Great! Completely locked out of the game now [SOLVED]

Wily_Wizard · January 2016

ESO crashes my PC every time I try to load a character. Every. Single. Time.

SOLVED! See solution below.
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ZOS_MollyH · January 2016

Hey @Wily_Wizard !

If you can please submit a ticket to support and include an msinfo report as well as your game consultant report, our team can take a look at what errors are coming up in your windows logs before you're crashing.

To clarify, are you getting booted to the login screen, hard crashing to the desktop, or is your entire PC locking up/rebooting when you have a problem?

Wily_Wizard · January 2016

It's my entire PC locking up instantaneously. I didn't see any errors in the game consultant. I also tried windows products, WER and Windbg, to capture the crash itself, but it happens before a log can be written.

Wily_Wizard · January 2016

Well, I gave up for now. Cant stay in the game more than 4-5 minutes, and that's best case scenario. Its no longer possible to do quests or dungeons. Sometimes it crashes before my character even finishes loading.

I'll just keep checking back after each update. I'm hoping I will be able to FINALLY play normally again when the 64 bit client is released.

@ZOS_MollyH DO you have any idea when the 64 bit client will be tested on the Public Test Environment? I'd like to get in there on the 64 bit client and create a couple characters to see if my game experience improves.

Elsonso · January 2016

Wily_Wizard wrote: »

DO you have any idea when the 64 bit client will be tested on the Public Test Environment? I'd like to get in there on the 64 bit client and create a couple characters to see if my game experience improves.

Question... are you having the same problem on the PTS right now?

Wily_Wizard · January 2016

lordrichter wrote: »

Wily_Wizard wrote: »

DO you have any idea when the 64 bit client will be tested on the Public Test Environment? I'd like to get in there on the 64 bit client and create a couple characters to see if my game experience improves.

Question... are you having the same problem on the PTS right now?

I'm not on it now, is there anything different that warrants trying it?

Elsonso · January 2016

Wily_Wizard wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

Wily_Wizard wrote: »

DO you have any idea when the 64 bit client will be tested on the Public Test Environment? I'd like to get in there on the 64 bit client and create a couple characters to see if my game experience improves.

Question... are you having the same problem on the PTS right now?

I'm not on it now, is there anything different that warrants trying it?

Well, you were asking about the 64-bit client on PTS. The only reason to care is if the problem happens on PTS, too. If you don't have problems on PTS now, what is the point of testing on PTS when the new client is on there?

Wily_Wizard · January 2016

lordrichter wrote: »

Wily_Wizard wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

Wily_Wizard wrote: »

DO you have any idea when the 64 bit client will be tested on the Public Test Environment? I'd like to get in there on the 64 bit client and create a couple characters to see if my game experience improves.

Question... are you having the same problem on the PTS right now?

I'm not on it now, is there anything different that warrants trying it?

Well, you were asking about the 64-bit client on PTS. The only reason to care is if the problem happens on PTS, too. If you don't have problems on PTS now, what is the point of testing on PTS when the new client is on there?

I didn't think they had the 64 bit client on PTS yet until the Thieves Guild Expansion hit PTS?

mike.eso · January 2016

He's saying that you should try out the PTS now to see if you have the same issues there as you do on the main server...If you do then yes maybe the 64bit will help...if you don't then testing the 64bit on the PTS (when is comes out) is irrelevant because the problem is localized on the the main server.

With all that said...and unfortunately...I'd say that the 64bit will not likely help you and that the problem is something else.

I know you've probably answered all these basic questions but...

Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling the entire game?
Have you installed all major updates for whichever system you're running?
Have you tried turning off all addons, etc.

Most of those are just *** type of stuff...have you noticed anything else not working other than eso?

One big thing that stopped all my crashes was changing my DNS...have you tried that?

Have you gotten any type of response from customer support? If they tell you that its because your system specs no longer meet the requirements, respond to them and say something like "if we assume that the system specs are not the cause of this issue (as the game worked fine at one point) what might be some other causes?" That response usually gets them to dig a bit further as they will usually take the easy/quick route out, gotta stay on them.

Lorkhan · January 2016

buy a new pc.

Wily_Wizard · January 2016

Mikmak wrote: »

He's saying that you should try out the PTS now to see if you have the same issues there as you do on the main server...If you do then yes maybe the 64bit will help...if you don't then testing the 64bit on the PTS (when is comes out) is irrelevant because the problem is localized on the the main server.

Thanks, I appreciate the post. That is a good point that the problem could be server related on Zeni's end. It's probably worth my time to test since I cant do much else now anyway. I thought I read somewhere that PTS was using an older version of the game?

The only reason I was waiting for the 64 bit version was the look ahead notes:

DLC and Update Plan

As we have already announced, we will be launching a big update, including the Thieves Guild DLC game pack, during the first quarter of this year - expect it on the PTS (Public Test Server) in early February. It is a lot of fun and introduces some new gameplay elements as well as the story content. The update will also include a ton of updates and fixes to the core game, including support for 64-bit clients. Stay tuned for more details later this month.

Hoping some of those fixes to the core game will finally help a lot of peeps.

Wily_Wizard · January 2016

Lorkhan wrote: »

buy a new pc.

Are you offering? XD
Actually my PC is great, the game looks sweet and runs very smooth right up to the moment when it crashes. BTW, ESO is the only game that crashes.

Vyle_Byte · January 2016

The crashing has become ridiculous. My husband crashed AT the character screen last night. *facepalm* Never seen that one before.

Wily_Wizard · January 2016

Vyle_Byte wrote: »

The crashing has become ridiculous. My husband crashed AT the character screen last night. *facepalm* Never seen that one before.

I'm pretty sure they have multiple issues to deal with now. Hopefully they will make some headway soon.

Rune_Relic · January 2016

Just a quick question.
Have you tried looking for ESO.EXE.
Don't run the launcher....right click ESO.EXE and run as admin.
Just to make sure that there isn't any privileges issues taking place.

I would also recommend and reinstall your video card drivers.
On NVidia you want to used the advanced option and use clean install.
Also if you have NVidia experience, make sure you click optimise for ESO in the games section.
Some settings can make the graphics card unstable so this is just a quick fix.

I assume the voltage and temps are fine as you say you have no issues with other games.
Prime95 is a good way to load cores voltages and temps fo you want to ensure system stability is not an issue.
But you might want to check the memory usage of your other games and see if they share the same load.
..if you're bored

Wily_Wizard · January 2016

Thanks @Rune_Relic , yes, I did try all that.

To be more clear, my game usually loads, starts and runs beautifully. The only problem is within a few minutes it locks-up/reboots my PC. It doesn't matter where I am or what I'm doing. I can be standing in a bank, or out in a field, fighting a mob, or talking to an NPC. It just suddenly crashes, seemingly with no rhyme or reason to it.

Its not a heat issue my GPU runs pretty cool with a modified Afterburner fan profile, and my CPU is water cooled and runs very cool. Usually my CPU is only at 10-15% utilization anyway.

Memory tests can run all night without crashing, and I have 16GB of RAM. I even tried under-clocking my RAM, but it didn't help.

I've run 2 windows debuggers and the ESO Game consultant, but they never caught an error. I honestly don't understand how the ESO application can crash my entire PC anyway. I thought by design that windows was supposed to be resistant to that.

Rune_Relic · January 2016

The fact it lock up and reboots your PC by itself is troubling.
You can disable that behaviour within windows.
Might help with debugging some more.

right click "this pc or my computer"
click properties.
click advanced system settings
click startup & recovery settings..

You might be able to catch something before the restart.
The system protection wont help with buggy drivers and hardware (or bios issues).
I believe they are there to isolate software from excessive control over the system.
Not protect you from system issues as such.
If you mean Data Execution Prevention

Wily_Wizard · January 2016

@Rune_Relic , yeah, that was the 1st thing I did, I thought I could actually see the blue screens without having to run a debugger to see what was crashing. But it still hard crashes, it's obviously a kernel level crash, and I'm assuming its the NVidia driver, but without seeing a blue screen or even being able to catch a debug, its a guessing game.

Rune_Relic · January 2016

@Wily_Wizard that's a bummer mate. Don't envy you that one.

Do you think it might be a buggy bios in the card itself using instruction none of your other software uses.
So only ESO with the constant updates is calling it.
Have you tried disabling all of the lighting effects in the video settings that ZOS constantly updates and the shader.cache rebuild ?
I know some have removed everything form the liveeu folder to force a rebuild.

Wily_Wizard · January 2016

Rune_Relic wrote: »

shader.cache rebuild ?
I know some have removed everything form the liveeu folder to force a rebuild.

shader.cache? where do I find that?

The only thing in the live folder is the UserSettings and the addons stuff that I can see. I'll delete/rename my usersettings and force a new file, see how that goes.

BTW, I tried the new Nvidia driver and now it crashes 0.1 seconds after the character loads into the game. Progress, lol.

freddiebox · February 2016

Even though you say it not being a heat issue, the symtoms point towards classic overheating. When a computer overheats it shuts itself down to prevent damage to the hardware. As ESO is a massive game putting alot of stress on our CPU, have you tried monitoring your termperatures by using an actual software like CPUID HWMonitor? Start the game and try to see the maximum temperature before it crashes. You probably want to run the game in windowed mode for this as when you alt-tab to check the temperatures they usually decrease. Pay attention to the CPU and the GPU section in HWMonitor.

RinaldoGandolphi · February 2016

Stop running Afterburner.

Afterburner "Hooks into the game" it injects itself into the executable and it can cause games to crash for no rhyme or reason. I have had games work flawlessly for months and then one day start crashing because of Afterburner even though it don't show in the logs.

Set all your fan settings back to the defaults and turn off Afterburner and run the game without it.

AMD Gaming Evolved App is another culrpit that will cause ESO to crash for no reason. its worth a shot anyways.

hope it helps.

Wily_Wizard · February 2016

freddiebox wrote: »

have you tried monitoring your termperatures by using an actual software like CPUID HWMonitor?

Yes, I have dual monitors, so its easy to glance over at comprehensive diagnostics while playing ESO.

Wily_Wizard · February 2016

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

Stop running Afterburner.

Afterburner "Hooks into the game" it injects itself into the executable and it can cause games to crash for no rhyme or reason. I have had games work flawlessly for months and then one day start crashing because of Afterburner even though it don't show in the logs.

Set all your fan settings back to the defaults and turn off Afterburner and run the game without it.

AMD Gaming Evolved App is another culrpit that will cause ESO to crash for no reason. its worth a shot anyways.

hope it helps.

Interesting, I never heard this before. It's definitely worth a shot to try it. The only reason I use Afterburner is for the custom cooling fan profile. There seems to be a firmware issue in my stock card that doesn't allow the fan speed to kick up, and it runs VERY hot in games...not enough to shut it off, but high enough for concern. It actually runs cooler than average with the modified fan profile, and its still barely audible. If the lack of Afterburner fixes the ESO crash, I might need to look for an alternate solution to get a modified fan profile.

Wily_Wizard · February 2016

@RinaldoGandolphi Woohoo! That appears to be the culprit for the crazy frequent hard crashes. A million thanks!!!

Cheers to you my friend!

________________________________________________________________________
I was never able to isolate the problem before, but I will try to summarize for anyone else what I found, based on your info.
After removing all traces of Afterburner, I was able to get in-game for about 4 hours. I still ran into a "standard" game crash, but I can deal with 4 hours of game play. I could NOT deal with 4 minutes(or less) of gameplay.

IF YOU ARE ALSO EXPERIENCING HARD CRASHES:
It seems a big part of the problem is MSI Afterburner, EVGA Precision, or RivaTuner installs the file RTCore64.sys which has BSOD problems with specific (older?) versions of the file, especially in Windows 7, 8, and 8.1. From posts, it seems re-installs of the tuning software don't update the (culprit) RTCore64.sys file, unless you re-install to a new directory, and remove registry entries that point to the (culprit)file.

If you have an NVidia card, GTX-500 series or older, then you can use the NVidia System Tools instead.

ASUS GPU Tweak Might be a good alternative, I haven't figured out if it also uses RTCore64.sys yet. If I discover it does, I'll update this.

I was able to find a newer firmware version for my video card, and the fan runs a little faster, but still not enough to keep it under 80C. With modified fan control, it runs well under 70C, sometimes even in the 60's. Not sure if anyone else has a fan problem with a GTX-670 card, but without a modified profile, mine wont run over 51% speed, even at its hottest. As tested, higher fan speeds enable significantly more cooling, and it seems to find a sweet spot around 60% fan speed, which is still comfortably quiet.

For now I'm going to look for a bios editor and see if I can tweak my fan speed to more reasonable levels, that way I can avoid the whole RTCore64.sys fiasco altogether.

Wily_Wizard · February 2016

I successfully edited and tested several BIOS variants that work as a somewhat of a solution.

The complete lack of viable fan curves on my video card with stock drivers is terrible, so I'm off to test the ASUS GPU Tweak utility.
Hopefully it wont cause the BSOD's like Afterburner did. I'll report my findings soon.

Wily_Wizard · February 2016

@ZOS_MollyH @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_YigaelK

Can someone please add this fix to the Known Issues Thread, and maybe customer service?
The fix was super easy and should be one of the 1st steps in resolving unstable issues with ESO, since this problem could manifest itself in many ways based on the users PC setup and OS version.

FIX:
Remove MSI Afterburner, EVGA Precision, RivaTuner or any other GPU enhancing software that installs the file RTCore64.sys, which has BSOD problems especially in Windows 7, 8, and 8.1.
Control Panel > Uninstall a Program