Explorer.exe restart after PTS quit

tim77

win 7 - nvidia

yep, it made it to live.
explorer crashes and gets restarted. desktop icons are messed up.

Seravi

Same for me after installing High Isle 6/6/22. WIN 7 Ultimate. Explorer.exe resets and crashes my sound, cooling fan software and system monitor software. Video crashes on occasion. Not acceptable ZOS. Please take this seriously and help! We have been dealing with this issue for months now. Browser issues like can't run Chrome, Steam and other software started in March. The "fix" was to reset the desktop. Sorry that is a sad fix and no game should be stopping explorer.exe, EVER! There is a reason it is there and has the protocols it does. When you take it down...well your programmers can fill you in on what can happen at that point.

I don't use addons, never have and I don't have the PTS installed, just the game.

davidtk

Can please @ZOS_GinaBruno or @ZOS_Kevin provide some information about this issue? It started be annoying at PTS patches now that issue went to LIVE and for other OS game freeze on close is weird too. Its about 3s stuck (btw i just closing game with Alt+F4 and no freeze).
But explorer.exe crashing or reseting is unacceptable especialy when Windows 7 is still supported by the game.
Thank you.

Seravi

Kevin posted this on my thread in the General Forum:

"Update: Hi Everyone, we want to follow up on the issue Windows 7 users are having with explorer.exe where it closes unexpectedly after quitting ESO. This is a known issue with Windows 7, related to necessary security settings in ESO. As a result of maintaining these security setting to protect players, this issue will continue to persist with ESO on Windows 7 for the foreseeable future. We understand the Explorer.exe issue is frustrating for ESO Players on Windows 7. However, it is paramount that we keep these security settings enabled in order to ensure a safe experience for all ESO players. "

davidtk

@Seravi Thank you for update about this issue on Se7en.
I just don't understand what security setting in ESO. New or changed anticheat?
Anyway i hope that they will found some way for fix or workaround for this issue.

Seravi

My ticket was passed around several layers of support. They just closed it again. Said there is nothing they can do. I think ZOS needs to chime in here. Why didn't the fix get pushed to Live?

Xinihp

I am using Windows 10 and this is causing my system to blackscreen anytime I launch ESO. You guys either need to get a better anti-cheat provider or find a way to integrate it that doesn't involve unsafe hardware access.

I have updated my video drivers, switched fan control software, disabled low level access for said fan control software, and the problem persists. This is not happening in any other far more demanding game.

If I physically cut power to the computer and reboot, the system runs fine. The second I launch ESO, it becomes unstable and will crash the video interface within minutes. Everything is still working in the background. I can jump with my character and hear them jumping on my speakers.

Sorry but this is simply not acceptable guys. Something has to be done to address this!

@ZOS_GinaBruno

tim77

Yeah it's really annoying and weird.
Why does ESO crash the Explorer when you close ESO? It doesnt make any sense to me. And never ever saw a software with such a bug where the developer just said: "deal with it, it's nessessary to crash some windows programs.".

My guess is, they just dont find the issue but dont want to admit.

However, i made a small batch file which i saved as "kill_ESO.cmd" with the content:

taskkill /IM eso64.exe /t /f
taskkill /IM Bethesda.net_Launcher.exe /t /f

I log out to character screen to save the SavedVariables and then call this script, so the Explorer doesnt crash.

Its kinda funny, the way to stop ESO crashing my Explorer is crashing ESO from Explorer. They need a couples therapy.
.

Jaraal

tim77 wrote: »

Why does ESO crash the Explorer when you close ESO? It doesnt make any sense to me. And never ever saw a software with such a bug where the developer just said: "deal with it, it's nessessary to crash some windows programs.".

Could be that they are looking to see if any cheat programs are being crashed on the explorer reset. They did say we have to "deal with it" for security reasons.

tim77

Jaraal wrote: »

Could be that they are looking to see if any cheat programs are being crashed on the explorer reset.

then they should do it when i start ESO, not when i end ESO. When i end, it's too late. ^^

Jaraal wrote: »

They did say we have to "deal with it" for security reasons.

thats exactly the part, i dont really believe. And even if so... you are saying a simple batchscript with a windows command line "taskkill /IM eso64.exe /t /f" can disable their "cheat security protection" (because it doesnt crash explorer any more) and they hope that the hackers dont know DOS or this command and only use Win7 and Win7 upgraded PC's?

Olauron

tim77 wrote: »

However, i made a small batch file which i saved as "kill_ESO.cmd" with the content:

taskkill /IM eso64.exe /t /f

I don't have crashing explorer (on Chapter release, there was a problem with PTS), but I kill ESO process from task manager just to be on the safe side.

Jaraal

tim77 wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

Could be that they are looking to see if any cheat programs are being crashed on the explorer reset.

then they should do it when i start ESO, not when i end ESO. When i end, it's too late. ^^

Jaraal wrote: »

They did say we have to "deal with it" for security reasons.

thats exactly the part, i dont really believe. And even if so... you are saying a simple batchscript with a windows command line "taskkill /IM eso64.exe /t /f" can disable their "cheat security protection" (because it doesnt crash explorer any more) and they hope that the hackers dont know DOS or this command and only use Win7 and Win7 upgraded PC's?

No I would guess they have some kind of event logger that can see what programs were shut down by the explorer restart. Not to prevent the cheat programs from working, but to gather information on what processes were running on your computer. If hacking programs were detected, then it would be easier to flag the account for closer monitoring.

Seravi

I will never believe there is some program out there with the intended consequence of allowing a game to restart explorer.exe. That can and most likely will corrupt your OS. I've had times where ESO completely killed my desktop. So much fun trying to get your system back without a desktop.

Remember Bethesda did the same thing to Fallout76. They are left with the browser issue since no one has thrown this amazing "fix" for the browser issue to the Fallout community.

@tim77 ZOS did say we have to "live with it" in my post: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/606877/bug-desktop-reset-after-log-out-explorer-exe-ticket-220609-001799/p1

From ZOS_Kevin: Update: Hi Everyone, we want to follow up on the issue Windows 7 users are having with explorer.exe where it closes unexpectedly after quitting ESO. This is a known issue with Windows 7, related to necessary security settings in ESO. As a result of maintaining these security setting to protect players, this issue will continue to persist with ESO on Windows 7 for the foreseeable future. We understand the Explorer.exe issue is frustrating for ESO Players on Windows 7. However, it is paramount that we keep these security settings enabled in order to ensure a safe experience for all ESO players.

I also have tickets with the same wording telling me they cannot discuss this and there is nothing they can or will do about it.

Sorry but I will never believe this is some type of "security" for the game. It is an issue they created and no one knows how to fix it.