Entering Engwithan Digsite Arena Sub-level causes freeze

[Alot]

Whenever I try to enter the Engwithan Digsite Arena Sub-level the game will try to load the area for a short while, but eventually get stuck on a black screen showing only the cursor. When this happens I am unable to quit the game or force the application to close via task manager and need to restart my PC.

 

This dropbox link contains my savefile and below are the output and DxDiag logs.

 

 

 

output_log.txt

DxDiag.txt

 

 

Edit: Nevermind, it just loaded; I have NO idea why.

Edited May 9, 2018 by Alot

[Cdiaz]

Hey all,

 

Sorry to hear its stopping you guys from getting into the digsite, and thanks a ton for providing those files it really helps! Any more info you guys can provide will help greatly. I'll be sure to get this entered to be looked at.

 

Thanks,

 

-Caleb

[sounin]

Same problem here. You sure u dont know how you fixed it?

[HorseCarnival]

I'm having this same issue (though thankfully, forcing the application to close works for me). Every other area transition, even within the Engwithan Dig Site, works fine. It's only the Arena Sub-Level that refuses to work. And since I think you have to go there to progress, I hope there's either a reliable workaround, or this gets patched fairly quickly.

[sounin]

I was trying to restart my PC, change settings of the game, update my drives, but nope, still it freezes at entering Sub-Level =/

[HorseCarnival]

Just to be sure, I re-installed the game, but that didn't help either.

[Etherealizer]

Seems I'm not the only one receiving this bug. Happened to me twice now despite verifying cache and restarting my save file from the beginning.

 

EDIT: Alright, I found a workaround for now. Lowered my graphical settings to low and it let me transition into the level.

Edited May 9, 2018 by Etherealizer

[wraithlord45]

Seems I'm not the only one receiving this bug. Happened to me twice now despite verifying cache and restarting my save file from the beginning.

 

EDIT: Alright, I found a workaround for now. Lowered my graphical settings to low and it let me transition into the level.

[wraithlord45]

Seems I'm not the only one receiving this bug. Happened to me twice now despite verifying cache and restarting my save file from the beginning.

 

EDIT: Alright, I found a workaround for now. Lowered my graphical settings to low and it let me transition into the level.

Did you turn off vsync?

[CurrieBelle]

I'm having the same issue. Reinstalled the game, turned all my graphics settings to low, and still the engwithan arena sublevel does not load when I enter it. I get the black screen, the cursor loads, music cuts out, and I have to hard reset my computer (I can get the task manager to pop up, but it also freezes instantly.) 

 

I even tried going into the sublevel without Aloth (I figured fewer characters = fewer things to process = success??) but it still crashes.

 

I can also go into the other areas in the digsite, as well as other places on the world map / port maje (loading times are slow, but not deal-breaking, and no crashes).

 

I'm using the GOG Galaxy version

 

and I am a little sad because Aloth's my fav, so it sucks to have the game blow up right when I recruit him blah

[wraithlord45]

I'm having the same issue. Reinstalled the game, turned all my graphics settings to low, and still the engwithan arena sublevel does not load when I enter it. I get the black screen, the cursor loads, music cuts out, and I have to hard reset my computer (I can get the task manager to pop up, but it also freezes instantly.)

 

I even tried going into the sublevel without Aloth (I figured fewer characters = fewer things to process = success??) but it still crashes.

 

I can also go into the other areas in the digsite, as well as other places on the world map / port maje (loading times are slow, but not deal-breaking, and no crashes).

 

I'm using the GOG Galaxy version

 

and I am a little sad because Aloth's my fav, so it sucks to have the game blow up right when I recruit him blah

Try turning off v sync, haven't had any trouble after turning it off

[erichough]

I am also seeing this issue, same hang even with all graphics options turned off. I am running in full screen mode if that matters. About the only thing I can add is that you should be able to sign out of the desktop (log off your current user) to clear things up - still annoying, but not as disruptive as doing a soft or hard reboot. I am using the steam version.

 

I have a save file that I can put up on the net somewhere if those investigating the bug need more info.

[bumpa]

I am seeing this exact same issue. Only freezes in the Arena Sub-level and no where else. Music stops and it's just a black screen. Really frustrating as I don't want to reroll and have the same problem again. Have tried lowest graphics settings and multiple installs.

[Larena]

Having the same issue myself. My graphics settings are already as low as possible, so I tried turning off vsync, and setting multisamping to 0 in the registry but that didn't work at all.

 

Linking my save file just in case though I suspect it's engine related more than save-related. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1w2JNo5byQLNKnslwGALvLanHDQolrx5d

[Fortisque]

I was having a similar issue. I couldn't enter any area from the arena (Luminous Adra Pool, Foreman's Quarters, etc.) -- I got a load screen for a few seconds and then a message that the game had crashed. I lowered the graphics quality and turned off vsync, which didn't help. But I uninstalled and reinstalled and now it's working. 

[shonix]

I made a post on this not realizing this topic was already made. But to add to this: it’s only the Arena Sub-Level that is giving us problems (although I fear this problem may reoccur somewhere else. We just don’t know because we can’t get any further).

 

I have to ctrl+alt+delete to get myself out of the black screen. Luckily that’s an option for me considering people have to hard reset their computers instead.

 

I really hope this gets fixed soon. I haven’t really been able to play since launch day because of this. :/

[CamaradaTxe]

I face exactly the same problem on that map

[Lockabee]

Yep same issue. Everything else working fine. Only this area and can't find a work around. Already running on lowest settings. Running on a Mac. Game breaking bug!

[Lockabee]

FIXED. Turned graphics to lowest, VSync off and set MSAA samples to four. Worked fine.

[shonix]

FIXED. Turned graphics to lowest, VSync off and set MSAA samples to four. Worked fine.

Dude! What the heck? This actually worked! Thank you!!!

[CamaradaTxe]

FIXED. Turned graphics to lowest, VSync off and set MSAA samples to four. Worked fine.

Doesn't work for me((

[Lockabee]

 

FIXED. Turned graphics to lowest, VSync off and set MSAA samples to four. Worked fine.

Doesn't work for me((

 

 

Ok, I had all the ticks off in the graphic settings. So not just Vsync, but unticked every box. Set the MSAA to four and it'll change the graphics box to a line rather than low etc. Took a little bit of load time but then went through, changed the settings back to normal to explore, then off again once I exited. I'm a little ways in now and haven't had the problem occur again.

[erichough]

I finally got it to work as well, although it wasn't a graphics issue with me - in addition to this problem my general load speed for new areas was glacially slow, a problem I have seen on other games that where hard drive I/O intensive (SWTOR hit the HD hard when loading a new planet for example). So after having steam verify all the files I cleaned up enough space on my SSD drive and moved the game files there. This not only cleared up the game freeze on entering the engwithan dungeon it also cleared up all my general load problems. As a note I am running with all the graphics bell's and whistles turned on now as well.

 

I don't know if this will work for anyone else - its not like the HD I was using originally was a slow drive - its a seagate STM3000 7200 rpm 6Gbps sata drive. Not sure if its the file verification or move that cleared the original problem.

[TigrisCorvidae]

I've been having the same issue. Tried lowering graphics settings, even tried making a second character, but it keeps freezing no matter how many times I try to go into the Arena Sub-Level. No issues going anywhere else.

[CamaradaTxe]

Damn, nothing of the above works for me(( I simply can't enter that area

According to TaskManager the game addresses intensively RAM and HDD, then at a certain moment RAM freezes (black screen) and HDD & CPU go to 0

[ClockworkPenguin]

Like everyone else, I'm having the exact same issue. Only with the sublevel. All other area transitions work fine (albeit sometimes a little slow).

 

I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling the game (twice), verified the game files (four times), set the graphics to the lowest settings, and even tried letting it just sit there and try to load for literally over nine hours (I left the game running on the area transition overnight) to no effect.

 

If attempted this with four different characters as well. Three with imported PoE1 legacy data, and one with custom legacy data. Each has the same (lack of) effect.

 

Since I really don't care about the loot/items in there, and just want to get the quest done so I can actually play the game and experience more than a few skeletons and some boars to fight, I even rummaged around with the console to AdvanceQuest past the need to enter the sub-level - it doesn't even update the quest journal. So apparently its hard coded into the game that your absolutely, positively *required* to enter this map, with not even a way to cheat past it so you can actually, you know, experience the rest of the game.

 

I'm actually half tempted to try and find someone else who has the game, send them my save file, have them do that map, and then send the file back when its done - if I actually had anyone on my friends lists who also play, which I don't, sadly.

 

Is there literally ANY way to "skip" this area? Give a quest item via console that I can just take to the governor, for example, so I can actually experience more of the game than just... noob island, basically?

 

I'm going to keep trying to fiddle with the graphics, etc, to try and get it to load in at least once... since theoretically that's all I'll need. But I'm growing rapidly more disappointed, beings as I've already dedicated over 35 hours of gameplay to just trying to get past the Black Screen Stonewall that is the Engwithan Digsite Arena Sub-Level.

 

Please fix/patch. Thanks.