7.10 (538965) CTD Issues

[zeroepix]

Okay I give up, and I'm turning to you guys for help. I've really tried my best to figure out what the problem is, but I can't.

The first ~100-200 hours were good, few if any CTDs, then after doing some mainline quests, CTDs just started happening randomly, and completely unpredictably. I have 81 crash dumps beginning from the 7th of Nov, I dunno why that day was special. There's one thing that always shows up in the debug file about an abandoned boron ship error, but the game might run for an hour or a few seconds before CTD. They do seem to happen more frequently when hostile NPCs are attacking my ships somewhere else, and I have averted CTDs before by teleporting to that ship and dealing with the hostile, but that's not always why it CTDs.

Sometimes I get a dead-save (like the one linked below), but usually if I go back a few saves different events happen in the world (yay rng?) and the destined CTD doesn't happen...but inevitably there will be another one. It's unplayable fo rme, and I know others are playing it fine, so what's wrong with my PC? I've changed nothing (until after the CTDs started happening), and played thousands of hours of other games without a single crash until now. I'm perplexed.

There are no error messages, the only thing in the event viewer is something about HDR can be turned off in settings, which I disabled to no difference, and there *were* some nvidia container errors but they seemed to happen all the time, and the timings didn't seem to relate to any specific crashes. Nonetheless, I did a fresh install of Nvidia drivers, updated bioses, chipset drivers, loosened memory timings, reduced all overclocks, even set temp limits to ensure GPU and CPU weren't overheating. Stress testing cpu/ram/gpu simultaneously has come up with nothing, sfc /scannows and chkdsks have improved nothing. I love this game, but I can't take it any more. Pls halp. I never installed any mods or anything because I always prefer vanilla in my games anyway.

The quicksave I'm linking crashes a few seconds after loading every time for me, and I've created the other files after this last crash. I'd love someone to tell me what I'm missing.

Link to quicksave, debug.txt, dxdiag.txt, vulkaninfo.txt, crashdumps, plus a couple xmls because why not: https://cloud.blisteringdevelopers.com/ ... fPj75xz6Ms

There haven't been any BSODs while playing the game, however dxdiag may report some when I was playing around with hardware settings trying to find something that helped.

from debug.txt:
Saved in 7.10 (538965), game time = 6d 16h 32m, gamestart 'x4ep1_gamestart_boron1' started in 6.00 (499061)

^^ is that literally the problem? do I just need to restart in 7.10?

The other error that's always there (but doesn't appear to directly cause a CTD):

[=ERROR=] 577920.01 Error in MD cue md.Story_Boron.Ch1_ClaimedAbandonedShip: Error evaluating <event_object_changed_owner> event object: Component 0x0 does not exist any more
* Expression: $AbandonedBoronShip

[CBJ]

The messages you've quoted from the log files are harmless and quite normal, and you don't need to restart with the latest version. All the crashdumps you uploaded indicate crashes in the Windows kernel rather than in the game, and there is nothing at all about X4 in the error section of your DXDiag report. All of this points to a system issue and the first suspect would be GigaByte EasyTune, which is the first thing that comes up if you search for the most frequent crash in your DXDiag. I would start by ensuring that all your system components are running at stock speeds, timings and voltages, then removing that software and seeing if that helps.

[Candaan001]

Try run these commands from and administrator command prompt.

SFC /scannow

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

You could have a bad Windows patch that broken something.

[zeroepix]

Try run these commands from and administrator command prompt.

SFC /scannow

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

You could have a bad Windows patch that broken something.

Thanks, I have run these commands based on your advice in other threads on this topic. It did fix something the first time I ran them, but that didn't stop the CTDing. I've run them both again just now but they came back clean.

[zeroepix]

The messages you've quoted from the log files are harmless and quite normal, and you don't need to restart with the latest version. All the crashdumps you uploaded indicate crashes in the Windows kernel rather than in the game, and there is nothing at all about X4 in the error section of your DXDiag report. All of this points to a system issue and the first suspect would be GigaByte EasyTune, which is the first thing that comes up if you search for the most frequent crash in your DXDiag. I would start by ensuring that all your system components are running at stock speeds, timings and voltages, then removing that software and seeing if that helps.

Interesting, that didn't show up on my previous DXDiags while I was trying to work it out on my own. I've uninstalled it and will reboot with optimized defaults on the CPU (no PBO or anything else) to see if that makes any difference.

In the meantime, I did start a new boron game, and indeed there are no crashes...so I'm thinking it's a heavy load thing. That does imply a CPU issue...ram on 2133 factory default hasn't made a difference to CTDs previously, although it did run horribly as a bonus.

[zeroepix]

Okay, so I did a few more things, including removing easytune completely, setting a larger pagefile and resetting bios to a pure "load optimized defaults".

With hopeful tears in my eyes, upon confirming everything was indeed stock-slow in passmark, I found that the game did CTD less frequently, however it still crashes often and randomly.

The only other thing I can think of is the crashes may have coincided with a "forced Microsoft update to win11" which may have happened around the time that they started. That means I can try installing a fresh 11 (instead of the upgrade it did), or perhaps even installing 10 again and seeing if it works fine again. Would that make sense or are there any other better ideas?

[CBJ]

A fresh Windows install is only likely to help if there are issues with the existing installation. It's a lot of work for potentially no gain, but a few people have solved problems this way, so it's up to you. I don't see any reason to go via Windows 10 if you do decide to do it. I would say a hardware or BIOS setting problem would still be the more likely underlying cause, but tracking that down can be tricky too, as you've already found.

[zeroepix]

I was becoming almost certain this could just be a memory issue, so I replaced my 4x8 sticks with an older known-working 2x8, but to my dismay it still crashed. I disabled PBO completely, as I realized defaults put it on "auto", which means on...still no dice :'(. I also did a full re-download of all mobo/chipset drivers that were distinctly for win11 in case something went off there, plus removed nvidia drivers using Nvidias tool (haven't tried DDU yet), and reinstalled them. Also uninstalled and re-downloaded the game.

The minidumps are claiming this for the last so many ctds:

*** WARNING: Check Image - Checksum mismatch - Dump: 0x3c8193, File: 0x3caa59 - C:\ProgramData\dbg\sym\KERNELBASE.dll\7433A1153b9000\KERNELBASE.dll
*** WARNING: Unable to verify checksum for crashrpt.dll

and this stack trace:

ERROR_CODE: (NTSTATUS) 0xcce17002 - <Unable to get error code text>

EXCEPTION_CODE_STR: cce17002

STACK_TEXT:
0000005d`c52fb770 00007ffe`71b222b5 : 0000005d`c52ff180 000001f6`acc974b0 0000005d`00000000 000001f6`e0ede3a0 : KERNELBASE!RaiseException+0x6c
0000005d`c52fb850 00007ffe`71b22297 : 0000005d`c52ff120 00000000`00000000 00007ff7`4fa47570 00000000`00000000 : crashrpt!Ordinal4+0x22b5
0000005d`c52fb8a0 00007ff7`4edc3f6c : 0000005d`c52f010e 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : crashrpt!Ordinal4+0x2297
0000005d`c52fb8d0 00007ff7`4e0fe1d9 : 00000000`00000000 0000005d`c52ff120 0000005d`c52ff120 00000000`00000000 : X4!xmlUCSIsCat+0x608d8c
0000005d`c52fb900 00007ff7`4e0fc2f4 : 000001f6`f2d07f40 0000005d`c52ff120 00000000`00000002 00007ff7`4e0d8015 : X4!ToggleDrones+0x1b9c69
0000005d`c52fef00 00007ff7`4e0b35eb : ffffffff`ffffffff 000001f6`acc974a0 0000005d`c52ff290 000001f7`c0e958d8 : X4!ToggleDrones+0x1b7d84
0000005d`c52ff0f0 00007ff7`4e0b23b7 : 000001f7`c0e958d8 000001f7`c0e958d8 0000005d`00000000 000001f7`c0e958d8 : X4!ToggleDrones+0x16f07b
0000005d`c52ff210 00007ff7`4e0e2e8b : 00000000`00000004 000001f7`c0e958d8 0000005d`c52ff2e0 00000000`00000000 : X4!ToggleDrones+0x16de47
0000005d`c52ff290 00007ff7`4dfabe0f : 000001f7`c0e958d8 000001f7`c0e958a0 5851f42d`00000000 00007ff7`00000000 : X4!ToggleDrones+0x19e91b
0000005d`c52ff2c0 00007ff7`4df8f6ea : 000001f7`00000001 000001f7`c0e958a0 00000000`00000000 000001f6`f1f5d3b0 : X4!ToggleDrones+0x6789f
0000005d`c52ff300 00007ff7`4e3fb430 : 00000000`00000000 0000005d`c52ff450 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000001 : X4!ToggleDrones+0x4b17a
0000005d`c52ff350 00007ff7`4de280e5 : 000001f5`e72701d0 00000000`00000000 0000005d`00000080 00000000`00000000 : X4!ToggleDrones+0x4b6ec0
0000005d`c52ff5b0 00007ff7`4e2e928f : 000001f5`dae29740 00000000`00000003 00000000`00000000 000001f5`7425c0e0 : X4!IsExternalViewActive+0x2125
0000005d`c52ff720 00007ff7`4e8c334a : 000001f5`db03e0d0 000001f5`cd008db0 3fe4d0f6`27400000 000001f5`c9a9e4f0 : X4!ToggleDrones+0x3a4d1f
0000005d`c52ff7e0 00007ff7`4edeaf90 : 000001f5`cc550610 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : X4!xmlUCSIsCat+0x10816a
0000005d`c52ff810 00007ffe`890b259d : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : X4!xmlUCSIsCat+0x62fdb0
0000005d`c52ff840 00007ffe`8ab0af38 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : kernel32!BaseThreadInitThunk+0x1d
0000005d`c52ff870 00000000`00000000 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : ntdll!RtlUserThreadStart+0x28

... before the last lot of the above, I was getting these (without the kernelbase warning):

ERROR_CODE: (NTSTATUS) 0xc0000005 - The instruction at 0x%p referenced memory at 0x%p. The memory could not be %s.

EXCEPTION_CODE_STR: c0000005

EXCEPTION_PARAMETER1: 0000000000000000

EXCEPTION_PARAMETER2: ffffffffffffffff

STACK_TEXT:
00000053`f79fede0 00007ff6`2d7b14a1 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 0000020b`f4b4eb90 : X4!xmlParserInputRead+0xbf820
00000053`f79ff250 00007ff6`2dfff196 : 0000020b`f4b4eb90 0000020b`8f3e6df0 0000020b`8e1545a0 00000000`00000000 : X4!xmlParserInputRead+0xc8bd1
00000053`f79ff340 00007ff6`2df95277 : 00000000`00000002 0000020a`858588d0 00000000`00000002 0000020c`4a78e9d8 : X4!ToggleDrones+0x13ac26
00000053`f79ff480 00007ff6`2df0f6ea : 0000020c`4a78e9a0 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 0000020b`8e1545a0 : X4!ToggleDrones+0xd0d07
00000053`f79ff4d0 00007ff6`2e37b430 : 00000000`00000000 00000053`f79ff620 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000001 : X4!ToggleDrones+0x4b17a
00000053`f79ff520 00007ff6`2dda80e5 : 0000020a`97e679b0 00000000`00000001 00000053`00000002 00000000`00000000 : X4!ToggleDrones+0x4b6ec0
00000053`f79ff780 00007ff6`2e26928f : 0000020a`967cf480 00000000`00000003 00000000`00000000 0000020a`78b1ee10 : X4!IsExternalViewActive+0x2125
00000053`f79ff8f0 00007ff6`2e84334a : 0000020a`96aaaf40 0000020a`970970c0 3f90368d`5a000000 0000020a`73cdbad0 : X4!ToggleDrones+0x3a4d1f
00000053`f79ff9b0 00007ff6`2ed6af90 : 0000020a`74860900 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : X4!xmlUCSIsCat+0x10816a
00000053`f79ff9e0 00007ff9`2f67259d : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : X4!xmlUCSIsCat+0x62fdb0
00000053`f79ffa10 00007ff9`3042af38 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : kernel32!BaseThreadInitThunk+0x1d
00000053`f79ffa40 00000000`00000000 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : ntdll!RtlUserThreadStart+0x28

... And before that (like a few days ago) variations of these:

EXCEPTION_RECORD: (.exr -1)
ExceptionAddress: 00007ff663c0ed0c (X4!xmlCheckHTTPInput+0x000000000002a85c)
ExceptionCode: c0000005 (Access violation)
ExceptionFlags: 00000000
NumberParameters: 2
Parameter[0]: 0000000000000000
Parameter[1]: ffffffffffffffff
Attempt to read from address ffffffffffffffff

PROCESS_NAME: X4.exe

READ_ADDRESS: ffffffffffffffff

ERROR_CODE: (NTSTATUS) 0xc0000005 - The instruction at 0x%p referenced memory at 0x%p. The memory could not be %s.

EXCEPTION_CODE_STR: c0000005

EXCEPTION_PARAMETER1: 0000000000000000

EXCEPTION_PARAMETER2: ffffffffffffffff

STACK_TEXT:
0000002c`4e3ff2b0 00007ff6`642d8c66 : 00000000`00000000 000001f4`2ae70870 000001f4`014d4160 000001f4`014d4160 : X4!xmlCheckHTTPInput+0x2a85c
0000002c`4e3ff2e0 00007ff6`63f82423 : 000001f3`f482dad0 0000002c`4e3ff3d0 000001f2`dee82800 00000000`00000986 : X4!ToggleDrones+0x5546f6
0000002c`4e3ff360 00007ff6`642e7715 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 0000002c`00000000 : X4!ToggleDrones+0x1fdeb3
0000002c`4e3ff390 00007ff6`642e4de8 : 000001f4`014d4160 000001f2`e80819f0 000001f2`dee82820 00000000`00000986 : X4!ToggleDrones+0x5631a5
0000002c`4e3ff3d0 00007ff6`63c554ad : 00000000`00000000 000001f2`d2fa9220 00000000`00000000 000001f2`d50a58b0 : X4!ToggleDrones+0x560878
0000002c`4e3ff440 00007ff6`63b4d45c : 00000000`00000000 000001f2`1bd27590 0000002c`4e3ff700 000001f2`d3d40150 : X4!xmlCheckHTTPInput+0x70ffd
0000002c`4e3ff600 00007ff6`643d1cce : 000001f2`1bd27590 000001f2`d3d401f0 000001f2`e79a3ca0 0000002c`4e3ff740 : X4!xmlParserInputRead+0x5a4b8c
0000002c`4e3ff640 00007ff6`6412928f : 00000152`00000008 00000000`00000003 00000000`00000000 000001f2`1cf85270 : X4!ToggleDrones+0x64d75e
0000002c`4e3ff830 00007ff6`6470334a : 000001f2`c180a1e0 000001f2`c1355720 3f996f43`85000000 000001f2`c1e5d3d0 : X4!ToggleDrones+0x3a4d1f
0000002c`4e3ff8f0 00007ff6`64c2af90 : 000001f2`c6452d00 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : X4!xmlUCSIsCat+0x10816a
0000002c`4e3ff920 00007fff`ea34257d : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : X4!xmlUCSIsCat+0x62fdb0
0000002c`4e3ff950 00007fff`eb84af08 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : kernel32!BaseThreadInitThunk+0x1d
0000002c`4e3ff980 00000000`00000000 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : ntdll!RtlUserThreadStart+0x28


SYMBOL_NAME: X4+2a85c

MODULE_NAME: X4

IMAGE_NAME: X4.exe

STACK_COMMAND: ~72s; .ecxr ; kb

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: INVALID_POINTER_READ_ONE_BIT_c0000005_X4.exe!Unknown

----------------------

So the above all seem to have ToggleDrones in common...does that mean anything?

Also there are the read violations...I went into app-controls just now and created a rule for x4.exe which "allowed it to exploit everything it's heart desired". It crashed, same as top error above. I've disabled memory integrity now, and need to restart to test that so I will...I really don't want to reinstall windows so if even this isn't it I might just have to give up for now and wait until my next upgrade to play again.

[zeroepix]

Interestingly...or perhaps not...turning off memory integrity just made X4 hang instead of CTD. Could still right-click close, but no crash dump. Big Sigh.

[Alan Phipps]

I looked up previous X4 CTD reports involving ToggleDrones. The following actions had some improvement for some other posters:

1. Rolling back, upgrading or reinstalling graphics driver. Example.
2. Reducing the number of objects to be drawn in the game to help the graphics driver to cope. Example and another.
3. Disabling the Steam Overlay. Example.

Various other reports were not always followed up by posters reporting progress towards any resolution, but they usually involved some sort of graphics driver issue such as it being outdated or it and the card being stressed by the game.

I hope something here helps, good luck.

[zeroepix]

Ohh thanks for doing that. That's really helpful.

1. Rolling back drivers - worth trying an older one I guess (pre-crashes).

2. I did go a bit laser tower crazy to keep the xenon in check...and setup a scrap farm. Like maybe ~2-3k or so. Is there any way to mod the game to increase this limit? I have no mods so it must be my "empire". HQ is pretty busy, too. viewtopic.php?p=5187878#p5187878 - I suppose the other thing I'll try is just pause the game on load and make them all self-destruct to see if it still crashes at the same point.

3. I did try disabling steam overlay but that didn't change this error. I also uninstalled game-bar completely to no avail except an error when the game launched about not being able to find it. I do use a steam controller to play...which means big picture...I can try running it without B.P. too.

I guess...did the devs ever address the item-limit as discussed in one of those threads? I'm really surprised that 32GB ram / 3080Ti 12GB / Nvme disks etc aren't good enough. Something doesn't add up...My PC scores 93rd percentile in passmark "overall". My CPU isn't the greetest, but it's still in the 82nd. My PSU is an RM1000...I doubt it's that but there's a chance I guess. I don't know how to diagnose that more easily (like with HWinfo or something).

[zeroepix]

Soo....just now I disabled steam overlay again, didn't use big picture, loaded the game and set the graphics to 1280x720, literally turned everything off where possible, 0 or low...and it kept running past the tick of doom for this current save (!!).

The PC is also back running at my normal performance-tweaked bios, so it's definitely something with the graphics card. I still have to figure out which of the above are the actual killers, or whether there will be more at this setting, but at least it's progress.

[zeroepix]

Played around with it a lot...it seems everything off at the lowest resolution reduces the crashing a lot. I tried underclocking my GPU/VRAM by 500MHZ, seemed to help, but also still get crashes. Last thing to try before full OS reinstall is older nvidia drivers.

Does anyone know if nvme raid would cause an issue like this?

[CBJ]

Does anyone know if nvme raid would cause an issue like this?

There have been instances of peculiar issues caused by things like drive configurations and Samsung Magician in the past, but as far as I'm aware these have all be resolved.

[zeroepix]

Sadly, it appears my low-res-luck has run out, and my quicksave CTDs within a few seconds. I've updated all the files as appropriate in the shared folder, in the off-chance there's something new or informative in them, but otherwise I'm all out of ideas.

https://cloud.blisteringdevelopers.com/ ... fPj75xz6Ms

GPU power is well under the max, temps are all colder than they've ever been (500MHz GPU/VRAM under-clock). I've done full-clean driver re-installs of everything I can think of. Other games still seem to be running okay. Only things I haven't done is a full OS re-install, or destroyed my Xenon Laser Farm. I realize going low-res may only have postponed that particular issue for later.

I've just remembered I have my old 1080 Ti sitting around somewhere...will give that a shot for giggles.

[zeroepix]

Soo...1080Ti lasted a few seconds longer and gave a more interesting debug.txt (I put in folder), but stil CTD'ed

[CBJ]

This last set of crashdumps is completely different. They're actual game crashes, and the good news is that they are reproducible using your savegame. Even better, they may help us to track down an issue that we've been trying to trace for a while.

What's not so clear is whether they are in any way related to your earlier crashes, or whether those were something different. They certainly seem different from the information we have available, but we'll see.

[zeroepix]

**Holds Breath**

[zeroepix]

**Holds Breath**

**Expires**

Just kidding. I decided to get myself an early XMAS present in the form of a new gaming rig. 9800x3D, X870 Tomahawk, DDR5 ram, new nvme (no raid this time), new 1.3kw PSU. The only thing I kept was the 3080 Ti, which I didn't think was a problem since it still crashed with my 1080 Ti.

Anyway...it was a bit better for a while...but now I can't get past a few seconds from here. It's always the same reason - Xenon declaring an invasion, and then poof! Game says no.

I've updated the files, not sure what to do now. I was really hoping it was just my old CPU or something: https://cloud.blisteringdevelopers.com/ ... fPj75xz6Ms

I...feel sad that I can't continue playing this awesome game and I don't know why.

[Alan Phipps]

Just to be clear, no change has been made in the current game version since CBJ's last post above and so the issue that you helped to identify has not been fixed yet.

For the devs' information, was it a fresh vanilla gamestart with the new rig or did you carry on from prior saves made with the old rig(s)?