Rik Kirtaniya

Great! This actually WORKED! Going to the Foreman's Office and then to the Arena Sub-level makes it load properly! Though how this worked successfully is beyond my imagination. That is because I tried to enter the Arena sub-level directly from the Engwithian ruins after I successfully tested this workaround. But this time, the freeze bug persisted. Weird. My hypothesis is that the dreaded freeze occurs if one enters the Arena sub-level directly, or if one loads a save game from within the Arena sub-level (because that is what happened with me). However, if one enters it after entering the Foreman's Office, it loads normally. Strange. Anyways, I'm happy to have finally found a reliable workaround (tested it myself two times on Windows 10, and it worked consistently on both occasions). I'll try to complete the area in one go (without risking any saving and reloading) and get through this. At least somehow I can finally play the rest of the game now! Hurray! Thanks for sharing this workaround, rone!

Thanks a lot for taking this matter into your consideration! I've answered the questions related to this issue in the "Known Major Issues" thread, and have also attached the Dump File as mentioned there (via a Google Drive link) in a subsequent post in the same thread. Hope that helps! I think others facing this issue should take a look at that thread, and hopefully all of our answers can lead to this problem being solved ultimately. Good luck to the developers!

Well, well, it seems my internet connection is not really as slow as I imagined it to be! I compressed the file to less than a GB, and got it uploaded to my Google Drive within 20 minutes. Since being a new member, I cannot update my previous post unless it is approved by a moderator and is visible, so I'm posting the links here in a new post. Firstly, here's the link to the Dump File of the game's .exe file created when the freeze takes place: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1y3Tctpkk_CYBfO4IMJCbx00SqY1MSpxf Secondly, here's the link to the latest output file and save game created using the latest patch (release 33). (The previous one was with older patches, so I thought you might like to see the condition of the latest one with the freeze issue). https://drive.google.com/open?id=1SAfgP_PVI9ZOdwjdOu1ciKdT17ZPRdcy Hope this helps! Please let us know if you find the culprit behind this problem.

Firstly, I would like to thank the developers for taking this issue into consideration. It has been really bothering and disheartening since this is actually not allowing me to play the game at all, so it feels really good to see that it has finally been taken up for investigation. I wish I could lend my PC for this purpose, but I live in a completely different part of the world. Nevertheless, I shall try my best to help, so that this issue can be fixed as fast as possible so that I (and others facing it) may finally play the game. For your information, I am playing on Windows 10, on the GOG version and on the latest patch (v.1.2.2.0033). Now let me answer the above questions one by one: In my case, the freeze occurs after the loading screen is finished showing. The screen remains black with only the hand-cursor for an indefinite time. It's not like the other after-loading screen periods where the music briefly pauses and the cursor changes from the hand to the red and then to the yellow one. Here the hand remains indefinitely along with the black screen. At this moment, when I open the Task Manager, the CPU, GPU and Disk Usages for the game's .exe file process is near zero. The only way to exit is to kill the process using task manager. This issue occurs only with this map, and I've not faced anything like this in all the areas that I have access to so far in the game. I've tried using the console to go to the area directly from the map screen, but the issue still occurs in the same manner. The issue does occur even on a new game started on the latest patch. I started a new game a few hours ago and speed-ran to the area with Eder and myself, but it's still happening. Yes, I've experienced this issue on previous patches as well. I don't clearly remember the exact version, but I think it's since v.1.1 at least. My answer to the last question is indeed the most remarkable thing. The fact is that I have been able to enter the area the very first time I played. I played upto the narration scene with Eothas and decided to take a break. I made a save game, and then attempted to continue playing the very same day, with no updates of any kind in between (neither that of the game, nor any of those pesky Windows updates), and all of a sudden this problem appeared and it continues to persist till date. I simply can't play any further, and I'm sad. Here's a link to the save game file, dxdiag file and output file when the issue occurs: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hjxzLmY7cREGD37R_IxkhSmwzVoKJyF5 I'll try to send the dump file created when this issue occurs, but it's huge (3.83 GB), so it'll probably take me a day or two to upload it to one of my Cloud Drives. (I don't have a super-high-speed internet connection.) I'll update this post with the link to the dump file as soon as I have been able to upload it. I wish the developers good luck, and eagerly hope that this issue gets fixed soon.

I just updated to the latest patch today, hoping that this issue might have been fixed by now. But alas! The problem still persists. I am soooo eager to continue playing this game, but cannot do so due to this bug and this bug alone. It is so very disappointing. I hope the developers are looking into this matter. This issue would have not been so bothering if this area were not part of the main story line. I hope it is given due concern and priority for the very fact that it is a game-breaking one. Those who are facing it simply cannot progress any further and cannot keep on playing the game. It is my sincere request to the developers, please, do something to fix this issue. Please help us! I want to play this game.

I am also facing this same problem. Whenever I'm loading into the Arena sub-level, there is the black screen with only the mouse cursor visible. When I check the Task Manager in this situation, the CPU usage and Disk usage levels of the game's .exe file are nearly 0. It doesn't seem to resolve no matter how long I wait. However, all the other maps (that are accessible at the moment) are loading normally without any issues. The strange thing is that the very first time I played the game and entered the Arena sub-level, it loaded without any problems. That time, I made a save game after speaking with Eothas, thinking I'll continue later from there. And the next time onwards, I could neither load that save file (that is, black screen occurs), nor enter that area again by loading into any previous area and entering from there. Also, for your information, I'm playing with the GOG version. I've provided my save game file, output file, and dxdiag file within a .rar file via the following Google Drive link. Hope it helps to fix the issue. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hjxzLmY7cREGD37R_IxkhSmwzVoKJyF5 (It seems I'm not permitted to directly upload the .rar file using the uploader feature here. Is it because I'm a new member?) I was really enjoying the game until this bug happened and now I'm locked out from progressing further. I hope this gets fixed soon, for I'm very eager to continue my adventure in this brilliant game. Best wishes and good luck to the development team!