Game crashes without errors

[Rondaria]

Hello,

The game crashes at seemingly random times.
this happens every time, but only after a few minutes to an hour, and is more unstable the longer a save has been active. (reloading a save affected by this doesn't crash at a fixed point)

Game version : Gemini 3.8.4 282d (Steam)
DLC : All of them ( except the ebook )
Mods : This happens both in modded games, as with games that never had any mods. (currently modless, on a clean install, without any mods on affected saves)

Sometimes, it happens outside of a game, while creating a specie, so it is unlikely to be event or save related.

the exception is always "Unhandled exception C0000005 (EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION) at address " (examples attached)
the error logs are empty, or have errors that date from a few minutes before the crash, so likely unrelated
the issue happens both in windowed mode, and in fullscreen mode
Fullscreen was tested
- with and without fullscreen optimisations activated ( currently deactivated)
- with and without Vsync (currently off)
- with a refresh rate of 59 and 60
- with a resolution of 2560*1440 and 1920*1080

Other actions taken :
drivers for the graphic card, windows, and other drivers are up-to-date.
manually reinstalled the redistributables from steam
Reinstalled by steam, after manually deleting the folder in my document to be sure no mod configs were left
File integrity checked by steam
exception added to antivirus
running the game directly, without the launcher, as admin

All of which had no effect.

 

[AndrewT]

No obvious cause of that problem in there. The Exceptions logs call out the physical file system though; my guess is the crashes are happening while trying to write out a save file or a log update.

What antivirus app do you use? Make sure stellaris.exe is in all its exceptions lists.

And, when did this first happen?


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.

 

[Rondaria]

Antivirus used is bitDefender ( total security version, if relevant)
stellaris is in all the exception lists : the 3 antivirus lists, the ransomware remediation one ( that part is inactive anyway), and the firewall.

given this is a new computer, the game worked properly when it was first installed, mid-july. only played one game, but didn't crash, reached mid-game crisis.
then, a month happened, a lot of other non-stellaris-related software were installed (including system updates), DLCs were bought ( toxoids & 1st contact) ( disabling them and using a new save doesn't help, and even a dlc-less save has the issue)

 

[AndrewT]

We see some AppHang events in Stellaris in that file, plus two unrelated crashes in it too. Not good!

My best guess is there is a Windows, driver or hardware issue here, which either has been tripped off by recent Stellaris updates OR happened between when you first played this game and it was okay, and first had this problem. Did you have BD back then when it worked okay too?

If you have any overclocking enabled, disable it for diagnostic purposes.

Try this Windows repair tool

Use the System File Checker tool to repair missing or corrupted system files - Microsoft Support

Describes how to use the System File Checker tool to troubleshoot missing or corrupted system files in Windows.

support.microsoft.com

Please report the temperatures of your CPU and video (GPU)
1/ before starting the game up and
2/ after say 10 minutes' play.
If your PC's vendor has given you no way of reading temperatures, install
SPEEDFAN http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php

 

[Rondaria]

BD was also there the time it worked.

SFC didn't detect anything wrong integrity-wise. i did reinstall windows just in case it was a faulty update ( given the other error messages), and no change in the symptoms.

No overclocking

For the temperature :

Before :
GPU : 39-40C
Motherboard : 40 to 50C
CPU cores : 20 to 30C

While running
GPU : 40 to 45C
Motherboard : 75C, with some spikes at 80C, crashes don't seem to correlate with temp spikes
CPU Cores : 50 to 65C

 

[Rondaria]

After a bit more research, and a crash on a non-stellaris app, the issue seems to be solved :
Apparently, the issue lied withing the processor, and is a common bug of the processor 13th Gen Intel Core i9-13900K 3.00 GHz

Basicaly, since earlier this year, Intel Turbo Boost has an incompatibility with the latest windows version with that processor( here, it only happened now, because the factory default of the computer was before the problematic windows update)

if someone has the same issue, here's what solved it :
in the power options, disable processor performance boost mode. that option is hidden by default, and might require some registry editing to show up.

 

[AndrewT]

a common bug of the processor 13th Gen Intel Core i9-13900K 3.00 GHz

Do you have any links on that on, say, the Intel support site? Thanks!

 

[Rondaria]

the best link i found would be that one :

i9-13900K crashes with Intel Turbo Boost enabled on Windows 22H2 update

Spent the last month troubleshooting my installers crashing and programs crashing with Exception code: 0xc0000005 (Access Violation). Replaced every piece of my system and did every diagnostic under the sun - everything came back clean. This morning I was messing around in Cinebench R23 and...

community.intel.com

 

[AndrewT]

That doesn't sound like Intel have taken the issue onboard ... !

 

[cisilan]

Hello,

The game crashes at seemingly random times.
this happens every time, but only after a few minutes to an hour, and is more unstable the longer a save has been active. (reloading a save affected by this doesn't crash at a fixed point)

Game version : Gemini 3.8.4 282d (Steam)
DLC : All of them ( except the ebook )
Mods : This happens both in modded games, as with games that never had any mods. (currently modless, on a clean install, without any mods on affected saves)

Sometimes, it happens outside of a game, while creating a specie, so it is unlikely to be event or save related.

the exception is always "Unhandled exception C0000005 (EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION) at address " (examples attached)
the error logs are empty, or have errors that date from a few minutes before the crash, so likely unrelated
the issue happens both in windowed mode, and in fullscreen mode
Fullscreen was tested
- with and without fullscreen optimisations activated ( currently deactivated)
- with and without Vsync (currently off)
- with a refresh rate of 59 and 60
- with a resolution of 2560*1440 and 1920*1080
game grumps genocide run
Other actions taken :
drivers for the graphic card, windows, and other drivers are up-to-date.
manually reinstalled the redistributables from steam
Reinstalled by steam, after manually deleting the folder in my document to be sure no mod configs were left
File integrity checked by steam
exception added to antivirus
running the game directly, without the launcher, as admin

All of which had no effect.

I've been going pretty hard on my game for the NoticeMe jam, but all morning I've been running into an issue where the game will crash with no error message, either in popup or in the console. It happens under circumstances that are chaotic and I can't easily replicate it, or even identify the exact circumstances under which it happens, so I'm having a hard time debugging it - so far the best I can figure out is something's happening after the first step event but before the draw event, and certain instances being present seem to make it more likely to happen. I'm not asking for help finding the bug, as this is a very complex project with messy jam code, but if anyone can chip in with things they know will force a crash without an error message, it could really help me narrow things down. I'm slowly getting there putting show_debug_message() everywhere, but I'd like to get this solved ASAP. Thanks!

 

[AndrewT]

I've been going pretty hard on my game for the NoticeMe jam, but all morning I've been running into an issue where the game will crash with no error message, either in popup or in the console. It happens under circumstances that are chaotic and I can't easily replicate it, or even identify the exact circumstances under which it happens, so I'm having a hard time debugging it - so far the best I can figure out is something's happening after the first step event but before the draw event, and certain instances being present seem to make it more likely to happen. I'm not asking for help finding the bug, as this is a very complex project with messy jam code, but if anyone can chip in with things they know will force a crash without an error message, it could really help me narrow things down. I'm slowly getting there putting show_debug_message() everywhere, but I'd like to get this solved ASAP. Thanks!

Please make your own thread in future, thanks - your issue is clearly unrelated to the OP's.

I've never heard of the NoticeMe Jam, but from what you say your game is extensively modded. If so please post in User Mods here, with any files or logs that might help them help you. Thanks.