Audio settings aren't saved

Danikat · April 2015

For some reason changes I make to the audio settings (mainly turning up the dialogue volume) aren't always saving. At first I thought it was character specific and I'd made the changes on another character, but today I've only been playing 1 character and I've had to set it 3 or 4 times.

I'm not sure what exactly causes it to reset, I've tested it just now by logging out and back it, and changing characters and it saved my changes right up until I switched back to the character I was using - then it reset to the defaults.

It's really annoying me though because I keep changing it and then find myself struggling to hear an NPC again and realise I have to change it yet again.

ZOS_LenaicR · April 2015

Hi @Danikat,

Could you please check that your UserSettings is well configured?

Please go to My Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\Live or My Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\LiveNA (or LiveEU depending of your Megaserver) and look for the UserSettings.txt file. Right click on it, properties and then look for "Read Only" ; its box must be empty/unticked.

Danikat · April 2015

The box is unticked.

(For some reason I have both live and liveeu folders (I always play on EU, the other folder may be left over from the beta), I checked both and both are unticked.)

ZOS_LenaicR · April 2015

We have created a ticket for you, one of our agents will be able to reach you shortly.
Thank you for your patience.

Marcusstratus · June 2015

I am having this exact same problem. It's really frustrating to me! I find myself constantly having to reset the audio level for dialogue because I can never hear the NPCs. It's driving me crazy, almost every time I want to enter a conversation I have to go reset the audio level for dialogue, and just forget about hearing anything random people say in passing. I'd really like to be able to hear what's going on in quests where you have visions of ghosts talking to each other and such, but unfortunately most of the time when I reset the volume it does not stick. I've also tried setting the effects volume lower because I use shock magic which seems particularly loud, but again this setting doesn't stick.

I'm getting really sick of fiddling back and forth with my speaker volume every time I'm about to talk to someone (turn it way up) or enter battle (turn it way down). If I could just get the in game settings to stay how I set them it would be Sooo nice!

ZOS_GinaBruno · June 2015

Hey @Marcusstratus, are you on PC or console? If console, could you specify if you're on Xbox One or PS4?

Danikat · June 2015

For what it's worth I'm still having this problem (on PC).

I've been really bad with reporting it though. I was away from home a lot around the time the ticket was created so by the time I'd worked through the fixes and determined they didn't work the ticket had expired. By that point I'd found a subtitle addon and was frequently playing with the sound off anyway so I kind of forgot about it. Even though this bug is part of the reason I play with the sound off.

In case it helps anyone else here's what was in the response from Support;

Closing the Launcher while playing. This has helped in some cases.

Check the "usersettings.txt"' file:

Access the folder for The Elder Scrolls Online on the Documents folder (by default it should be C:\Users\Username\Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live) and open the file "usersettings.txt" with Notepad (or some other word editor).

Once this is open, copy and paste the follow setting over the current ones. Then save the document, close it, and relaunch the game.

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 "1"
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 Language.2 "en"
SET GraphicsDriver.7 "D3D11"
SET PatchDataPath "game:/GameData/"
SET CacheDataPath "machine:/Cache/"
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 RequestedNumJobThreads "0"
SET RequestedNumWorkerThreads "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"
SET MULTI_GPU_CHECK "1"
SET DisableFXPrecaching "1"
SET PreferExclusiveFullscreen "0"
SET MonsterTellsEnabled "1"
SET Tone_Mapping "1"
SET ViewedAddOnEULAVersion "-1"
SET AcceptedAddOnEULAVersion "-1"

Another solution for Windows users is to add the game to high priority:

Open the Task Manager while the game is running and locate the process running named "Eso.exe".

Perform a right-click on that process and set priority to "High" (please note that changing this while having other programs running might cause them to perform slower).

Lastly, check if the graphic gard drivers are updated to their latest version.

If you are still experiencing an issue I would suggest making sure there are no programs that might be conflicting with our game. To do this I would recommend starting your computer in selective start up mode. You can turn services and startup programs on or off individually to see if the problem occurs the next time you restart your computer.

Follow the below process to make use of Selective Startup:

1. Click Start and type "msconfig" in the search option.

2. Right-click on the msconfig.exe program and choose Run as administrator,

3. To place your computer into Selective Startup:

1. On the General Tab at the top, click on the Selective startup radio button,

2. Uncheck Load startup items.

4. Click on the Services tab at the top,

1. At the bottom of the window, click the Hide all Microsoft services check box.

5. Click the Disable all button at the bottom,

6. Click Apply, then click OK,

7. Restart your computer.

When your computer restarts, you will be in Selective Startup.

We recommend you trying the game again and see if you have different results. If everything works fine, then one of the service or start up programs was causing the issues you were seeing. The only way to solve this is to go one by one and turn on each service one at a time. The one that brings up the issue again is the service or start up program that is the problem. Once you find the one you needed to remove, you can turn the Selective Startup off:

•You can do this by pressing Start and type "msconfig" on the search option

•Turn it off by checking the box Load startup items in the General tab.

•Click on Normal startup.

•In the Services tab, unckeck the hide all microsoft service box.

•Click on Enable all and then Apply.

•Restart your computer.

You can also just leave your computer in selective start up if you do not wish to go through and enable one by one to find the problem service or start up program.

Marcusstratus · June 2015

I am on PC. I did check the file mentioned and 'read only' is unchecked. Last night I tried changing the settings while on the character selection page rather than in game (which is how I'd always been doing it before). I also decided to try Harven's in combat audio volume add-on and made all the settings in that match with the main audio settings aside from the effects which I made even lower for in combat. So far today it looks like these settings are staying how I put them on this character at least, but I will have to keep watching it and see if it continues to stick or not. Thank you for the help so far.

Ignotus · July 2015

EDIT: Hm, it seemed to have saved the setting this time right after I posted this.

I'll update if it reverts.
EDIT: I logged out and then looked at the settings on the character select screen and it's back to 80. I logged in with another character, set it BACK to 100. I logged out to character select and it's 80 AGAIN.

I'm on PC, Windows 7. My dialogue and interface volumes keep resetting to 80. The C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live\UserSettings.txt file is not read only, and I've checked that SYSTEM, my user account, and Administrators all have full control. My user account is the owner of the file. I have set the volume too 100 for dialogue and interface both ingame and on the logon screen, but it reverts to 80 if I restart the client. I even opened the UserSettings.txt file and put 100 in the file for those two settings and saved it. If I restart, it still reverts.

Danikat · September 2015

I may be getting a bit over-optimistic here but the last patch seems to have fixed this.

My audio settings appear to be saving now. I've tested logging in and out, completely shutting down the game and starting it up again and switching characters and the settings haven't changed. Hopefully this means they'll stay as I want them now.

Edit: Yep, looks like I spoke too soon. After playing for about an hour and a half they've randomly reverted back to the defaults.

friimynd · February 2020

i have this problem

friimynd · February 2020

i tried logging out and changing the settings, then closed the game; the settings were the same, as i had set them
When I logged back in to character the settings were the same. I closed settings and moved a bit and turned in some writs.
When I checked settings then they had reverted to 80.
I'm suspicious of addons, going to try it without any addons. (Though none have anything to do with audio.)

friimynd · February 2020

well, it happened when i opened blacksmithing dialogue (after giving up and restoring all addons)
maybe this will help narrow it down

friimynd · February 2020

it was 'Banker Shut Up'

ZOS_Bill · February 2020

Since this discussion is nearly 5 years old it will be closed out. If you are unable to find any recent threads on the issue you're having please go ahead and start a new thread for help.