Home Trending Latest threads New posts Developer diaries

Game crashes whole PC on loading screen

Jump to latest Follow Reply
  • We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
F

flumphy

Private
Nov 21, 2023
10
0
Hi!

I recently got this game from the Epic Games store, and the first time I played everything was fine. When I tried to play again the following day or two, occasionally it would crash my whole pc, but it was still workable. Now I can't even load a save, PC crashes before it finishes loading.

I have decent specs on my PC, and all the game graphics set to low. I've updated all my drivers with clean installs, and reinstalled the game multiple times, verified the files, etc., and I just can't figure out what's going wrong. My event viewer doesn't give any obvious reason for the crash either, and as far as I can tell this is the only game acting like this, though I'll go test some others now.

Any help would be appreciated! I really like the game and would love to continue playing it.
 
I'm not aware of any other reports like this, very odd indeed.


Could you please attach here your output log and settings file? They can be found in:

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\Iceflake Studios\Surviving the Aftermath\player.log
Documents\Paradox Interactive\Surviving the Aftermath\settings.ini

AND DXDIAG is a program you run from the Windows search box on the task bar. After running it will open a window and start collecting info with a progress bar in the lower-left corner. When it completes click the 'save all information' button and save it to a file then attach that file here.
 
Here are the files, this is what the settings file says since it wouldn't let me attach it.


IsFirstPlaySession=False
IsAccountLinked=False

[BuildLimits]
BuildLimitBuildings=99999
BuildLimitDecorations=99999
BuildLimitRoads=99999

[Announcements]
ShownAnnouncements=pdx_incentive, lunar_update, free_update_3, free_update_5, free_update_6


Thanks!
 

Attachments

  • Player.log
    4,8 KB · Views: 0
  • DirectXInfo.txt
    121,6 KB · Views: 0
AndrewT said:
I'm not aware of any other reports like this, very odd indeed.


Could you please attach here your output log and settings file? They can be found in:

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\Iceflake Studios\Surviving the Aftermath\player.log
Documents\Paradox Interactive\Surviving the Aftermath\settings.ini

AND DXDIAG is a program you run from the Windows search box on the task bar. After running it will open a window and start collecting info with a progress bar in the lower-left corner. When it completes click the 'save all information' button and save it to a file then attach that file here.
Click to expand...
I got this game free on EPIC and now it stuck in loading screen i try link account and turn off my firewall, but it still doesn't work. Can you help me how to solve this .
 
Mukalakuss said:
I got this game free on EPIC and now it stuck in loading screen i try link account and turn off my firewall, but it still doesn't work. Can you help me how to solve this .
Click to expand...
Your issue is unrelated to the one discussed in this thread.

Check out this post:

Game wont Launch

Heya, Just got the game off Epic games and for some reason the game will not launch,You click on the desktop icon..nothing,Go into epic games it shows the game is running yet it isn't..nothing has come up. So far, ive got epic games launcher to...
forum.paradoxplaza.com forum.paradoxplaza.com
and post in that thread if you need further help with that problem.
 
flumphy said:
Here are the files, this is what the settings file says since it wouldn't let me attach it.


IsFirstPlaySession=False
IsAccountLinked=False

[BuildLimits]
BuildLimitBuildings=99999
BuildLimitDecorations=99999
BuildLimitRoads=99999

[Announcements]
ShownAnnouncements=pdx_incentive, lunar_update, free_update_3, free_update_5, free_update_6


Thanks!
Click to expand...
No hint in either file as to what is causing this, I'm afraid! But the log shows you trying to load a save file; if you delete that log then try the game again, does it make a new one?
 
How are you starting the game? From aftermath.exe or Epic Launcher?
Are your accounts linked on pdxplaza? Are you logged-in in the game?
Have you tested with a new Save, does this happen to ALL Saves, no matter the difficulty level?

Are you playing on Fullscreen, Windowed, whatever-the-3rd-one-is? What resolution?
You have dual GPUs, make sure game uses the discrete one. And 1050 is a low-midTier one by now, perhaps also lower all Graphical Intensive settings like fog or water, particles, etc...even with Main graphics settings set to Medium. Perhaps also test one tier lower?
Do you have external multiple-monitors attached or just one or just the laptop monitor?

Not sure it's the game that causes the crashes. Most of the WER issues cite "nordvpn-service.exe". Have you tried playing without this running in the background?

And Windows Updates is referencing a "Update;ScanForUpdatesForUser" with "Event Name: StoreAgentInstallFailure1" failure. Is there a Windows Update waiting to be applied? Is there still free space on the laptop?
 
I'm starting the game from the Epic Launcher, my accounts are linked (unless plaza is a separate kind of account linking I'm unaware of), and I am logged in. I only have saves from the one game so far, but it happens with all of those ones.

I'm playing on full screen at 1920x1080. I'd set it to use my nvidia before I reinstalled it, idk if it's reset it since. The graphics settings have been a bit weird actually. After reinstalling everything I set them to low, but on one of my more recent attempts to boot up the game I noticed it was set to high? I put it back down to medium, I can try again on low but i'm a bit confused as to how that got changed in the first place.

I only have the laptop monitor, I've tried running it while my VPN is disabled but it didn't seem to help.

The only update I think I have is to move to Windows 11 which.... I don't really want to do :p I have 20 GB free on C drive and 750 GB free on D.
 
Did you get the EULA pop-up when first launching the game? Did you select allow/agree, or otherwise?

Linking accounts is on this site (paradoxplaza.com) to your Epic account that you login to "purchase" the game with, the very same one that you login to Epic Launcher. Because Epic Launcher actually launches Paradox Launcher which then kicks off the game itself. Very annoying when one is testing mods. Are you then also logged in on Paradox Launcher? What version of Paradox Launcher does it report you as having? 2022.10.SE?

Also a login in the game's main screen itself. It's to allow feedback from the Pause screen and verify/enable DLC and other free content like the Halloween/Lunar New Year ones that came with patches last year. Which you can toggle from the Settings --> Seasonal Content (iirc)

The graphics settings can be done as a whole ie setting to all be at Low or Medium or at a granular level per individual options like water, fog, and so on.
Perhaps, while troubleshooting set it to Windowed mode in 720p? And then gradually increase that if you don't get crashings at that lower one.
Oh, and FrameRate, I set mine to "60" instead of the default "Unlimited".

I'm still on Windows 10 as well, so it's not that. So no Windows Updates waiting that requires a PC restart?
 
Last edited:
I've just double checked everything, it's using my nvidia, graphics set to low, vpn disabled, and no windows updates. I tried loading a save again and same deal. The weird thing is my computer seems fine up until it all crashes, like it's not idle but it also doesn't sound or feel like it's struggling at all. And I play other games that stress it a lot more just fine (at least based on the sound/temp).
 
I am definitely logged in on the launcher, it's version 2022.10 SE. I'll try the windowed/fps settings now.

And definitely no updates, I've checked and restarted a dozen times today alone lol
 
I tried the windowed/fps settings changes with no luck.

The only event consistent with all of the crashes is just saying that the system has in fact crashed (41). I do also have some errors 1101 and 7000 but I don't know if they're related.
 
You've mentioned having done reinstalls many times, any of those times also include cleaning up of User Content?
i.e in /documents and /appdata paths?

If you don't want to outright remove them, just rename them.
And then before you launch game, have Epic Launcher do a files verify again and then launch. Still crashes in 2nd load of a Save game?
Be sure when you test the Save re-load, to Quit to Desktop and not load a Save from the game while in the same session. Sometimes it works, sometimes wonky things happen.

It used to be a no-no on both platforms to load a different Save in the same session.
So far, on Steam this issue has disappeared after one of the patches, and I can continuously reload a different save and test mods on different Save games, having different difficulty levels or different modes (ie Custom or Scenario) or different combinations of DLCs, in the same session.
But I have not tested on Epic as I don't have the Ultimate Colony or any DLCs on Epic.
 
What do you mean by not load a game while in the same session?

When I try to load any save, it crashes, so the sessions are pretty short.

I have deleted the user content in previous installs (other than my saves, of course), but I've just reset it all again for good measure.
 
Do not play a game, save and then load a different save file. This is loading "different save in the same session".
What I'm saying is if you need to load a different save file, Quit to Desktop and relaunch game. This is second session of gameplay. Load the different save file in this 2nd session pf gameplay.
Most Unity games suffer from this phenomenon, unless the developers program something in a way to mitigate this.

That's just it right? With all the crashings, how do we know the state of the .save file is in a good state? It could be corrupted and thus why you're getting crashings when starting new sessions and loading these Save files.
Are you able to save a file and then Quit to Desktop in "clean" state with no crashings at all? This means the session's save file is confirmed to be in a good state.


There are some save files in other threads. Are you able to load save from someone else? I'm assuming y'all who are on Epic Free week do not have DLCs, so you need to use a save file that has no DLC content.
 
So last night I reinstalled again, booted it up... and everything worked fine? Confused, but thinking maybe I'd fixed it, I played for a bit, saved, exited game. But when I started it up again later and tried to load in, I crashed again. Nothing's changed as far as I'm aware, not my settings, not my software, not my install or anything.

As for the 'same session' thing, I always fully exit the game when I'm done playing, I don't think I've ever loaded up a different save while still in this game.

I was starting to think maybe it was a save corruption too, but now I'm even more confused? It was the same saves, loading fine last night.
 
The only time this 2nd load of Save file issue is reported (either with symptom of endless loading or crashing), it is usually due to outdated mods and trainers/cheats. But since your log shows no mods, I forgot to even ask. I don't think the game logs the existence of trainers/cheats during gameplay, but don't quote me on that.
Doing a search with Ctrl+F, I couldn't find the terms on this thread that I have not used myself, so can I confirm that this was not confirmed and established before?

Is the gameplay session(s) vanilla, 100% mod-free, no trainers, no cheat mods, no WeMod?
If it is 100% vanilla, then I'm stumped.

Have you tested with someone else's Save file?
  • If it still crashes, then we can confirm it is something to do with the system.
  • If it does not crash, then we can confirm it is something to do with the way the game performs the saving on the system.
Though, in either case, I have no idea how then to proceed troubleshooting further.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back