Saves might not be getting overwritten, resulting in 10 GB disk occupancy in long gaming sessions

[enanas]

Integrity​

I have verified my game files (on Steam)​

Yes

I have disabled all mods​

Yes

Required​

Summary​

Saves might not be getting overwritten, resulting in 10 GB disk occupancy in long gaming sessions

Description​

I have a total of 500 GB of space on my SSD, I usually cycle through games and I usually keep 10-20 GB of space free just in case. When I play Victoria 3 for a few hours it keeps crashing. I tried to send reports but it is also not able to send reports for some reason. I can send the files inside the crashes directory if it is needed. Sometimes Windows itself gives me an error saying there isn't much space left instead of game crashing. I also had multiple saves getting corrupted, most likely due to this problem which was kind of a bummer. IDK if it is related but saves also takes a lot of time. Restarting the game releases the space on the SSD but since I can not keep checking how much space left it is not a reliable solution.

Steps to reproduce​

1. Have limited space on the computer.
2. Play the game.
3. Game tries to save and crashes.

Game Version​

1.5.13

OS​

Windows

Additional​

Bug Type​

Crash to Desktop

Save Game​

Attachments​

Player Pain​

10

 

[PDX_Sosanna]

Moving to Tech Support!

 

[AndrewT]

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.

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 , exceptions.log

And, what antivirus app do you use? Make sure victoria3.exe is in all its exceptions lists, AND is not doing realtime scans of the Steam/SteamApps/common/Victoria3 AND Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3 folders

 

[enanas]

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.

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 , exceptions.log

And, what antivirus app do you use? Make sure victoria3.exe is in all its exceptions lists, AND is not doing realtime scans of the Steam/SteamApps/common/Victoria3 AND Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3 folders

Hey, sorry for the late reply. I have attached the DXDIAG information as DxDiag.txt, system log as system2.log and my game settings as pdx_settings.json. error.log file seems to overwritten by the game I started later that day as I couldn't find any file regarding the hours where the crash happened but there were 6 error files for the game I started later. I can send them if it helps. There also wasn't an exceptions.log file in the directory you mentioned but I saw an exceptions.log file in the Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3/crashes directory. I have also attached it along with the files in Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3/crashes/logs directory as I think they might be helpful. They are named debug.log, error.log, game.log and system.log. For the antivirus program part I am using Windows' default virus protection. I would have prefered if it wasn't necessary but I have configured the antivirus program as you said. I will start another game now and I will send you the error.log files in the directory you mentioned if the crash happens again. Thanks in advance!

 

[AndrewT]

I meant to ask, are these local, Steam cloud,or both saves - do you get this issue in both places or which one?

You're a bit short of memory I think is the problem here - of your 16gb your nVidia card can take up to 8, leaving just 8 for the game and Windows together.

Please expand your Windows paging file maximum size to 32gb

Optional: Increasing the paging file size on Windows computers

On computers that have 8 GB of RAM, the suggested paging file size is 16 GB.

www.ibm.com

and exit every other app you can before starting the game.

Does that help?

 

[enanas]

Unfortunately adding the Steam/SteamApps/common/Victoria3 and Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3 folders in exceptions list in the antivirus program didn't solve the problem. The saves were still taking some time and saves took close to 10 GB of space from the SSD (Which is how large the game itself is.). For your questions these crashes occur on my local saves. I haven't tried the steam cloud yet. Whenever I am playing Victoria 3 every app except Discord and Steam is already closed. I will try configuring what you said now and try it again with another playthrough. Thanks!

 

[AndrewT]

Unfortunately adding the Steam/SteamApps/common/Victoria3 and Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3 folders in exceptions list in the antivirus program didn't solve the problem.

Which AV app is that please? But the suggestion was to except those folders from realtime scans AND to put victoria3.exe in its exceptions lists, so that .exe is allowed to write where it wants to.

 

[PDX_Sosanna]

You could try deleting the shader cache (Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria 3/shadercache) and let it rebuild to save some disk space. For some users it can get as large as 10GB after multiple version changes. The normal size of the cache should be between 3 and 5GB.
Other than that, 10-20 GB is not enough free space for a 500GB SSD, especially if you expand the paging file. You should aim to have at least 10% (40-50GB) free.

 

[enanas]

Which AV app is that please? But the suggestion was to except those folders from realtime scans AND to put victoria3.exe in its exceptions lists, so that .exe is allowed to write where it wants to.

It is the default antivirus program of Windows 10, I think it is called Windows Defender. I added both of the directories you mentioned which incldes the .exe file. I think it already disables the realtime scans when it is put on that list.

 

[enanas]

You could try deleting the shader cache (Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria 3/shadercache) and let it rebuild to save some disk space. For some users it can get as large as 10GB after multiple version changes. The normal size of the cache should be between 3 and 5GB.
Other than that, 10-20 GB is not enough free space for a 500GB SSD, especially if you expand the paging file. You should aim to have at least 10% (40-50GB) free.

I am not having this issue in any other game other than maybe EU4 (which as far as I can recall doesn't crash, not sure though). Nonetheless I deleted some files to increase the disk space up to 35 GB. shadercache folder is only 1 GB as I got the game recently so I didn't touch it. Still though isn't it odd that while the game itself is holding 10 GB space and it takes more than that to do whatever it is doing while running the game? Also I think it would be better if the game handled the disk space issues more gracefully. I couldn't report it as an issue in the bug report pop-up as it gave me an error saying it couldn't be sent and I only realised the issue was disk space when the Windows itself warned me about it.

 

[AndrewT]

It is the default antivirus program of Windows 10, I think it is called Windows Defender. I added both of the directories you mentioned which incldes the .exe file. I think it already disables the realtime scans when it is put on that list.

That is specifically in the Ransomware-Controlled Folder Access-Apps Allowed Through list?

I don't think your issue is anything to do with disk space as such - possibly system memory.

 

[enanas]

That is specifically in the Ransomware-Controlled Folder Access-Apps Allowed Through list?

I don't think your issue is anything to do with disk space as such - possibly system memory.

Sorry for the late reply couldn't play the game last weekend. Ransomware protection seems to be off by default as I didn't change it. So there isn't a list of applications to allow.

 

[AndrewT]

there isn't a list of applications to allow.

I'm not sure I understand then - where do you do this?

I added both of the directories you mentioned which incldes the .exe file

In any case, it might be worthwhile turning Controlled Folder Access ON then add the 3 .exe files to its Apps ALlowed Through list.

Did you do the swap file/memory steps I suggested in post #5 above? If so did it help at all?

 

[enanas]

I'm not sure I understand then - where do you do this?

In any case, it might be worthwhile turning Controlled Folder Access ON then add the 3 .exe files to its Apps ALlowed Through list.

Did you do the swap file/memory steps I suggested in post #5 above? If so did it help at all?

My Windows is in Turkish so I don't know what it says exactly in English but at Virus and Threat Protection Settings there is a Manage Settings button. In there there is a section that says Exclusions(?)/Exceptions. In that section there is a button that says Add or Remove Excluded Files. After I click it I can add or remove files which I presume is also excluded for real time scans as there is no other setting for that other than enabling/disabling real time scans. I also tried the swap file/memory steps but it still gave me a crash.

 

[AndrewT]

The Ransomware settings are separate from the ones you mention there, as I understand it; it might be worthwhile turning Controlled Folder Access ON then add the 3 .exe files to its Apps ALlowed Through list.

If that too doesn't help, I don't know what is causing this to you - we're just not seeing it with other players.

Please install and run the free utility Speccy. Send its output to a text file and attach that here, thanks.

Speccy - Free Download

Download Speccy - the System Information tool

www.ccleaner.com

 

[enanas]

I added the victoria3.exe application to the list only as it didn't allow me to add folders. I will play the game to see if this fixes the problem and get back to you. Also attaching the speccy.txt file.

EDIT: I also had to add the Paradox Launcher.exe to the Apps Allowed list as it gave me an error saying it was blocked.

 

[AndrewT]

I also had to add the Paradox Launcher.exe to the Apps Allowed list as it gave me an error saying it was blocked.

Okay! Also add dowser.exe and bootstrapper-v2.exe to that list, thanks.

I was half expecting to see some other AV app running in that Speccy file (say, one that came with the machine you didn't know about) but no. What we do see are many Windows updates that have failed to apply, under Not Installed there, going back to when Windows was first installed in 2021. Now I'm not sure that is related to your problem but it's not good!


Let's try something new. Make a new WIndows user on this machine and log into it with that. Go into Startup Apps and disable everything, and reboot. Log in as that same new user, and try this problem with a new campaign.

Any better?