Screen goes black and wont come back while playing ESO

Gern_Verkheart · May 2014

I am at a loss.

This just started happening after the latest patch(1.1.2). I haven't changed any settings or anything, and it doesn't occur with any other games or forms of media.

At completely randoms times while playing ESO, my screen goes completely black and my display acts like it is getting no signal from my computer. I can hear my hard drive spin up as if my computer has been restarted, but the screen never comes back. The only way to fix it has been to do a hard restart with my power button.

As I said, this happens at completely randoms times, sometimes 30 seconds after logging in on a character, sometimes several hours. Sometimes while fighting enemies, sometimes while just looking at items in my bags, or just walking around. Indoors, outdoors, it doesn't matter, and there hasn't been any link with any particular activity in game. And as I said, this only happens with ESO.

I have tried everything. I uninstalled and re-installed the latest drivers (non-beta) for my Graphics card, which is an AMD XFX R7700. I cleaned my PC, and defragged it, and ensured that all other drivers were working correctly and updated. I opened the game in administrator mode. Nothing has worked.

Please, if anyone has any advice (other than "update your drivers" or any other obvious things) I would greatly appreciate it.

Vlakna · May 2014

I do have the same problem. Start happening today. I did everything even lower the graphic settings, defrag, drivers update, scan and no luck. I appreciate some assistance.

Orizuru · May 2014

I've been having this problem. Haven't found a solution yet, but I can tell you in my case what is happening is the video card drivers are crashing.

I haven't had time to review the crash logs to see if it's a driver or client problem though. I'm leaning toward the problem being my display drivers though because I've been getting errors when updating my nvidia drivers.

Gern_Verkheart · May 2014

I repaired my ESO installation, and downloaded the patch that came out today that was supposed to fix the "memory leak" issue, but I am still having this problem.

I just want to repeat that this never occurs while I am playing any other game, nor did it ever occur with ESO before the Craglorn patch. So it seems to me to be a problem with ESO, not my system.

[EDIT]

I just used a stopwatch and timed how much gameplay I had from one crash to the next for several crashes, and it is around 1 hour every time. And that is gameplay; I stopped the timer when I logged out of the game, and started it again when I came back a while later, and it was still around an hour, no matter how long I was logged out. Anyone know what that might mean?

Gern_Verkheart · May 2014

I got an email this morning from support. It told me to go into the file "usersettings.txt" and changed the line SET FULLSCREEN_v5"2" to SET FULLSCREEN_v5"1". However, the line was already set to "1", so if that is their fix, I don't know what to do.

siuolly · May 2014

Same here. Using a Mac client, both my wife and I run ESO on an 2011 iMac and 2014 iMac. Ever since patch 1.1.2, after playing awhile, our screen goes black and logout does not help. We have to EXIT the game and restart to resolve the problem. Our setting for FULLSCREEN_v5 is set to 1 already.

Gern_Verkheart · May 2014

There are two other lines above that one: SET PreferMaximizedWindow "0"
SET PreferExclusiveFullscreen "0". Does anyone think they should be set to one as well?

Gern_Verkheart · May 2014

Well, my previous estimates about this happening like clockwork after 1 hour of gameplay were wrong. My display just crashed again after only 2 minutes of gameplay.

I am completely out of troubleshooting ideas. Please Zenimax, I want to play this game. It's a great game, but as it stands, it is unplayable for me.

PointMaid · June 2014

This has happened to me as well since the Craglorn patch. It is NOT my driver, settings, video card, or hardware. If you hit ctrl+alt+del, your task manager WILL work, and you will get that little window to supply Zenimax with the details of your crash. When you are done filling it out, your machine should return to normal, but until you do, nothing works.

This one needs some prioritizing, IMO.

ZOS_HugoP · June 2014

Greetings folks!

Could you please try the following:

Adjusting the Screen Resolution in the UserSettings File.
The default location of this file is \Users\*USERNAME*\My Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live\UserSettings.

If your native screen resolution is 1080x1920 you need to modify this file as follow:

From
SET FullscreenHeight "0"
SET FullscreenWidth "0"
to
SET FullscreenHeight "1080"
SET FullscreenWidth "1920"

If you don't have any Usersettings.txt file in that folder, please create one (with notepad) and copy/paste the following:
SET MouseRawInput "1"
SET MouseSensitivityFirstPerson "0.50000000"
SET MouseSensitivityThirdPerson "1.28999996"
SET MouseSmoothing "0"
SET InvertMouseWheel "1"
SET InvertMouseY "1"
SET InvertMouseX "1"
SET CachedRLREnabled "1"
SET CachedReflectionResolution "4"
SET CachedShadowFiltering "5"
SET ScreenshotFormat "BMP"
SET PregameGammaCheckEnabled "0"
SET HardwareCheckEnabled.2 "0"
SET SUB_SAMPLING "2"
SET REFLECTION_QUALITY_v3 "2"
SET PARTICLE_DENSITY "3"
SET HIGH_RESOLUTION_SHADOWS "1"
SET SHADOWS "4"
SET GAMMA_ADJUSTMENT "112"
SET VIEW_DISTANCE "1.69000006"
SET GPUSmoothingFrames "10"
SET MIP_LOAD_SKIP_LEVELS "0"
SET RAIN_WETNESS "1"
SET LENS_FLARE "1"
SET GOD_RAYS_v2 "1"
SET ANTI_ALIASING_v2 "1"
SET AMBIENT_OCCLUSION "1"
SET COLOR_GRADING_v1 "0"
SET BLOOM "1"
SET DEPTH_OF_FIELD "1"
SET COLOR_CORRECTION "1"
SET SOFT_ALPHA "1"
SET DISTORTION "1"
SET CHARACTER_LIGHTING "1"
SET DIFFUSE_2_MAPS "1"
SET DETAIL_MAPS "1"
SET NORMAL_MAPS "1"
SET SPECULAR_MAPS "1"
SET CLUTTER_2D "1"
SET SIMPLE_SHADERS "0"
SET WATER_FOAM "1"
SET VSYNC "0"
SET MAX_ANISOTROPY "3"
SET FULLSCREEN_v5 "2"
SET PreferMaximizedWindow "0"
SET FullscreenHeight "0"
SET FullscreenWidth "0"
SET WindowedHeight "768"
SET WindowedWidth "1024"
SET SOUND_ENABLED "1"
SET FOOTSTEPS_VOLUME "50.00000000"
SET FOOTSTEPS_ENABLED "1"
SET SPEAKER_SETUP "0"
SET BACKGROUND_AUDIO "0"
SET VO_VOLUME "70.00000000"
SET VO_ENABLED "1"
SET UI_VOLUME "70.00000000"
SET UI_ENABLED "1"
SET AMBIENT_VOLUME "70.00000000"
SET AMBIENT_ENABLED "1"
SET SFX_VOLUME "70.00000000"
SET SFX_ENABLED "1"
SET MUSIC_VOLUME "70.00000000"
SET MUSIC_ENABLED "1"
SET AUDIO_VOLUME "59.00000000"
SET AUDIO_ENABLED "1"
SET TooltipFilter "2"
SET TooltipNumOptions "2"
SET EffectsLookupViaBinarySearch "1"
SET Language.2 "en"
SET GraphicsDriver.7 "D3D11"
SET PatchDataPath "game:/GameData/"
SET CacheDataPath "machine:/Cache/"
SET GameCameraFirstPerson "0"
SET AcceptedEULAVersion "2"
SET DirectionalDamageIndictorVisibleInThirdPerson "0"
SET CameraFramingTransitionEnabled "1"
SET SkipPregameVideos "0"
SET HasPlayedPregameVideo "1"
SET RangedKillCamera "0"
SET PlayerKillCamera "1"
SET LastMonsterKillCamera "1"
SET MinFrameTime.2 "0.01000000"
SET ParticlesEnabled "1"
SET RequestedNumThreads "0"
SET FreeUnusedGrannyFileSections.2 "0"
SET IsTrustedMachine "1"
SET RememberAccountName "1"
SET AccountName ""
SET LastRealm "NA Megaserver"
SET CustomUIScale "1.00000000"
SET UseCustomUIScale.2 "0"
SET RollDodgeDoubleTapEnabled "1"
SET RollDodgeDoubleTapTimeWindow.2 "185"
SET CameraZoomDistancesSynced "1"
SET SiegeCameraZoomDistance "6.00000000"
SET WeaponsOutCameraZoomDistance "2.00000000"
SET WeaponsSheathedCameraZoomDistance "2.00000000"
SET MaxNetworkWriteBuffer "10485760"
SET MaxNetworkReadBuffer "10485760"

Once you have created that file please follow the previous steps to change the resolution.
Try to delete the ShaderCache.cooked file
The default location for the file is C:\Users\*USERNAME*\My Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live.

After that file is deleted, run the game as administrator, and it will recompile that file.

Lirkin · November 2015

I am getting this problem now.