Stellaris crash on game open

[TonyPlaysGames]

I bought Stellaris a few years ago, and recently did a clean install of windows, as I was unable to receive windows updates. After reinstalling windows, and re-verifying my Stellaris files (saved from my secondary drive I plugged back in), I booted it up but it now crashes on boot! I have completely removed and reinstalled my mods, to prevent a corrupted mod file, and I was able to make it to about 3 years into a game, when now it crashes. I can create other new games, if I am careful to take my time through each screen (it crashes if I click on stuff to quickly as well), but loading autosaves also cause it to crash. Does anybody else know how to solve this?


I have completely updated my GPU drivers, checked to make sure I wasn't overloading my PSU, disabled N*rton, yet nothing seems to work. The only thing I have gotten to work so far, is if I boot up the game in Windows safe mode.

When it crashes, the game hangs, buzzes, and then my PC restarts.

Specs- if helpful.
Motherboard; ASRock X570 Taichi
GPU; Radeon RX Vega 64
PSU; EVGA 850 GQ
Processor; AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core Processor 3.60 GHz
Installed RAM; 32.0 GB
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

Also I have not noticed any overheating problems, I carefully monitored both the temperature of my GPU and CPU, yet neither fluctuated past the normal ranges.
The two mods used are 'dynamic political events' and 'no clustered starts'. I have also tried removing them and playing but the issue persists

 

[AndrewT]

I have completely removed and reinstalled my mods, to prevent a corrupted mod file, and I was able to make it to about 3 years into a game, when now it crashes.

This is while mods are enabled, is that right? Because we can't help with modded games here.


Does it start okay when ALL mods are disabled? If not Please do a full **clean** re-install:

- move any valued save games elsewhere, and user_empire_designs.txt from /Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/ if you have made any custom empires or races.
- "uninstall" in Steam-Stellaris
- manually delete both the Steam/SteamApps/common/Stellaris AND Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris folders
- re-install game in Steam, run a Steam Verify when done.
- add stellaris.exe to the exceptions list of your antivirus app; ESPECIALLY if you have Windows Defender, add it to the Ransomware "Apps Allowed Through" list.
- start the game with no mods active and test

In particular you need to make sure there are no files or folders left under either the Steam Stellaris or Documents Stellaris locations, before installing again.


If that doesn't help:
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/Stellaris/settings.txt and pdx_settings.txt .
From your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/logs/ folder, attach here system.log , error.log , exceptions.log

 

[TonyPlaysGames]

This is while mods are enabled, is that right? Because we can't help with modded games here.


Does it start okay when ALL mods are disabled? If not Please do a full **clean** re-install:

- move any valued save games elsewhere, and user_empire_designs.txt from /Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/ if you have made any custom empires or races.
- "uninstall" in Steam-Stellaris
- manually delete both the Steam/SteamApps/common/Stellaris AND Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris folders
- re-install game in Steam, run a Steam Verify when done.
- add stellaris.exe to the exceptions list of your antivirus app; ESPECIALLY if you have Windows Defender, add it to the Ransomware "Apps Allowed Through" list.
- start the game with no mods active and test

In particular you need to make sure there are no files or folders left under either the Steam Stellaris or Documents Stellaris locations, before installing again.


If that doesn't help:
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/Stellaris/settings.txt and pdx_settings.txt .
From your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/logs/ folder, attach here system.log , error.log , exceptions.log

I tried all the above steps, and updated drivers. I could not get it to work, so here is the program files.

Any ideas?

 

[AndrewT]

I see no issues in that file. Can you attach the other files I asked for please, taken just after one of these crashes.

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

And did you test with NO mods at all enabled?

 

[TonyPlaysGames]

OMITTED TO TRY AND BE ABLE TO POST

I made sure n* m*ds are enabled. I als* made sure there are n*t even any m*ds subscribed. I checked my CPU & GPU temperatures bef*re start up, they idle ar*und 32C and 45C respectively. Game crashed as I was trying t* l*ad in, and I didn't catch the temperature s* I will try again, give me a m*ment.


I attached all the files I c*uld find, but I have n* 'excepti*ns.l*g' file under C:\Users\USER\D*cuments\P*rad*x Int*ractive\Stellaris\l*gs.

Als* I just spent 30 d*mn minutes trying t* figure *ut why the heck I c*uldn't p*st this, but eventually I f*und *ut its because *f the link in y*ur p*st that I was replying t*. Just letting y*u kn*w, but that design is extremely unintuitive and frustrating. It gave me n* reas*n as t* why it w*uldn't let me p*st, except f*r "Y*ur c*ntent can n*t be submitted. This is likely because y*ur c*ntent is spam-like *r c*ntains inappr*priate elements. Please change y*ur c*ntent *r try again later. If y*u still have pr*blems, please c*ntact an administrat*r.". I c*uld n*t find a rules page, n*r a list *f pr*hibited w*rds. What are 'inappr*priate elements'? what d*es s*mething mean t* be 'spam like'? H*w d* I even c*ntact an administrat*r? I ended up just guessing rem*ving w*rds, and eventually c*ntrl replaced all the 'O's with stars. S*rry, but I had the same issue earlier bef*re eventually stumbling up*n that the d*mn w*rd N*RT*N, is bl*cked, and this is extremely f***ng frustrating. Just letting y*u kn*w, n*t sure if y*u can d* anything ab*ut it, and I am still very thankful f*r y*ur help in s*lving this pr*blem!

T* Read please copy into word and replace all * with o

 

[TonyPlaysGames]

I see no issues in that file. Can you attach the other files I asked for please, taken just after one of these crashes.

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

And did you test with NO mods at all enabled?

Testing, alright It was something in my post. Not yours. Just cant figure out what from the few sentences I posted.

 

[AndrewT]

Users with low post counts cannot include links in their posts. This is a forum anti spam measure. Anything else ought to be okay, just no links.

That error log seems to think you do have mods enabled:

[21:41:20][empire_design.cpp:840]: Failed to migrate government type [gov_despotic_empire] to authority for empire design. Mods?

Can you please unsubscribe from ALL mods then move any valued save games elsewhere, and user_empire_designs.txt from /Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/ if you have made any custom empires or races. Then manually delete the Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris folders.

 

[TonyPlaysGames]

Users with low post counts cannot include links in their posts. This is a forum anti spam measure. Anything else ought to be okay, just no links.

That error log seems to think you do have mods enabled:

Can you please unsubscribe from ALL mods then move any valued save games elsewhere, and user_empire_designs.txt from /Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/ if you have made any custom empires or races. Then manually delete the Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris folders.

The word Norton doesnt work either, or not. It used to not work, when I originally posted I had to censor that one to get it to post. Weird.

 

[TonyPlaysGames]

Users with low post counts cannot include links in their posts. This is a forum anti spam measure. Anything else ought to be okay, just no links.

That error log seems to think you do have mods enabled:

Can you please unsubscribe from ALL mods then move any valued save games elsewhere, and user_empire_designs.txt from /Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/ if you have made any custom empires or races. Then manually delete the Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris folders.

Have just deleted the folder. I had no mods subscribed to begin with, or downloaded. They are still unsubscribed currently. Will test again. Also GPU temperatures remained stable at around 53C, and under very little load when running a massive game with 19 AIs (at the beginning). Still crashed. CPU temperature peaked at 34C. GPU memory usage at 2Gb (of 8Gb), and peak 40% usage. Unfortunately couldn't get to 10 minutes of play as it crashed after 3.

 

[AndrewT]

Hmmm, not really sure then - clearly not an overheating problem though.

You may as well update that AMD video driver to the latest

http://support.amd.com/en-us/download

If that doesn't help, made a new Windows user on this machine and log into it as that. Does the problem still happen then?

 

[TonyPlaysGames]

Hmmm, not really sure then - clearly not an overheating problem though.

You may as well update that AMD video driver to the latest

http://support.amd.com/en-us/download

If that doesn't help, made a new Windows user on this machine and log into it as that. Does the problem still happen then?

Neither of these solutions worked. I have double checked the driver updates, and made a new user, downloaded steam and the game fresh again, and it still didn't fix the problem. I have also tried lowering the max power target on the GPU in case that was the issue, but it did not fix it. Is there anything else I can try?

 

[AndrewT]

What happens if you run stellaris.exe from File Explorer directly, any error show then?

I notice in your dxdiag you've had crashes in GPU Tweak III.exe , an ASUS utility apparently. Please unload that while we work on this.

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

 

[matt_mills]

>After reinstalling windows, and re-verifying my Stellaris files (saved from my secondary drive I plugged back in)

Don't do that, files that have been removed from the game or renamed don't get deleted in a verify of a distant version, so you likely have conflicting game data files. Delete the stellaris dir and redownload, if you're still crashing post the exception.txt from the crashes folder in my docs/paradox/stellaris.

 

[TonyPlaysGames]

>After reinstalling windows, and re-verifying my Stellaris files (saved from my secondary drive I plugged back in)

Don't do that, files that have been removed from the game or renamed don't get deleted in a verify of a distant version, so you likely have conflicting game data files. Delete the stellaris dir and redownload, if you're still crashing post the exception.txt from the crashes folder in my docs/paradox/stellaris.

This was beforehand, but during this repair process I have already wiped and redownloaded the files multiple times. There are no conflicting files. There is no Exception.txt file under the crashes folder. C:\Users\me\Documents\Paradox Interactive\Stellaris\crashes is empty.

 

[TonyPlaysGames]

What happens if you run stellaris.exe from File Explorer directly, any error show then?

I notice in your dxdiag you've had crashes in GPU Tweak III.exe , an ASUS utility apparently. Please unload that while we work on this.

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

I have uninstalled GPU Tweak, and here is the Speccy file.

If I run it from the file explorer It still crashes, and when I checked the error log file it continued to be empty.

I suspect it may have to do with my GPU itself, as I had some problems with drivers when I first built the computer, but after updating everything it seemed to be working fine. (At least until I reinstalled windows, where now a problem exists again somehow)

 

[matt_mills]

>When it crashes, the game hangs, buzzes, and then my PC restarts.

I didn't see that part, that doesn't sound like a game issue, that sounds like a CPU/GPU overheat or memory issue. You can use https://www.memtest.org/ to test memory (offline). You can generally test overheating by taking off the side of your case and pointing a large fan at the inside of the case.

If you built this machine a long time ago, you may want to take the heatsink off and check the application of the thermal compound, I've seen issues before where the thermal compound overheats and dries up/flakes off.

 

[AndrewT]

Odd how we don't get any temperature readings for your GPU in that Speccy file.


Please report the temperatures of your CPU and video (GPU)
1/ before starting the game up and
2/ after say 30 minutes' play.
If your PC's vendor has given you no way of reading temperatures, install
SPEEDFAN http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php

 

[TonyPlaysGames]

Odd how we don't get any temperature readings for your GPU in that Speccy file.


Please report the temperatures of your CPU and video (GPU)
1/ before starting the game up and
2/ after say 30 minutes' play.
If your PC's vendor has given you no way of reading temperatures, install
SPEEDFAN http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php

Re-saying this. I will also test in another game though to check out what it is like after 30 minutes.

"Have just deleted the folder. I had no mods subscribed to begin with, or downloaded. They are still unsubscribed currently. Will test again. Also GPU temperatures remained stable at around 53C, and under very little load when running a massive game with 19 AIs (at the beginning). Still crashed. CPU temperature peaked at 34C. GPU memory usage at 2Gb (of 8Gb), and peak 40% usage. Unfortunately couldn't get to 10 minutes of play as it crashed after 3."

 

[TonyPlaysGames]

>When it crashes, the game hangs, buzzes, and then my PC restarts.

I didn't see that part, that doesn't sound like a game issue, that sounds like a CPU/GPU overheat or memory issue. You can use https://www.memtest.org/ to test memory (offline). You can generally test overheating by taking off the side of your case and pointing a large fan at the inside of the case.

If you built this machine a long time ago, you may want to take the heatsink off and check the application of the thermal compound, I've seen issues before where the thermal compound overheats and dries up/flakes off.

I did the default windows memory test and saw no problems, ill refer you to the post above for CPU GPU issues. I haven't seem to had anything, but following your suggestion I also stress tested my pc, and my gpu was stable at 80c and cpu 70c for a few minutes straight so I assume that overheating the CPU or GPU isnt a problem.

 

[TonyPlaysGames]

Also, does anyone know where I can contact to get in touch with AMD support? I am starting to think this really is some driver error or incompatibility, but when I sent a bug report along with my contact information a few days ago I have heard nothing since.