Game randomly freezing and occasionally crashing to desktop

[jmcgrath93]

Integrity​

I have verified my game files (on Steam)​

Yes

I have disabled all mods​

Yes

Required​

Summary​

Game randomly freezing and occasionally crashing to desktop

Description​

The game runs absolutely fine but then randomly freezes on certain dates. These dates are random, they do not line up with autosaves, particular days/months or time of day. When this has happened on a save, I can reload the save or a previous autosave and sometimes it will crash on the same day, other times it will crash later or earlier. I tend to find that the crash happens after several freezes. When it does freeze, it freezes the whole computer, not just the game - the only way to get out of this is to hard shutdown my laptop by holding down the power button. This is making it impossible to play the game.

13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-13700H 2.40 GHz
16.0 GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop
SSD

I have my graphics on a blend custom settings, mainly Mid-High

Steps to reproduce​

Just play from the most recent save and it will crash.

Game Version​

1.8.6

OS​

Windows

Additional​

Bug Type​

Crash to Desktop

Save Game​

View attachment empire of japan_1879_10_01.v3

Attachments​

View attachment crashes.zip

Player Pain​

10

 

[AndrewT]

The only thing I see in there that might contribute to this problem is:

CPU Model: 13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-13700H

You may have the CPU/bios hardware issue discussed here:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ration-intel-processors.1591821/post-29305331

If you haven't updated your bios recently (say, the last month) please check for an updated bios. Then please implement the “Intel Default” option in it, if present.

If that doesn' t help you, I might have to move you back to Bug Reports so @PDX_Sosanna can get those dump files looked at.

 

[jmcgrath93]

Just to update, today I rolled back to version 1.8.4 and the game ran smooth like chocolate. Must be a 1.8.6 issue.

 

[jmcgrath93]

Sorry I didn't see your reply - I will look into this but I haven't had any issues with overheating etc. I'll update BIOS if I can work out how and go from there!

 

[AndrewT]

FYI I ran that save on my iMac for half an hour with no problems at all. So it seems your issue is either peculiar to Windows or to your specific setup.


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.
IF dxdiag.txt fails to attach here, rename it to dxdiag.log , or zip it up.

Please attach here your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3/pdx_settings.json .
From your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3/logs/ folder, attach here system.log , error.log
From your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3/crashes/ folder, attach here the latest (only!) exceptions.txt

 

[jmcgrath93]

FYI I ran that save on my iMac for half an hour with no problems at all. So it seems your issue is either peculiar to Windows or to your specific setup.


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.
IF dxdiag.txt fails to attach here, rename it to dxdiag.log , or zip it up.

Please attach here your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3/pdx_settings.json .
From your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3/logs/ folder, attach here system.log , error.log
From your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3/crashes/ folder, attach here the latest (only!) exceptions.txt

Hi, all files attached. As I mentioned earlier, I have had no problems whatsoever after rolling back to patch 1.8.4, so the problem has been introduced by the most recent patch.

 

[AndrewT]

Hi, all files attached. As I mentioned earlier, I have had no problems whatsoever after rolling back to patch 1.8.4, so the problem has been introduced by the most recent patch.

I understand that, BUT there must be other factors involved as well!

Did you look into the bios? That is a widespread issue across this and other games.

Windows 11 Home 64-bit (10.0, Build 26100

I see you are on Windows 11 24H2, which is a severely broken Windows update that has caused problems across the whole gaming - indeed computer - industry.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/game-crashing-after-windows-11-24h2-update.1718749/
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...-freezes-after-installing-win11-24h2.1725554/
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ws-11-24h2-with-exit-code-3221225620.1712339/

Certainly make sure you have the latest MS updates for it installed, but if that doesn't help all you can do is revert to 23H2 if you still can.


If none of that comes to anything, let me know and I'll try that save on a Windows machine too.