Explorer.exe restart after PTS quit

Maitsukas

Alrighty, I tested it just now and today's patch fixed the crashing!

Dovahkiin02191973

Fixed an issue where the Windows Explorer process could get restarted when closing the client, causing screen flicker.

The above was taken from the Patch Notes. Looks like they fixed it. Going to reinstall the PTS right now.

Thank you ZOS for this before it went live.

davidtk

Okay,
Update started. I will test it too. But I am realy glad that they fixed it before live launch.

Edit: Okay, I tried launch it to login screen and close client. Nothing happened, so it is fixed, nice
Thank you @ZOS_Kevin that you read our topic and dev team fixed it.

RaddlemanNumber7

"causing screen flicker"

So, all that other stuff was just our imaginations LOL

Dovahkiin02191973

They just didn't want to come completely clean with what it really was to everyone so they just chose to say screen flicker. We all know this issue messed around with our operating systems. Don't get me wrong. I am happy that it is fixed but it is typical of a company to hide the real issues like this to avoid the bad PR.

Dovahkiin02191973

Ok - I have tested it and everything is as it should be. Hopefully this will be a lesson learned by ZOS. They have to put up with a lot bull here in the forums but this issue was very serious impacting every player so coming down hard on them was warranted. I am glad that we can now put this behind us and move forward.

Tandor

Just to be clear. The problem with explorer restarting was caused by a fix to the issue preventing Chrome-based applications from running after ESO was active. Has that initial problem also been fixed or have ZOS simply removed the fix for it that caused the explorer issue but in doing so have reinstated the initial problem?

I'll do my own test but it would be useful to get multiple experiences, especially from those running Windows 7 as that was the OS experiencing the initial problem together with Windows 10 upgrades from Windows 7.

Tandor

Dovahkiin02191973 wrote: »

Ok - I have tested it and everything is as it should be. Hopefully this will be a lesson learned by ZOS. They have to put up with a lot bull here in the forums but this issue was very serious impacting every player so coming down hard on them was warranted. I am glad that we can now put this behind us and move forward.

True, but this was a Bethesda-wide problem seemingly, in that the issue resolved today was a fix to a problem affecting Fallout 76 as well as ESO. See my previous post above as to the outstanding question of whether we can indeed put this behind us or whether they have simply removed a fix to a previous problem without also resolving that problem.

Tandor

Either way, of course, today's patch was only on the PTS so that the original problem still remains on the Live servers.

EDIT: Having run the new PTS patch twice now on my Windows 7 machine (which is supported by 0patch), it seems to have fixed the original problem still in that I can run my Chrome-based applications after running the PTS, but on both occasions ESO failed to close down normally after quitting. Both times resulted in a black screen with the "quit game" and left margin options starting with "resume" still visible over the black screen, before the desktop appeared normally on the first attempt albeit with the standard message about ESO not closing normally, but with a delayed appearance of the desktop icons (but no message) on the second attempt.

Dovahkiin02191973

After and evening of testing. I agree, something is still there. While I don't know about Windows 7, my Windows 11 still has trouble quitting the game. The character screen stays up a bit longer than it should. As far as I can tell though it is not killing system tray icons and all that it was doing before today's maintenance so I am not going to jump on ZOS about it. Maybe this is the way the game is going to exit from now on. As long as it is not killing parts of my OS I am not going to complain about it.

davidtk

Interesting how PTS work on almost identical machines.
With wife we have almost same HW.
Ryzen 5 3600, 16gb ram, b450 gaming plus mobo, Win10 but she have gtx1060 and I have rx6500xt.
My PTS will quit immediately without any problem, no screen reset, everything up in systray.
Wife's PTS freeze for 2s on char screen after she clicked on quit button, no screen reset no msi afterburner quit or something.
But our friend had no problem at all with previous versions but I don't know his PC specs.

Seravi

I really hope the desktop restart is fixed. Is the original browser issue fixed now?

Did the update fix the system fan software issue some had?

RaddlemanNumber7

Updated to PTS 8.0.4. When I logged out of PTS it appeared to behave normally. Task bar didn't restart, nothing got closed in the system tray, Focus Assist preferences were not changed. Looks like it's fixed, at least for the cheapo Home and Garden version of Windows 10 I'm running.

SnowP

PTS 8.0.4 is still killing exporer.exe on my Windows 7 x64 pro system on exit.
Will have to adopt a process to kill eso64.exe instead of exiting the game.
Maybe they added a system version check instead of removing the dirty workaround.

Dovahkiin02191973

My PC is a Windows 7 machine however I have updated my OS every time a new Windows was released. Windows 7 died the year this game was born so all those who continue to use Windows 7 do so at their own risk. Microsoft won't even help you if you call them up with a Windows 7 issue. Windows 8 from what I understand is out the door sometime next year followed by Windows 10 in a couple of more years. That's Microsoft and the ever changing world of technology and computers. Wish it could all be simplified to one OS forever but that is not the way it is. Microsoft even said Windows 10 would be the final but nope they went ahead and made an 11. I am using 11 and the only issue left over from whatever this was that ZOS did is a couple of seconds longer in the exiting process which I can deal with.

radiostar

If min specs require Win7, then ESO should run on Win7 without affecting the OS. Or change the specs to the latest version of Win.

Dovahkiin02191973

I agree with that. If Windows 7 is no longer supporting the game fully it should be removed from the minimum specs list. Originally the game support Direct X 9.0c then ZOS bumped the game up to Direct X 11 being required as the technology to run their graphics improved and now to me that is out of date. ESO is not a pretty game to look at even in High settings. It needs a total graphics over haul in my opinion. I mean no matter what you have under the hood of your PC you have textures that phase in and out when you get close enough to see them especially on an NPC or another player.

davidtk

Yea agree, if they support only DX11 so all can be improved, include player char model. For someone is it okay but for me that low poly model is awfull...
And about Win7 too, if is no longer fully supported by the game so it should not be in min specs.
But DX11 only support is after recent patch. So maybe soon will be Win7 removed. Or who knows.... Seven was great OS i loved it...

Tandor

Dovahkiin02191973 wrote: »

My PC is a Windows 7 machine however I have updated my OS every time a new Windows was released. Windows 7 died the year this game was born so all those who continue to use Windows 7 do so at their own risk. Microsoft won't even help you if you call them up with a Windows 7 issue. Windows 8 from what I understand is out the door sometime next year followed by Windows 10 in a couple of more years. That's Microsoft and the ever changing world of technology and computers. Wish it could all be simplified to one OS forever but that is not the way it is. Microsoft even said Windows 10 would be the final but nope they went ahead and made an 11. I am using 11 and the only issue left over from whatever this was that ZOS did is a couple of seconds longer in the exiting process which I can deal with.

Windows 7 is still officially supported by Microsoft. It amazes me that people who claim to advise others on such things aren't aware of that. Free support is not available, that is the only change. Even as a home user you can buy extended support from Microsoft, and while that comes at a significant cost such support - arguable better support - is also available from 0patch at a very much lower cost.

However, the present problems when quitting the PTS client aren't restricted to Windows 7 users, as everyone will find out if and when the existing PTS client is patched to the Live servers without a proper fix for this issue.

Meanwhile, regardless of the position with Microsoft, Windows 7 remains the officially recommended operating system for ESO as per the website.

davidtk

Interesting I thought that you can buy extended support only as a company.
But still... I have Win10 and problem is fixed... I don't know about 8, 8.1 or 11 why they don't fixed it for se7en?

ZOS_Kevin

Thanks for to those who are providing feedback on PTS no longer crashing their system. For those who are still experiencing issues, please let us know what operating system you are using. We have noted some of you are using Win7. We can take that feedback to the team to address. Thanks, all.

Dovahkiin02191973

@ZOS_Kevin - I am on Windows 11 and the only issue left over that I see is a 2 or 3 second pause upon quitting the game. Some folks are reporting much more than that on other operating systems. So it seems to me there are still left over problems with this and depending on what you have you get different results. We appreciate the team looking into all of this for everyone regardless of their system as if the problems make it live a lot of people are not going to be happy and there will be a lot of fallout from this.

Jaraal

I'm on a Windows 10 rig and I get this every single time I exit the game on live:

Dovahkiin02191973

This must be part of the original issue that Tandor has been talking about that existed on live before it moved to the PTS and got worse. Thank you for the screen shot. I have never seen it but this gives me a better understanding of the original issue. What I get now is a 2 to 3 second pause with the character screen frozen upon exit on the PTS. My live game has not had any of the issues. So being that I have never seen it until now I didn't have a really good understanding of what the game is doing.

Tandor

Dovahkiin02191973 wrote: »

This must be part of the original issue that Tandor has been talking about that existed on live before it moved to the PTS and got worse. Thank you for the screen shot. I have never seen it but this gives me a better understanding of the original issue. What I get now is a 2 to 3 second pause with the character screen frozen upon exit on the PTS. My live game has not had any of the issues. So being that I have never seen it until now I didn't have a really good understanding of what the game is doing.

Just to clarify, the original problem was on the PTS prior to UD33 and related to the inability to run Chrome-based applications after running the PTS. It was pretty much restricted to Windows 7 and those Windows 10 machines that had been upgraded from Windows 7. It went to the live servers with the release of UD33.

A fix of sorts was then applied to the PTS prior to UD34 and that cured the original problem but at the cost of forcing the restart of explorer.exe with all manner of consequential issues when exiting the game, and this has occurred across different versions of Windows including 7, 10 and 11 as evidenced in this thread. For some it just causes brief pauses, for others it causes hard crashes. If it isn't fully fixed in time then either the fix to the original issue needs to be removed, or else if that isn't practical for some reason then UP34 needs to be delayed until it is fully fixed.

Dovahkiin02191973

Thanks for the clarification. So much has been posted about this and I have never had it on live so I got confused. Ok so original issue was on PTS prior to Update 33 and affected Chrome based applications after exit on Windows 7 and upgraded machines.

That explains why I never saw it at that point. My machine is clean installed.

Then a fix that was not quite the fix it needed to be was applied to the PTS prior to Update 34 which fixed the original problem but broke the Explorer.exe and that is when I saw the issue.

I bet my live game doesn't have any issues as my OS is clean installed but the PTS remains broken to an extent after the last patch but not as bad as it was prior with every OS getting different results.

Anyways it is more clear to me now. I was like hey my live game is working just fine and others are not and my PTS is still somewhat broken with different results coming in from different players with different rigs and I am like ZOS what did you do? I have a bad feeling that it is going to end up as it is now on Launch date. If it does I will be playing other games until they get it sorted.

davidtk

I can say for myself that I don't have any problem on my Win 10 Pro 21H1 build 19043.1706.

MAYBE that 1-3 second freeze after clicking QUIT button. But i can't say if I had it before or not.

Seravi

I don't have PTS installed but I just installed High Isle. My desktop resets every time I log out of the game. Seriously????? I am on WIN 7.

davidtk

That is not good.
@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin Can you please forward this to some devs? I thought that they fixed this issue.
And about freeze... Yes THERE IS about 3s freeze after closing the game on LIVE.

Xinihp

Windows 10. Latest updates and NVIDIA driver. Exiting the current PTS/live client crashes/force restarts Windows Explorer, which causes ASUS fan control software that ships with ASUS video cards to become corrupt, and leads to a complete crash of the video driver requiring a hard (hold power button) reboot of the machine to resolve.

With the current PTS and soon to be Live client, you need to kill ESO with Task Manager to avoid completely crashing your machine!