Please help - EliteDangerous.exe crashes while loading Odyssey

[CptMarkHarlock]

Greetings CMDRs and PC Gurus !

I am posting my support request here and not in the Odyssey Alpha thread because the issue I have seems to me very technical and likely due to something wrong in my PC. Hoping knowledgeable fellows CMDRs may help.

I had not been able so far to play Odyssey Alpha because, every time I press ‘Play’ on Steam ED Launcher, the screen turns black, the intro music starts playing and after 20-30 seconds a crash alert window pops up stating:
”EliteDangerous64.exe has encountered a problem that it cannot continue from”

I have to kill EliteDangerous64.exe from the Task Manager to return back to the launcher.

ED Horizons works perfectly fine from the same launcher.

My system is a Windows 7 Ultimate with all updates applied, I have checked the system files integrity with no errors.

My CPU is Intel E8400 @ 3.6 Ghz, GPU is NVidia GTX 1050 Ti 4 GB, system has 8 GB RAM

I know Odyssey specs are higher but when buying Odyssey I trusted that could have been able at least to play it with minimum settings, considering that ED Horizons runs with solid 60 fps at 1600x900

I have tried many obvious (clean install latest gpu drivers, check game files integrity with Steam) and less obvious workarounds (have the game rebuild the Graphics folder under the User subdirectory), but nothing worked so far.

The only technical clue I can add (but not understand) is that at every crash a netLog file is created under the ‘Logs’ subdirectory of PUBLIC_TEST_SERVER_OD folder that always ends with these lines:

watchdog: 16 1844 2636 27658
!!! - - - Long frame time: 8.7 sec - - - !!!

The nubers after ‘watchdog’ are every time different

If any CMDR would lend me a hand of support I will very much appreciate.

Thank you for reading

o7

 

[finglonger]

by any chance are you using MSI afterburner and rivatuner? i had a similar issue when i first installed ED:O game refused to start first time utill i killed afterburner\rivatuner after first startup afterburner can then be restarted. only even gave that a thought because of the X series of games

somebody else has suggested the steam game may be downloading and setting the files to read only, from the PUBLIC_TEST_SERVER_64 folder unselect the readonly, however solid black square next to read only is normal

try launching the game as admin, you might need to launch steam as admin instead

if you have UAC enabled set UAC to disabled

if your using an antivirus, disable it temorarily until ED:O has launched for the first time, then add ED:O to the exceptions\exclusions list

 

[CptMarkHarlock]

Greetings CMDR finglonger,

thank you for your suggestions.

I do not use MSI afterburner / Rivatuner and have no antivirus running (my pc is kinda ‘barebones’ as I use it only for gaming, seldom Internet surfing with great attention to the sites I visit), just using Windows Firewall and Defender.

As suggested, I have disabled UAC and unselected readonly from the installation folder (even though it had solid block near readonly). Hard Disk was working while the attribute was changed for all subfolders and files.

I have launched either Steam and ED Launcher as Administrator but the problem is still there.

Black screen, intro music starts but no visuals, after 20-30 crash

Odyssey installation folder in my pc is named: PUBLIC_TEST_SERVER_OD
( is that the same for other Steam Users ? )

this folder has currently size 51.9 GB (55,808,505,013 byte)

size on disk 52.1 GB (55.999,279,104 byte)

contains 87,552 files in 26 folders

27 files are logs, hence a base installation will be less

Thanks for reading, wish to solve this nasty issue...

o7

 

[finglonger]

ok more to try
form %localappdata%\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\Options\Graphics
find DisplaySettings.xml
change fullscreen to <FullScreen>0</FullScreen> - this should set ED to windowed
on the launcher > options check or uncheck (if already selected) enable cache check, enable virtual cache and check for X input

if it has been created in C:\Games\steamapps\common\EliteDangerous\Products\PUBLIC_TEST_SERVER_64 delete GpuWorkTable.xml by renaming, though i doubt i would have been created yet

 

[CptMarkHarlock]

Hello CMDR

did exactly as suggested, both on DisplaySettings.xml and the launcher, unfortunately the problem is still there

You are right, GpuWorkTable.xml does not exist in ED:O directory, meaning when crash occurs the game exe has not yet created it.

My ED:O installation folder is named PUBLIC_TEST_SERVER_OD instead of PUBLIC_TEST_SERVER_64

I am wondering if for a Steam installation this is correct?

Thanks

 

[finglonger]

folder name could be a result of running win7

 

[CptMarkHarlock]

Yes I installed ED:O via Steam

 

[finglonger]

ok not sure if this will work with steam but run the ED:O EliteDangerous64.exe directly, without steam - not the ED launcher

IF it works it should build the shader cache and fail to logon - it may take a while for the ED logo to appear especially if your using a HDD and not SSD

once complete try launching ED as normal

 

[CptMarkHarlock]

Hello, rebooted the pc and run EliteDangerous64.exe directly, without Steam.

Still does not work

The only difference is the crash report window did not show up, EliteDangerous64.exe was still showing in Task Manager as running but cpu usage was 0% and no HDD activity.

Thank you for all the attempts ... very nasty issue.

I am once more veryfying the game files becausevit does not hurt but likely they will show ok.

 

[STRONTIUM DOG]

personally I would try the opposite run msi afterburner droping the core clock using the msi slider at 50hz increments to a max of say 150hz and then running the game
to see if that black screen but music continues issue stabilizes

 

[Ettanin]

It's possible ED odyssey would require win10. Can you show the error code that Windows is giving you once you try to start the game?

 

[finglonger]

there is at lest one other person running win7 who is able to play

Gameplay Feedback

I can't upgrade my suit, as I don't have the materials necessary to upgrade it Sorry .. I mean .. have you bought the Maverick suit?

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[CptMarkHarlock]

Heya CMDRs, thank you for your syggestions, appreciated.

Entring the BIOS I have removed the overclock from the E8400 Dual Core CPU bringing back to the factory value of 3.0 Ghz
I must say I overclocked it nearly one year ago bringing it to 3.6 Ghz and had never a stability issue with that setting during the months - never seen a single BSOD.

The GPU is an ASUS Cerberus gtx 1050 Ti not overclocked. I did not see the reason to do that because of course the bottleneck of my pc is of course the cpu. Non the less, ED Horizons plays nicely at 'high' with solid 60 fps in space and 40 inside stations.

Anyhow, tried to launch the game, the issue is still there, same behavior.
Black screen, music continues, EliteDangerous64.exe crashed.
I forgot to say the Task Manager in Win7 always shows EliteDangerous64.exe as 'still running' instead of 'stop responding'.
I must kill EliteDangerous64.exe with Task Manager to go back to the launcher.

I have taken a screenshot of the crash error window that shows up and attached here the two log files that I am able to recognize in ED:O main installation directory.

Hope I am not bothering you too much and thank you in advance for any further advice

o7

 

[finglonger]

Exception occurred in ThreadID : 4064 - was that ED? you may need to enable PID within task manager to check but PID changes every launch - you could try deleting which ever exe this PID belongs to and allowing steam to re-download that file, assuming its an ED exe

find your client.log and delete\rename it
you may need to check here for details where to find it but on my machine its under >ed\logs

start the game, once the game crashes check the log file- word of warning this file contains your account details in clear text - if your going to post the log remove any personal identifying information

 

[Kellan Fell]

Mine started doing this last night, after I played Horizons for a few hours. I'd updated my graphics and Oculus drivers as well. Odessey was fine before that, then I played Horizons, had to install the updates, played Horizons some more, then came out to try Odessey again and now I get exactly the same behaivour. Black screen with the music for 10-15 seconds, then the music stutters and it crashes to desktop with the same error reporting screen.
I raised a bug report.
I'm on Windows 10, with a RTX3080 card on a Ryzen-9 3900 cpu.

My Client Log just says:

20210403/010111: { "action" : "ProjectStarted", "project" : "PUBLIC_TEST_SERVER_OD", "date" : "20210403", "time" : "010111" } ;
20210403/010129: { "action" : "ProjectFinished", "project" : "PUBLIC_TEST_SERVER_OD", "date" : "20210403", "time" : "010129" } ;
20210403/010210: { "action" : "ProjectStarted", "project" : "PUBLIC_TEST_SERVER_OD", "date" : "20210403", "time" : "010210" } ;
20210403/010227: { "action" : "ProjectFinished", "project" : "PUBLIC_TEST_SERVER_OD", "date" : "20210403", "time" : "010227" } ;

So it just starts and stops the game about 18 seconds apart.

 

[STRONTIUM DOG]

try a clean install of the latest gpu driver maybe

 

[CptMarkHarlock]

Hello CMDRs !

Thank you all for providing suggestions and feedback, appreciated

@STRONTIUM DOG : yes I did a clean install of the latest gpu driver yesterday (using DDU - Display Driver Uninstaller for best results), unfortunately it did not help

@finglonger : I renamed the existing Client log file and attach here the Client log file generated when launched ED:O just a few minutes ago. If I understand it properly, seems to show the same behaviour reported by @Kellan Fell

@Kellan Fell : yes, the behaviour you described is exactly what happens to me - Black screen with the music for 10-15 seconds, then the music stutters and it crashes to desktop with the crash error reporting screen. I am not pleased hearing it occurred to you, but considering your pc specs are definitely better than mine, at least my issue should not be related to obsolescence of my rig.

As I am writing, I have received an email from Frontier Support related to the support ticket I issued about this problem, saying that the crash report I have sent led them to internal investigations for similar crashes. Fixes have been identified and will be applied to ED:O at the start of the next Alpha phases. I hope these fixes will allow myself and CMDRs as @Kellan Fell in similar situation to resolve the issue.

Should anyone have additional suggestions I will welcome them, probably though is better for me to wait until next ED:O Alpha phase (with fingers crossed).

Thanks everyone reaching out and I take the chance to Wish You my Very Best Happy Easter greetings!!

o7

 

[ebbrell]

Check if you have and GraphicsConfigurationOverride setting in the override file.

The file is shared accross horizons and alpha.
I removed the few i had alpha didnt like the setting in it

 

[apolloz]

Not trying to be funny, but is your windows 7 ultimate a 64 bit version ?

 

[CptMarkHarlock]

Greetings CMDRs,

@ebbrell : I do not have any setting added inside GraphicsConfigurationOverride file

@apolloz : yes I have Win7 Ultimate 64bit, with all updates applied (I checked them while investigating this nasty issue)

Thank you both for reaching out!

o7