.

-- When I try to launch ESO again, I receive a message that I am already logged in.

-- Issue resolves temporarily after restart of computer (i.e., able to log back into game and continue play).

iMac 27-inch Late 2015
4 GHz quad i7
256 GB SSD
16 GB RAM
AMD Radeon R9 M395X 4 GB

No mirroring or screen extension active during time of occurrences.

upquark · October 2019

Sorry, forgot to include that no other apps were running at the time.

BlueRaven · October 2019

I am getting the same thing. The only difference is that my launcher is still open AND I had discord open as well.

BlueRaven · October 2019

If anyone else has any ideas on what is happening please post.

BlueRaven · October 2019

@upquark

I have found that using the "Activity Monitor" application (located in the applications --> utility folder) can help close out the application that seems to still be playing mysteriously in the background.

Open up the activity monitor, go to the CPU tab, find "eso" that should be still running, double click on it, then choose quit.

It's not helping with the odd crashes, but at least you do not have to restart.

(In case anyone was wondering, the "eso" app was not showing up in the force quit menu.)

••••

At least to me, the issue seems to be only effect my characters in Southern Elswyyr.

For while I could restart the app and go right back to the character. Then I had to log into a second character first, then log in to the character in Southern Elswyyr. Now when ever I try to log in to that character in Southern Elsewyyr it just does the odd crash to log in. So I am running out of ideas.

Jeth · October 2019

Active ESO App

I have 7 other processes claiming to use 64GB of physical memory also with only one instance of ESO running. WTH?

Seriously, if you're gonna do such a *** job at Mac support just be honest and we'll all on bootcamp Windows 10, go casual or /quityourass.

BlueRaven · October 2019

Jeth wrote: »

Active ESO App

I have 7 other processes claiming to use 64GB of physical memory also with only one instance of ESO running. WTH?

Seriously, if you're gonna do such a *** job at Mac support just be honest and we'll all on bootcamp Windows 10, go casual or /quityourass.

I take it you are having the same issue?

Update: I tried turning off all of my out of date adding, still same issues.

Jeth · October 2019

BlueRaven wrote: »

Jeth wrote: »

Active ESO App

I have 7 other processes claiming to use 64GB of physical memory also with only one instance of ESO running. WTH?

Seriously, if you're gonna do such a *** job at Mac support just be honest and we'll all on bootcamp Windows 10, go casual or /quityourass.

I take it you are having the same issue?

Update: I tried turning off all of my out of date adding, still same issues.

The problem I have is a game sees my machine having 64GB of RAM and wants to take it all 8 times over. I do have 64GB of RAM and if I had a TB of RAM they'd do the same and I'd crash that much faster because I don't own 10 TB of SSD storage.

BlueRaven · October 2019

Jeth wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

Jeth wrote: »

Active ESO App

I have 7 other processes claiming to use 64GB of physical memory also with only one instance of ESO running. WTH?

Seriously, if you're gonna do such a *** job at Mac support just be honest and we'll all on bootcamp Windows 10, go casual or /quityourass.

I take it you are having the same issue?

Update: I tried turning off all of my out of date adding, still same issues.

BlueRaven wrote: »

Jeth wrote: »

Active ESO App

I have 7 other processes claiming to use 64GB of physical memory also with only one instance of ESO running. WTH?

Seriously, if you're gonna do such a *** job at Mac support just be honest and we'll all on bootcamp Windows 10, go casual or /quityourass.

I take it you are having the same issue?

Update: I tried turning off all of my out of date adding, still same issues.

BlueRaven wrote: »

Jeth wrote: »

Active ESO App

I have 7 other processes claiming to use 64GB of physical memory also with only one instance of ESO running. WTH?

Seriously, if you're gonna do such a *** job at Mac support just be honest and we'll all on bootcamp Windows 10, go casual or /quityourass.

I take it you are having the same issue?

Update: I tried turning off all of my out of date adding, still same issues.

The problem I have is a game sees my machine having 64GB of RAM and wants to take it all 8 times over. I do have 64GB of RAM and if I had a TB of RAM they'd do the same and I'd crash that much faster because I don't own 10 TB of SSD storage.

Yeah. I think my problem is related...

Here is a picture of the activity monitor AFTER I had one of those "crash to login" moments. When it only seems to be running in the background and I can hear it, but it does not appear to be open in any conventional way.

260+% of my CPU?

90% of my GPU?

I am not too knowledgeable of how computers work, but I am going to guess this is not normal?

upquark · October 2019

BlueRaven wrote: »

@upquark

I have found that using the "Activity Monitor" application (located in the applications --> utility folder) can help close out the application that seems to still be playing mysteriously in the background.

Open up the activity monitor, go to the CPU tab, find "eso" that should be still running, double click on it, then choose quit.

It's not helping with the odd crashes, but at least you do not have to restart.

(In case anyone was wondering, the "eso" app was not showing up in the force quit menu.)

That’s what I’ve been doing, but forgot to post it here. Thanks for doing it.

BlueRaven · October 2019

Update: Since the hotfix this morning I have only hd one "crash to system login screen" issue. And this time ESO crashed(quit?) on it's own so I did not have to use my activity monitor to close it.

So it's getting better, I guess?

upquark · October 2019

I think you may be right @BlueRaven

I had the same thing last night. One crash to sys login and no ghost music!

Woohoo? Maybe? Cautious "woohoo."

BlueRaven · October 2019

I did not post it but I had another later on. I tried to log back in and it went right to the login window again.

I restarted the Mac and so far so good.

So it’s still better then last night but it definitely needs some work.

BlueRaven · October 2019

With the new patch, so far so good. But I am having long load screens (Livable) and some very serious lag spikes (even when not in combat).

BlueRaven · October 2019

So it just happened again. I went from grahtwood to southern elsweyr, and during the load screen I crashed to my system login window. I can hear the game still running, people riding to and from the way shrine, but the game appears closed on my system. I can only detect it is open through the Activity Monitor window.

BlueRaven · October 2019

Hi, It happened again. Porting intoSenechal and I crashed during the load screen.

I am going to just stop updating as I feel no one is really paying attention to this thread.

Jeth · November 2019

Upgraded to Mac OS 10.15.1 and it's gotten worse. Any toons I have in South Elweyr are effectively stranded because each time I try to log in it crashes my whole Mac user session and I return to the Mac login screen. Same result as previous random crashes when logging in or zoning into South Elsweyr.

Perhaps don't update your Macs.

BlueRaven · November 2019

Jeth wrote: »

Upgraded to Mac OS 10.15.1 and it's gotten worse. Any toons I have in South Elweyr are effectively stranded because each time I try to log in it crashes my whole Mac user session and I return to the Mac login screen. Same result as previous random crashes when logging in or zoning into South Elsweyr.

Perhaps don't update your Macs.

My specs are similar.

macOS Catalina
Version 10.15.1

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017)
Processor 4.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
Memory 32 GB 2400 MHz DDR4
Graphics Radeon Pro 575 4 GB

Jeth · November 2019

Hey ZOS,

Why not next time you decide to do huge ass graphics API overhaul, you pick the Windows player base? You'll get far more participation with feedback and diverse system requirements. I'm certain it'll improve the quality of the product you GO
F'n LIVE WITH!

In the mean time, I'm taking your lack of candor, response, and motivation to mean that your Mac support extends to those who Bootcamp Windows 10.

Respectfully as possible,
Jeth

BlueRaven · November 2019

Yeah, I am a bit surprised there is no "We are aware of the issue and working out a solution" or " Can you give us more Information about..." type response.

Is anyone from Zos reading this? Are we on our own here?

BlueRaven · November 2019

I have decided to take a break from eso partially because of this crash issue.

Has this been resolved yet?

BlueRaven · November 2019

It has NOT been resolved yet.

I just had the crash going from one summerset location to another.

/sigh

BlueRaven · December 2019

Just posting to say this is still happening.

FierceSam · March 2020

Yup crash to log in still going strong

And ZOS still send emails detailing Mac advice from 2017....

thedavidventer · May 2020

The same just happened to me. I started questing in Northern Elsweyr. After accepting the first quest, the game crashed to desktop. I restarted it and was immediately logged out of my user account as soon as I logged into the game. Logging back into my user account I could still hear the game sound in the background even though the game was not open. I did find 'eso' in Activity Monitor though and force-quit it from there - that made the game sound stop.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_BillE @ZOS_KaiSchober @ZOS_AntonioP @ZOS_AntonioP @ZOS_JessicaFolsom Please fix this, and also the issues listed on the State of ESO on Mac forum tread here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/508005/state-of-eso-on-the-mac-2020#latest

BlueRaven · May 2020

I am still getting this issue as well. Sometimes it take me multiple system restarts to get past it.

I contacted customer service about this issue. My adventure in this I talked about in a forum thread;

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/517450/zoss-internal-communication-could-be-better#latest

To sum up I discussed it here on the forums thinking something could be done about it.

A moderator contacted me and told me to contact customer service. Even though there was a lot things talked about it on the forums, I had to relay all of this through emails to the agent.

The agent then told me to report it as a bug. (Why the customer service agent could not report it was a bit of a surprise.) But I did and ran into a bunch of issues.

In the very limited space given, I had to;

•Convey what the problem was.
•How I tried to fix it.
•The specs of my computer.
•The relevant forum posts.
•And the relevant customer support numbers.

So I had to skip over a lot.

And after submitting it, I was reminded that I would NOT be contacted.

It felt a bit like they were just trying to throw the problem away into a black hole.

Very disappointing.

thedavidventer · May 2020

I wish ZOS would add three more positions/listings to their posted jobs:

1: A developer specialising in macOS API’s and integration to fix the fullscreen/resolution/gamepad/memory/crash issues.

2: A community manager with macOS experience to give us feedback and keep us updated on macOS related issues. Or support staff that respond to macOS support queries instead of just saying file a bug report (which won’t be responded to and receives no mention or fix in the PTS).

3: A dedicated QA macOS game tester.

And also, for the ZOS team to actually play on macOS themselves (with a controller) and to see while the game does work it’s full of really frustrating and debilitating issues that can easily be fixed when consulting the Apple Developer knowledge base (Fullscreen and GameKit API’s etc.) or hiring someone with proper macOS experience to fix it.

If they do this right, they could even get ESO listed on the macOS App Store and get a serious influx of new players from a community that’s known to spend more than the average user. Why is macOS not a priority?

The current macOS integration is so buggy that Steam overlay doesn’t even work. We can’t buy crowns while in-game.

I really love this game but please, for Mara’s sake, fix it! Or at least give us some acknowledgement here in the official "Customer Support" forums. Thanks.

thedavidventer · May 2020

This happened to me again today upon teleporting to Southern Elsweyr. Never actually arrived. Loading screen from Wayshrine port popped up, then froze, then I got logged out. Could still hear game sounds after logging back in to my macOS user account. Had to force quit ESO in activity monitor again before I could relaunch it.

BlueRaven · May 2020

Southern elsweyr is a particular issue with me as well. Northern is less of a problem as is the greymoor chapter.

Everywhere else is fine.

I think there was some coding change starting with the elsweyr chapters and it’s just going to keep happening.

thedavidventer · June 2020

This appears to have been fixed (for me at least) with the latest update, playing on an iMac (Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, 2017) running macOS Catalina 10.15.5. I've quested in Northern Elsweyr, Southern Elsweyr and Western Skyrim without any random logouts or crashes. The occasional in-game stuttering/freezing/tearing in the newer zones have also stopped.
Thank you ZOS. I'm looking forward to more macOS game client fixes (fullscreen / resolution / controller input) coming soon!

BlueRaven · June 2020

@thedavidventer Thats interesting because I am still having issues. I got the login screen three times yesterday (each time in Solitude).

Did you change any settings?