Game is unplayable with constant CTDs

[Spore18]

Integrity​

I have verified my game files (on Steam)​

Yes

I have disabled all mods​

Yes

Required​

Summary​

Game is unplayable with constant CTDs

Description​

I'll be in the middle of just playing the game normally and it randomly CTDs. I honestly have no idea what causes it, sometimes it seems to happen while saving, other times just during normal gameplay. I followed the steps I saw somewhere to clear all my caches and verify integrity, and it did not help. The crash log sender errors every time I try to send the logs too, so I'm uploading them to this post.

Steps to reproduce​

Honestly I have no idea.

Game Version​

1.7.3 and 1.7.4

OS​

Windows

Additional​

Bug Type​

Crash to Desktop

Save Game​

View attachment united states of america_1836_01_21.v3

Attachments​

View attachment victoria3_crashes.zip

Player Pain​

10

 

[Spore18]

Somehow it's gotten worse. This crash occurred the instant I started a new game, and at this point I can't play a new game or an old save for more than a couple of days before it crashes.

 

[Dayvit78]

I don't see many people reporting instant CTDs, so I'll just piggyback here if it's alright.
I reinstalled the game after a long hiatus, no mods - I start the game, paused, as soon as I click the "Buildings" tab, it crashes.
Let's see if anyone else has this issue and potential solutions.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I don't see many people reporting instant CTDs, so I'll just piggyback here if it's alright.
I reinstalled the game after a long hiatus, no mods - I start the game, paused, as soon as I click the "Buildings" tab, it crashes.
Let's see if anyone else has this issue and potential solutions.

Unless you are certain you have the same crash as the initial report it is always better to make a separate one.
Remember to attach your CTD folder(s), they are essential for use to investigate CTD issues.

 

[Dayvit78]

Unless you are certain you have the same crash as the initial report it is always better to make a separate one.
Remember to attach your CTD folder(s), they are essential for use to investigate CTD issues.

My apologies. Maybe it's not the same one, so I will create a new thread.

 

[Spore18]

Now I know the Paradox development cycle doesn't revolve around me, and there don't seem to be a ton of people with this issue out there, but is there any ETA for a fix to this? Has anyone figured out what's going on? I really would like to try out Sphere of Influence at some point...

 

[PDX_Sosanna]

Hi! We're sorry for the long response time. People who handle CTD reports internally are traditionally taking some time off in July, but now the team is back in full swing!

The CTDs dumps don't seem to contain any information from the game side, so it seems that the crash is caused by something in your hardware/system.
Could you please upload your DxDiag log (Windows Start Menu -> type "DxDiag" -> click on "Save all information" -> upload the txt file here (if the forum doesn't allow uploading raw txt, you can archive it first and upload the zip file)?
I'll also move the thread to our Tech Support forum as they might provide more insights for troubleshooting a hardware-related CTD.

Best regards!

 

[Spore18]

Got it. Here is my DxDiag file. Thanks!

 

[AndrewT]

@PDX_Sosanna we see this in the exceptions log:

Abnormal Program Termination

rather than any actual crash code or address. Can you clarify for us what that might mean, under what conditions we display that? Thanks!


@Spore18 please update that Nvidia driver to today's new one

Download The Latest Official NVIDIA Drivers

Download the latest official NVIDIA drivers to enhance your PC gaming experience and run apps faster.

www.nvidia.com

If GeForce Experience is running after that update, unload it.

THEN
Right click on victoria3.exe , properties, compatibility. Tick "disable fullScreen optimisations" untick every other box in that dialog, Apply and exit.
Then in the launcher Game Settings menu, select fullScreen display mode, Vsync off, cap refresh rate at 60.


Is that any better?

 

[Spore18]

So I don't currently have time for a longer stability test, but before it was usually crashing almost immediately and with those new settings and the driver update I was able to run the game without crashing for about 18 months. I then tried rolling back each fix to see what did it, and interestingly enough, the issue didn't immediately return when I turned Vsync back on or when I reenabled full screen optimizations. Maybe it was the driver update that fixed it? I updated my graphics driver back when I first got the issue, so maybe it was something that came out in the last month or so...

I'll try playing a full game when I get the chance, and hopefully this doesn't come back up. If it does, I'll mess around with the things you mentioned here and if that doesn't fix it, I'll bump this post. Thanks a bunch!

 

[Spore18]

So I've got a whole new batch of crashes here. These seem to be occurring on autosaves rather than at random times, so it may be a different issue from the one I was having before. Basically, I just crash on an autosave about 3% of the time (7 times in 20 years of gameplay) and the save it makes is corrupted, so I have to load the autosave from a month prior. Kinda infuriating if it happened to be a month where I reorganized my economy. @PDX_Sosanna could you let me know if these crashes are bugs or hardware errors?

 

[Spore18]

Aaaand here's three more logs for good measure. My save seems to be getting increasingly unstable as the crashes are now happening more and more frequently. For the first few hours it was tolerable, but crashes seem to be happening every 5 or 10 minutes at this stage.

 

[AndrewT]

Let's see if we can clean up those errors in that log. Please do a full clean re-install:

- move any valued save games elsewhere
- "uninstall" in Steam-Vic3
- manually delete both the Steam/SteamApps/common/Victoria3 AND Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3 folders - In particular make sure there are no files or folders left under either the Steam Victoria3 or Documents Victoria3 locations, before installing again.
- re-install game in Steam, run a Steam Verify when done.
- add Victoria3.exe to the exceptions list of your antivirus app; ESPECIALLY if you have Windows Defender, add it to the Ransomware "Apps Allowed Through" list.

THEN do the steps from post #9 above again please.

Then test with a new unmodded campaign - any better?

 

[Spore18]

God kill me, I went to back up my autosaves for this game I was playing to follow your steps and somehow they were all deleted. There goes several hours of gameplay from today. I just can't. I'm trying to be patient because I love the Victoria series and there's a lot of cool stuff in this game, but never have I ever had so many stability issues in any other Paradox game in my decade of playing GSGs. If I find myself in a masochistic mood sometime, maybe I'll try the clean reinstall. Otherwise, the devs have the crash logs I just posted, so if there's a bug, hopefully it gets fixed. Maybe I'll try 1.7.6 or 1.8.

 

[AndrewT]

I am sorry that happened but nothing we did should have caused that! If they were local saves they would be in Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3/save games/ , and moving them elsewhere first as I mentioned would have preserved them.

If they were Steam cloud saves, they are visible here

Sign In

store.steampowered.com

and would be untouched but that reinstall process.

 

[Spore18]

I'm not blaming you. I checked all the folders, both local and cloud, as well as checking again if the game itself could load them. I have absolutely no idea why, but there are no longer any autosave files in either of them. They must have been automatically deleted by some process or another or failed to save without creating a visible error. This is before any attempted uninstall and reinstall, so I didn't manually delete anything myself.

If I had to make a guess, is it possible that loading a save deletes all existing autosaves? If the game then immediately crashed on its first autosave after deleting all previous autosaves and there being no manual saves of that game, the game would be completely wiped. I can't remember if that was exactly what happened, but my second to last and last crash did happen within 5 minutes of each other, and I may not have played a full month of gameplay in that time.

 

[AndrewT]

So far as I know, nothing deletes autosaves ever. They get overwritten by newer ones of course, but unless the game (say) crashed during that overwrite there'd be an autosave file still.

In any case, from now on I suggest you make a manual copy of your current save file just before or after each play session, as a 2nd backup.

Sorry that happened to you, whatever the cause!