Anyone Else Crashing When Switching Characters?

NeuroticPixels

75% of the time, I crash during a loading screen when switching characters. Whether it’s logging out to the character selection screen, or logging in after selecting a different character. I get the error popup window and it forces me to close ESO.

It’s really making doing my daily writs and such a big pain.

Anyone else experiencing crashes when trying to switch characters?
Has anyone found anything that helps?

abakzn

My crashes always disappear when I update to stable version of my graphics drivers, make sure you switch optional off in the automatic update settings.

NeuroticPixels

abakzn wrote: »

My crashes always disappear when I update to stable version of my graphics drivers, make sure you switch optional off in the automatic update settings.

Yep, I’m good there. Thanks for the response though.

I_killed_Vivec

Every single day!

It's been going on for so long I've started a (admittedly one-way) conversation in the crash reports. Maybe somewhere there's some poor intern dev who's been handed a bundle of crash reports all linked to crashes when switching between characters and told to fix it... and maybe my comments will put a smile on their face and make the task seem a little less daunting.

Though it's been going on for a while, so I suspect nobody is looking at the issue...

Sarannah

Haven't had any issues, but this seems like a driver or too high settings issue. Maybe the files on your harddrive are corrupted somehow, perform a repair.

And if you use an SSD, wait atleast 10 seconds after closing ANY program, before rebooting or shutting off your computer. If this is the issue and you do this for a few days, the problem will fix itself, as windows will notice the SSD didn't finish moving files and will autofix it. (Edit: After this works, keep doing the 10 seconds thing forever!)

Taggund

Happens 2-3 times a day switching between characters for daily writs and mount training (for my new alts). Usually happens right after they loaded, not during load screen.

Sarannah

Taggund wrote: »

Happens 2-3 times a day switching between characters for daily writs and mount training (for my new alts). Usually happens right after they loaded, not during load screen.

If you crash right after loading, it seems most likely that some of the textures are not loading well. Or at all. This issue can most likely be resolved the same way, as the OP's issue. See my suggestions in the above reply. Though the repair option would be most likely to work, if I had to guess.

Taggund

Sarannah wrote: »

Taggund wrote: »

Happens 2-3 times a day switching between characters for daily writs and mount training (for my new alts). Usually happens right after they loaded, not during load screen.

If you crash right after loading, it seems most likely that some of the textures are not loading well. Or at all. This issue can most likely be resolved the same way, as the OP's issue. See my suggestions in the above reply. Though the repair option would be most likely to work, if I had to guess.

Repair options have been done many times for various other ESO issues (like after the patch that that gave many launcher issues). I suspect it is more a sync issue when loading characters in relatively quick succession, but it is just an annoyance and I'll just keep hitting submit on the error popup.

Sarannah

Hopefully you guys can get this resolved!

blktauna

I get errored out on initial load and on character change far too often after u33, and my load screens have been horrific.

ncallstar88

Yup it’s a feature to help cool down your cpu

NeuroticPixels

Sarannah wrote: »

Haven't had any issues, but this seems like a driver or too high settings issue.

Driver should be good. It’s the most up-to-date driver through GEForce Experience nvidia app. Also tried changing some things in the Nvidia Control Panel with no success. Also tried all these different settings in the UserSettings.txt for the game that I found all over the internet that is supposed to help with performance. No luck.

But it’s not really “performance”. I have a 2k monitor at 165hz, 1ms GtG. I’m almost always over 100 FPS in game. Sometimes around 80 fps in cities. This is with V-sync turned on, and also G-sync. Most game video settings are ultra, or maxed, except particles and particle distances which are always really low, but I’ve tried turning several things down more than my eyes can handle (eeewwww), and it didn’t help with crashing when switching characters.

I’ve also run a repair on the game and tried deleting the shader cache for the game to remake. Didn’t help.

I’ll try a repair on all my SSDs just for good measure, but I have a feeling it won’t help.

Sarannah

NeuroticPixels wrote: »

Sarannah wrote: »

Haven't had any issues, but this seems like a driver or too high settings issue.

Driver should be good. It’s the most up-to-date driver through GEForce Experience nvidia app. Also tried changing some things in the Nvidia Control Panel with no success. Also tried all these different settings in the UserSettings.txt for the game that I found all over the internet that is supposed to help with performance. No luck.

But it’s not really “performance”. I have a 2k monitor at 165hz, 1ms GtG. I’m almost always over 100 FPS in game. Sometimes around 80 fps in cities. This is with V-sync turned on, and also G-sync. Most game video settings are ultra, or maxed, except particles and particle distances which are always really low, but I’ve tried turning several things down more than my eyes can handle (eeewwww), and it didn’t help with crashing when switching characters.

I’ve also run a repair on the game and tried deleting the shader cache for the game to remake. Didn’t help.

I’ll try a repair on all my SSDs just for good measure, but I have a feeling it won’t help.

Try disabling GeForce experience completely, and than run the game. Just to see if that is the issue.

And you do not have to repair your SSD, you just need to wait atleast 10 seconds after closing any program(stare at desktop), before you reboot or shut down your computer. If you do that consistently, and if this is the problem, the issue should fix itself in a few days. The more often you run ESO, the quicker it is fixed. As the SSD will notice which files it was moving, and finish moving them. (You should always wait those 10 seconds though, even after the issue is fixed)
SSD's silently and automatically re-arrange the fileorder on the drive, this makes them much faster than regular drives. But if that process is interrupted, due to shutting down for example, this makes the files seem corrupt to the program that you ran. (Note: They are not corrupted, just no longer completely there) For regular programs that isn't an issue, but it in the case of ESO it causes ESO to crash, as it can't load the complete file. This was actually my issue when I first played ESO, I often kept crashing on character select every time as well.

Goodluck!

zaria

Had it on and off on pc-eu, rarely now but for times it been standard then doing writs typically after doing main.
It might pop up from time to time then switching alts for some task like tanking.

Ragnarok0130

I had it for a while after update 33 but I repaired the game and updated my drivers and the problem sorted itself. That problem really is bothersome I hope you sort it soon OP!

Troodon80

I intermittently crash when logging out (I think I've only ever had a crash while logging in once or twice in all the years I've been playing). It happens maybe once or twice in a week. Other times if I get a crash while relogging for writs, every subsequent character will also crash. I've found nothing that helps, but I always press the submit button on the report dialog and give a brief description of what I was doing or what I could see (if anything). It's not addon related, I've tested by disabling all my addons. I've done all the usual things like updating my drivers, re-installing my drivers fresh, etc.

Given some of the previous patches fix things like a "crash when logging out while someone else is consuming a food item," I'm going to assume most of my crashes are similar issues. Unsure about your issue as it sounds quite a bit worse than anything I've experienced.

ArchangelIsraphel

Yep, I'm getting weird crashes when logging out almost daily, making doing my daily crafting a bit of a pain. It tends to be on very specific characters too. My female Khajiit, my argonian, and my altmer necromancer have been the most likely to crash on log out for some reason. I really don't know why.

It did become less frequent when I uninstalled a part of the Razer Synapse app that runs the drivers to my headset- specifically Razer Chroma Connect, which connects to eso to switch the color of the LED's to the character's alliance color. Are you running any devices that might connect to eso similarly?

AvalonRanger

I'm in PC-NA server. But never meet those bugs.

merpins

At least once a day, if not more than once. Logging back in doesn't take much more than an extra 15 or 20 seconds, so it doesn't bug me too much, but it's a little annoying that it hasn't been fixed. Course it's low on my priority things I'd want fixed.

Ragnork

Getting it as well.
One of the recent patches was supposed to cure the problem. For me it made no difference.

NeuroticPixels

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

It did become less frequent when I uninstalled a part of the Razer Synapse app that runs the drivers to my headset- specifically Razer Chroma Connect

Funny you mention that. I just disabled that app from starting when Windows starts. Well, the app that contains the “Connect” part. I always had the option in Connect turned off, but I decided since Synapse runs separately, i didn’t need that other app running. Just seems like bloatware.
But alas, even after a computer restart, I still crashed when switching characters.

Tomorrow, I’m looking in to slightly overclocking my CPU to see if it helps. If not, I’ll try underclocking it. I already tried overclocking and underclocking my GPU, and neither way helped.

Running out of options. Starting to wonder if this is a similar problem like in a recent thread about the game stuttering, since I also have that issue sometimes. Seems newer/more powerful CPUs are facing issues and players with older CPUs are fine.

FeedbackOnly

Check if you have latest

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist?view=msvc-170

I know someone who had this exact same problem for months. If that's not it I would check other drivers, not just graphics.

ArchangelIsraphel

NeuroticPixels wrote: »

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

It did become less frequent when I uninstalled a part of the Razer Synapse app that runs the drivers to my headset- specifically Razer Chroma Connect

Funny you mention that. I just disabled that app from starting when Windows starts. Well, the app that contains the “Connect” part. I always had the option in Connect turned off, but I decided since Synapse runs separately, i didn’t need that other app running. Just seems like bloatware.
But alas, even after a computer restart, I still crashed when switching characters.

Tomorrow, I’m looking in to slightly overclocking my CPU to see if it helps. If not, I’ll try underclocking it. I already tried overclocking and underclocking my GPU, and neither way helped.

Running out of options. Starting to wonder if this is a similar problem like in a recent thread about the game stuttering, since I also have that issue sometimes. Seems newer/more powerful CPUs are facing issues and players with older CPUs are fine.

Try going into the Razer Synapse app and totally uninstalling chroma connect. It can be uninstalled separately from the other parts of the driver under the "modules" section. Unfortunately, disabling it by any other means doesn't actually disable it. I discovered its a rather invasive part of the driver that will automatically re-enable itself every time you log in and out of a character, even if you quit it from the task manager or tell the task manager not to run it. Disabling it from starting when windows start didn't stop it from turning back on when I used my headphones later that day during gameplay.

LalMirchi

I'm on Mac (the red-headed stepchild ) and crash at least once per session, mostly when logging out a character.

I have chosen to send the crash reports to Apple in the hope that they will be forwarded to the developer. Most of the crashes result in this error:

Exception Type:        EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes:       KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000000000000
Exception Codes:       0x0000000000000001, 0x0000000000000000
Exception Note:        EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Termination Reason:    Namespace SIGNAL, Code 11 Segmentation fault: 11
Terminating Process:   exc handler [21979]

Truncated to show the relevant code. I'm running an Intel Mac with 32GB memory and the latest up to date OS, Monterey.

themaddaedra

I'm doing my writs now and every single time i try to switch characters i'm being thrown to my desktop. It's almost like the game is confusing log out to quit.

blktauna

Yes I always crash on logout on PCEU and only most of the time on PCNA

TaSheen

Uh.... no. Not even on PC EU.

Rishikesa108

I often crash when changing characters. A character logs in... in the next 20 seconds I have to wait... without pressing any key on the keyboard. Pressing the keys makes things worse. Sometime the character crashes anyway. And:
1) During the first 10 minutes after logging in, the character suffers freeze frames.
2) The same freezes occur when I approach the jewelry crafting station, the bank or the vendor.
During these freeze frames I absolutely have to avoid pressing keys on the keyboard, otherwise I will most likely crash.

I have a Nvidia GeForce GTX970, Windows 10 Pro, and I always update drivers and windows.
I've also tried the game's repair... no fix.

I'm going to change my computer ... maybe this problem will solve ?

SydneyGrey

That's happening to me. It's been going on for the past month or so. The game doesn't crash to desktop, but it throws up an error sometimes when I switch characters and it crashes to the main ESO screen, and I have to log into the new character a second time.

FeedbackOnly

Did you resolve it?

NeuroticPixels

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

Did you resolve it?

No. But according to the new patch notes, several crashes are claimed to be fixed. From my understanding, this one I’ve been experiencing might be one of them.
Fingers crossed! We’ll find out over the next few days.