2.50 random CTD and one BSOD

[onedevil]

Started playing new game after last (2.50) update. After couple hours started to experience random crashes to desktop and still experiencing.
Once was BSOD (The bugcheck was: 0x0000001a (0x0000000000061941, 0x00007ff37f3a2000, 0x000000000000000d, 0xfffff689f59b0b00). This was first and only BSOD this year.

Version and language: 2.50(347849) English on steam

No mods, vanilla game

Game start being played: The young gun

Exact nature of the problem, where and when it occurs and what you were doing at the time:
Can not describe exactly when and where but nature is random crash to desktop and once it was BSOD.
Possibly crashes some time after ALT+TAB to check online info (not sure about it)

Any possibly relevant changes you have made to your game, system, or software before the issue occurred:
Not any that i can think of.

crash dump file, DxDiag report and vulkaninfo
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/fold ... z1784DMzsc

EDIT:
One more bug that I found is while on platform sometimes after ending interaction with trader using ESC leaves orange circle around players targeting cursor. When that happens it is impossible to interact with other things (elevator console, ship console, NPC). Saving game and reloading game removes the orange circle and interaction becomes possible.

[Alan Phipps]

The suspect things that I can see from the DxDiag follow:

• You have a Realtek onboard sound chipset but are using a default generic Microsoft sound driver. Get Realtek HD Audio Codec R2.82 for your OS from here.
• You have had several application errors including two BSODs since the listed X4 issue which was itself not a serious one. BSODs are almost always device driver, OS or hardware issues as they cannot be caused by the game code from within an application. Your other errors involved Nvida GEforce Experience.exe, EpicGamesLauncher.exe, and Windows::Rtl::AutoHive::Unload. It may be worth finding out what is going on there but it *might* be something to do with a bad recent Windows update.

Regarding the X4 CTDs, have you verified the X4 gamefiles cache?

Please post the issue in your Edit in a separate thread with a relevant title and link your system details etc as done above. Please provide more information on how to reproduce the issue. The right dev will not see it if it is left in this thread.

[kuertee]

I've just recently gone through troubleshooting my laptop crashing to BSOD with X4: viewtopic.php?f=180&t=418281
I've had no problems with any other game: Prey, Witcher 3, Stellaris, Subnautica, Doom 2016, Endless Space 2, Pillars of Eternity, Borderlands 2, etc.

But since the beginning of last week, when I performed a driver update, X4 started crashing my laptop to BSOD.
it crashed intermittently - but more often than not, and not while I'm playing the game.
It only crashed during save operations ("Driver power state failure"), or more often (10 to 1 odds) at startup - before the Egosoft logo, after about 5 minutes of hang time.
The BSOD errors were: "DCP Watchdog Violation" (once or twice) or "Driver power state failure" (every other time).

Anyway, on to the "fix" that I think, no, I hope, worked:

1. performed a "dism" and "sfc" (https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/hel ... le-checker) to check for system files integrity.
2. performed a windows update.
3. use bluescreenview (https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html) to determine the causes of BSODs.
   For me, it showed that every BSOD, regardless of the errors, were caused by an Nvidia driver - and it's not always the same Nvidia file.
   This was weird because the installed drivers were the most recent version (431.60) - which I installed at the beginning of last week.
   X4 had not crashed at all before this update - but I persevered with this version, thinking that the problem is elsewhere.
   It was only after I used bluescreenview this morning that convinced me that it was this version of the drivers that was incompatible with my laptop.
4. In Windows safe mode, use DDU (https://www.wagnardsoft.com/content/dis ... 7-released) to uninstall my video cards.
5. Still in Safe mode, I installed the Nvidia drivers that shipped with my laptop.
   They're only about 6 months old and I'll slowly update the drivers - but not up to the most-recent version.
   I keep my laptop clean and up-to-date. And I'm sure the Nvidia drivers that worked were the one version prior to the most recent.
6. I've been able to play X4 all of today with no problems.

Note: I'm not suggesting that you don't try the most recent versions of the drivers.
I'm suggesting that maybe some of the drivers are simply not compatible with your computer.
And I can't recommend bluescreenview enough. Before that my troubleshooting exercise was all guess work.

[onedevil]

Regarding the X4 CTDs, have you verified the X4 gamefiles cache?

Yes, game files are all good.

You have a Realtek onboard sound chipset but are using a default generic Microsoft sound driver. Get Realtek HD Audio Codec R2.82 for your OS from here.

Thank you, just did install driver

You have had several application errors including two BSODs since the listed X4 issue which was itself not a serious one. BSODs are almost always device driver, OS or hardware issues as they cannot be caused by the game code from within an application. Your other errors involved Nvida GEforce Experience.exe, EpicGamesLauncher.exe, and Windows::Rtl::AutoHive::Unload. It may be worth finding out what is going on there but it *might* be something to do with a bad recent Windows update.

Well it could be a coincidence, that it happened while playing X4, but this was first BSOD that did visible checking for problems (at bottom I saw text about memory management or close to that )

The main issue still is CTDs, since they are random and has happened while saving game, while flying, while being on platform, while browsing research tab while on platform, while browsing unlocked upgrades tab while flying etc...
I do not own many ships yet (just two miners (M and L) and couple captured ships from pirates), have done PHB quest, but CDTs were happening even before I finished PHB quest, but after I started it.

Please post the issue in your Edit in a separate thread with a relevant title and link your system details etc as done above. Please provide more information on how to reproduce the issue. The right dev will not see it if it is left in this thread.

I will try to replicate and repost in new thread with screenshots.

[onedevil]

ok... this was the second BSOD.
I did update audio drivers since first BSOD, video drivers are up to date (maybe i should try not the latest drivers?)
I closed all other launchers and game updaters and other tray icons not needed at the moment from tray before playing X4

Did play for couple hours, had one or two CTDs. But not too often (I can live with them for now since i save game more often).

I was flying mu newly acquired Nemesis in Trinity Sanctum VII identifying stations and using long range pulses. My M miner was doing auto mine in same sector. Got the second BSOD.

Could the game cause some memory leak?

Managed to copy full memory.dmp file before minidump was created (if this helps)
After I ran windows memory diagnostic - no problems found.

The bugcheck was: 0x0000001a (0x0000000000061941, 0x00007ff3bb742580, 0x000000000000000d, 0xffff8d0b43fe2b00). A dump was saved in: C:\WINDOWS\MEMORY.DMP. Report Id: 0375cafe-13c8-487f-8cba-afb82270352b.

Link to crash logs, my last save file and info files https://drive.google.com/open?id=1SkVnb ... qci8jUjT-t

[Alan Phipps]

Thanks. I'm not sure why you installed an older Realtek driver rather than the latest (R 2.82 from 2017).

In the new DxDiag i am not seeing any X4 CTDs reported, only system BSODs and issues with other apps including memory testing.

I'll try to get a dev to take a look at your dump files.

EDIT: The dump file you provided is not one from the game. Can you find any .dmp files in your X4 gamefolder (FAQ that also mostly applies to the X4 gamefolder).

[onedevil]

Thanks. I'm not sure why you installed an older Realtek driver rather than the latest (R 2.82 from 2017).

That is the latest from motherboard manufacturer. Should I update it?

The dump file you provided is not one from the game. Can you find any .dmp files in your X4 gamefolder (FAQ that also mostly applies to the X4 gamefolder).

I added system memory dump.
I just updated the same folder with all the X4 dump files I had. Should be around 40 of them

[Alan Phipps]

I would update your sound driver, yes. I always do as Realtek know the chipset best.

Thanks for the .dmp files. I'll make sure the devs are aware.

[onedevil]

I did update my sound drivers.
Oh... and just noticed fresh video drivers are out... I'll update those as well
I will try to disable Geforce experience overlay as well and see how it goes.

[Alan Phipps]

The devs have looked at your .dmp files. The two most recent were an unexplained game event, and the other a Nvidia driver issue respectively - the latter you say you are changing anyway.

Looking at older dumps, they all seem to be of different causes which may indicate a system stress or memory issue. There was one other case where memory issues were corrupting the game here so it might well be worth running a more strict memory test; either the inbuilt Win10 tool which you say you have already done, or using Memtest86 free version.

[onedevil]

The devs have looked at your .dmp files. The two most recent were an unexplained game event, and the other a Nvidia driver issue respectively - the latter you say you are changing anyway.

Looking at older dumps, they all seem to be of different causes which may indicate a system stress or memory issue. There was one other case where memory issues were corrupting the game here so it might well be worth running a more strict memory test; either the inbuilt Win10 tool which you say you have already done, or using Memtest86 free version.

Thank you for you work and feedback.
Last night, after latest driver updates (audio R 2.82 and video Nvidia 436.02 released just yesterday) and disabling Nvidia Experience overlay, game ran ok, almost 4 hours nonstop.
About older dumps and crashes, they might already be fixed issues, because I did put X4 asaide for quite a long time and in the mean time i think i did my rig memory upgrade.
If problem with BSOD pops up again I will do deeper memory scan.
Waiting impatiently for 3.0 and Split Vendetta

[onedevil]

Played today for 3 hours, ended with CTD.

I was hanging around superhighway in Thraka's Cascade XVII waiting for Xenon S to appear, so i could scan them.
Just one appeared, so I left Xenon K blindspot an accelerated towards Xenon S close to superhighway entrance and crahed.

Two new X4 dump files were generated.

Latest info files, crash files and savegame here

[Alan Phipps]

Glad to hear the BSOD issues may be over. The devs have looked at the new CTD dump files.

They are pretty much the same as your previous CTD dumps with apparent random in-game data corruption leading to the processor trying to access inappropriate and illogical addresses. No game code or process issues are indicated. This could be down to either a cpu or memory stress/error issue that could itself be the root cause or just be a result of something else going wrong such as psu stability or overheating. None of that is certain though. Remember that X4 is very demanding of system hardware.

[onedevil]

Thank you for reply.

I will try to run extended memory scan over night, since it takes freaking a lot of time.

Overheating should not be a problem and I do not run the game on Ultra settings (I could of course).
I changed my PSU about 8 month ago and its power in not on minimum requirements, I have quite a reserve.

My CPU and MOBO (mid tier gaming) are the oldest parts of my rig, but since new games demand more GPU power and RAM not CPU I think I have enough processing power.

Previous was only CTD today, just had another 3 hour game session without interruptions (had to reload save game couple times because Xenon K fried my only L trader, learned to use blacklists )

I'll write about my memtest tomorrow.

[Alan Phipps]

".. since new games demand more GPU power and RAM not CPU ..". I would not necessarily be quick to put X4 in that category although graphics and textures are important.

Few other games simulate a whole dynamic universe and keep track of the physics, plans and actions of every asset in it while the player focuses in detail on the scene immediately around them. The latter part is what many other games will restrict themselves to doing and just spawn on-demand generated encounter situations to simulate interaction with the rest of the universe.

[onedevil]

Ok... I did extended memory scan with 2 passes (took whole night) no problems were found
Still getting random CTDs
I did observe my system temperature levels while playing - for CPU all cores 59°C-62°C, GPU as well around 60°C, so this should not be issue about excessive heat or lack of performance.

I did update my video drivers today, but CTD was before and after update.

Here are latest dumps and save game file as well. Game crashed couple minutes after loading, all I did was shoot a crystal on asteroid and collected it.

[Alan Phipps]

None of your recent DxDiag reported Win10 errors refer to X 4 though. Your system seems to be unstable with many applications.

[onedevil]

None of your recent DxDiag reported Win10 errors refer to X 4 though. Your system seems to be unstable with many applications.

I will try to do a clean install of windows in near future, since that takes a lot of time.

I will post again afterwards.