ESO keeps crashing and I’m at my wit’s end

Schmittydom · March 18

Hey everyone,

I’ve been trying everything I can think of to get Elder Scrolls Online running properly, and I’m officially burnt out. I’m hoping someone here might have a clue. Here’s a detailed rundown of everything I’ve tried so far:

1. Addons / UI

Removed all addons and tried running the game completely vanilla. (Reinstalled addons in batches, ensuring they were fully updated just to see if it changed anything)

Tried running with a fresh Live folder and deleted UserSettings.txt and ShaderCooked.txt.

Even after updating addons, some in-game elements (like HarvestMap icons) weren’t displaying properly until after a few crashes or resets.

2. Drivers / GPU

Updated all drivers: GPU (clean install with DDU), sound, BIOS, and Windows updates.

Installed the latest NVIDIA Studio Driver after clean uninstall.

Reseated GPU and checked all cable connections, including HDMI.

Disabled all overlays: Steam, NVIDIA, Discord, Xbox Game Bar.

Ran FurMark stress test → no crashes or artifacts.

3. Settings / Launch Options

Ran in Safe Graphics Mode.

Tweaked launch options: -dx11 -safe -fullscreen 0 -preferMaximizedWindow 1.

Tweaked UserSettings.txt:

SET MaxCoresToUse.4 "4"
SET RequestedNumJobThreads "8"
SET RequestedNumWorkerThreads "8"

Tried launching ESO in both DirectX 11 and DirectX 12 modes.

4. Audio / Peripheral Checks

Disabled extra audio drivers.

Ensured only one active playback device (headset or speakers).

Not using a controller — strictly keyboard and mouse.

5. System Checks

Ran Windows Memory Diagnostic → no errors.

Checked temperatures and hardware seating.

Disabled Hyper-V, Windows Game Mode, and Game Bar.

Disabled VPNs, DNS-related programs, and other background software that could hook the game.

Tweaked CPU power plan (max processor state to 99%).

6. Repair / Reinstall Efforts

Ran the ESO repair tool multiple times.

Deleted ESO folders from Documents\Elder Scrolls Online (backed up SavedVariables).

Reinstalled ESO client folder through repair.

Did a full uninstall and completely wiped the client folder for a fresh install.

7. Other Troubleshooting

Ran DISM and SFC scans.

Used Tweaking.com Windows Repair Tool → fixed multiple issues, some access denied items noted.

Checked Event Viewer for faulting modules → nothing conclusive for ESO crashes.

Confirmed ESO is the only program crashing, all other games and stress tests run fine.

8. Current Status

Game still crashes after a few minutes, even fully vanilla.

Longest session before crash: 2 Hours after reinstalling VC++ modules, after leaving everything off for an entire night and coming back the following morning, started right back to crashing ~10 minutes

Zenimax Launcher catches the crash but never logs it.

ESO sometimes works temporarily after using repair tools, DISM, and Tweaking.com, but crashes eventually.

9. Reddit Community Feedback / Things I’ve Tried

Unplugged and replugged every cable, including GPU.

Checked for conflicts with MSI Afterburner / RTSS → not installed.

Tested running on regular monitor instead of big-screen TV → no difference.

Tried Safe Graphics, windowed mode, and different DirectX options.

At this point, I’m out of ideas. I’m wondering if anyone has seen something like this where ESO is literally the only program crashing, and if so:

Could it be something left over in my user profile (Documents / AppData / registry)?

Any reliable way to check for corrupted per-user settings that might crash the game?

Could something simple be causing this, like leftover shader cache or registry entries?

I’m about ready to try a completely new Windows user to see if it fixes the issue, but I wanted to ask the community first in case there’s a less nuclear option.

Any guidance or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I’m really hoping there’s a fix short of redownloading the game for the third time..

Thanks in advance.

PS

I'm losing my godforsaken mind lmao

Oh before I forget, here are my PC specs

Operating System
Windows 11 Home 64-bit
CPU
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 46 °C
Matisse 7nm Technology
RAM
16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR4 @ 1184MHz (16-16-16-39)
Motherboard
ASRock B550M-C (AM4) 34 °C
Graphics
100002487 (1920x1080@60Hz)
4095MB NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 (Gigabyte) 38 °C
Storage
931GB GIGABYTE G325E1TB (Unknown (SSD))
Optical Drives
No optical disk drives detected
Audio
FxSound Audio Enhancer

OccultNerd · March 18

You have 1 hard drive; Gigabyte 1tb? or 2 hard drives?

If 2 hard drives: is ESO installed on the main C drive? If its isn't can you install it to the same drive windows is installed on (should be C:/)? If it is already on the windows drive have you tried installing to the other hard drive?

If 1 hard drive: are you able to partition the hard drive, enough for the game and updates say 200-300gb and then totally uninstall the game and re-install to the new partition? or add a second ssd or use a portable drive and install to that? or you could try installing windows and eso to an extra ssd, nothing else just a clean windows install and vanilla ESO and see what happens

You've pretty much gone over everything thinkable in your post, the only things in my experience that may be causing the problems is a PSU issue, either failing or not powerful enough or hard drive issues.

I hope that all made sense

Schmittydom · March 18

I appreciate you taking the time to write all that out, it definitely makes sense.

Just to clarify my setup:

Drive Setup

I have 2 drives (internal SSD + external HDD)

ESO is installed on my internal SSD (C:), same drive as Windows

I’ve got about 444 GB free out of ~930 GB, so space shouldn’t be an issue

I used to run ESO off my external HDD years ago without problems, but moved it to the SSD for better performance

History / Context

This is the same SSD and setup I used ~3 years ago when ESO ran fine

Nothing major has changed hardware-wise since then

Hardware Testing

I’ve run stress tests (FurMark, etc.) and had no crashes or instability

Because of that, I think the PSU is okay, but I can’t completely rule it out

What Makes This Weird

ESO is the ONLY program that crashes

Other games and stress tests run completely fine

Crashes still happen even after:

Fresh install

Running completely vanilla (no addons)

Extensive troubleshooting

Bguk · March 18

I noticed you posted this in 2 places so I'll copy my response here as well.

"Removed all addons and tried running the game completely vanilla. (Reinstalled addons in batches, ensuring they were fully updated just to see if it changed anything)"

Start simple. First thing I would try is to remove and not install any addons at all, and reinstall the game, leaving all settings as default, no tweaks to ini. It could be something as simple as an addon. Don't reinstall addons until you know the game runs stable without any addons.

After how long does the game crash?

Schmittydom · March 18

Hey, I appreciate the suggestion, definitely a fair place to start.

I’ve actually gone through that process multiple times in a few different ways to rule addons out completely. Here’s a quick breakdown of what I’ve tried:

* **Initial troubleshooting**

* Removed all addons and ran the game completely vanilla
* Crashed within a few minutes

* **Fresh install attempt #1**

* Uninstalled and reinstalled ESO
* Ran -without touching anything- (no addons, no config tweaks)
* Still crashed within minutes

* **Config reset attempts**

* Deleted `UserSettings.txt`, `ShaderCache`, and entire Live folder
* Let the game rebuild everything from scratch
* Ran vanilla again - still crashed

* **Safe mode / default settings**

* Used safe graphics mode
* No launch parameters, no .ini edits
* Still crashing

* **Stability check**

* Longest “stable” run was 2 hours, then ~20 minutes once, but it consistently goes back to crashing shortly after

* **Addon reintroduction (after vanilla testing)**

* Only *after* confirming crashes in vanilla, I reintroduced addons in small batches
* Crashes continued regardless

At this point I’m pretty confident addons themselves aren’t the root cause since the game crashes even on a completely clean install with no changes.

That said, I did recently uncover some Windows-level weirdness, specifically with Documents folder redirection, permissions, and OneDrive interfering with where ESO was trying to write its config files. I’m currently working through correcting that.

If you happen to have any insight into Windows-side issues (folder redirection, permissions, registry paths, etc.) that could cause instability like this, I’d definitely appreciate being pointed in the right direction that’s the angle I’m starting to focus on now.

Bguk · March 18

Thanks for the reply. It's always best to start fresh and go from there, sometimes it's the simple (or easiest) things that can solve a problem.

Very well could be OneDrive settings, and/or folder permissions. If you're not using OneDrive set it to disable and not launch on Startup. Check your Documents folder to make sure you have Admin permission to the whole folder, this includes the hidden folders like AppData. You may have to add your username with an explicit Admin permission for the folder.

Schmittydom · March 18

I'm not holding my breath yet, but I may have finally found the source of all my frustration and, as feared, it was pretty simple.

I’m so accustomed to running Process Hacker to keep an eye on my RAM and network usage that I completely forgot it can be flagged by anti-cheat software. 😅

I turned it off, and I’ve now been running ESO with all my addons enabled for roughly 10 minutes without any issues whatsoever.

I still need to test it for a longer play session to be sure, but this looks very promising. Thanks for the suggestions about OneDrive and folder permissions, that was another piece of the puzzle I’ve been untangling.