Unhandled Exception: EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION... Any solutions?

[Gargoyle Girl]

Unhandled Exception: EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION reading address 0xffffffffffffffff

is the full issue, and it's crashing the game. From what I can find online, it has to do with the game trying to read a section of the RAM it's not allowed to.

I ran the hardware troubleshooter, and it fixed it... for a while. But now the exception is back. I'm not sure what to do to fix the issue either. I've not been able to find anything that directly explains the problem, or what I can do to fix it.

Any help would be appreciated.

EDIT: After running windows memory checker and restarting a few times, the problem seems to have been resolved. I was able to play again today with mods enabled and no crashing. I'm not really sure what the issue was in the first place, since the memory checker restarted without giving me a final result, but it was at 99% complete when I looked at it last, with no errors found, and now the game runs fine. Thank you to all those who offered ideas and help.

[MagikarpMagi]

When I had issues like this in the past it was a hardware issue.

[Gargoyle Girl]

Originally posted by CritMasterFlex:

When I had issues like this in the past it was a hardware issue.

It might be this; I recently installed some RAM. But I've done all I could think to do with hardware adjustments and it's still a problem. Just looking for some solutions.

[Ancient]

Take a night when you don't need the PC and let memtest86+ run overnight: https://memtest.org/

When you installed more RAM was it a replacement kit or just some more similar RAM you added to an existing build? Because just adding another couple DIMMs sometimes does work fine, but when it goes bad, you've probably got a lot of 0xc0000005 or 0xFFFFFFFF errors to look forward to troubleshooting before you realize that you need to return the RAM you added, trash or resell your old kit and buy a new kit with the total capacity you need before you're going to see it perform without weird memory errors manifesting, and that is especially true if you're expecting the memory to run using XMP or AMP/EXPO profiles.

Mixing RAM kits is honestly not worth the headaches that it can cause unless you know what you're doing and are willing and able to manually adjust RAM timings and test for stability. It's so much easier to upgrade 2x8GB to 2x16GB or 4x8GB via a kit that was tested to be stable at it's advertised clocks and timings.

ASUS has been screaming this at their enthusiast customers for years now: https://rog-forum.asus.com/t5/intel-700-600-series/don-t-combine-memory-kits-the-meat-and-potatoes-overview/td-p/584884

[Gargoyle Girl]

Originally posted by Ancient:

Take a night when you don't need the PC and let memtest86+ run overnight: https://memtest.org/

When you installed more RAM was it a replacement kit or just some more similar RAM you added to an existing build? Because just adding another couple DIMMs sometimes does work fine, but when it goes bad, you've probably got a lot of 0xc0000005 or 0xFFFFFFFF errors to look forward to troubleshooting before you realize that you need to return the RAM you added, trash or resell your old kit and buy a new kit with the total capacity you need before you're going to see it perform without weird memory errors manifesting, and that is especially true if you're expecting the memory to run using XMP or AMP/EXPO profiles.

Mixing RAM kits is honestly not worth the headaches that it can cause unless you know what you're doing and are willing and able to manually adjust RAM timings and test for stability. It's so much easier to upgrade 2x8GB to 2x16GB or 4x8GB via a kit that was tested to be stable at it's advertised clocks and timings.

ASUS has been screaming this at their enthusiast customers for years now: https://rog-forum.asus.com/t5/intel-700-600-series/don-t-combine-memory-kits-the-meat-and-potatoes-overview/td-p/584884

I'll try that test, but no... I'm on a laptop, not a full PC. I had 16 GB of RAM, and upgraded to 64 GB of the same type: same pins, same Mhz, everything. All I was going for was more capacity. I only have two slots to fill, so I got 2x32 GB. The previous setup was 2x8 GB, so both slots are known to be working with no issues before the change.

The only thing that might be wrong is that for my laptop, the specs say it supports 32 GB of ram, but most advice, even from the company website, says it can support 64 GB. I went for the latter, and the system is recognizing it at the proper mhz, so I figured nothing was wrong. Worst comes to worst, I'll have to return it and downgrade to 32 GB, but I'm still not 100% sure it's the RAM that's the problem.

[Miro Fox]

Make a new world, Call it "World Fix"
Create a character in it, and then exit to main meny.

Then play your main world.
This fixes it as long as you launch "world fix" first.

[Ancient]

I mean, it could be a lot of things. It could just be a bug in UE5 or the game itself or something else totally unrelated to memory, but ruling out memory errors... it's not a bad place to start. Because you have SODIMMs in a laptop, and are not going to be expecting to OC the RAM, there's a lot less variables involved.

Another good test, one I often depend on even moreso than memtest86 or memtest86+ and one you might want to try is actually just a memory-intensive gauntlet using Prime95. Testing memory stability is pretty easy in P95 and you don't need to make a bootable thumb drive. You can just do it in Windows.

For a good memory stability test, use custom setting, make sure to uncheck "in-place" (otherwise it will only test your CPU mostly). For number of cores to test, you can set it to use either how many cores or how many threads the CPU has, it doesn't matter that much for testing memory. Using the number of cores is usually just fine, leaving the hyperthreading threads idle is generally not going to affect the test. Set the range from 448K to 4096K and allocate the ram to at least 70 percent of your total memory capacity. For example, if you have 64GB on two SODIMMs then around 50000 to 55000MB is good enough to ensure every stick's memory range will be included in the stress test. Let it run for about 2 hours and just keep an eye out for bluescreens or P95 crashing during the run. Doing so doesn't exactly guarantee there are no issues with the memory, but it's safe to say it eliminates 95% of the guesswork, because this kind of test will stress the memory and memory controller in ways games and general applications never will.

I have tried both Windows's memtest and various 3rd party ones and while they will usually find very obvious issues, they are rather slow and easy to pass such that passing doesn't always mean the memory is actually not throwing some errors under 1% conditions. P95 on the other hand, usually catches cases of RAM instability really fast.

[DrLamp]

I've been building and repairing computers for almost 35 years. My gut is telling me it's the ram. Either a bad module or a compatibility issue. It's so hard to tell though without having the device in my hands to troubleshoot it (I'm kind of a hands-on guy).

That's tough though, I wish you the best of luck, these things can be a real pain in the ass to nail down. Definitely get some ram testing software like @Ancient suggested. If it shows as a bad module then it sucks that you'll need new RAM, but at least you'll know what the problem was.

[Boblin the Goblin]

If you aren't getting errors like this from other games that use Unreal Engine, it's Palworld causing the problem.

Play other games that use the Unreal Engine to test before downgrading any hardware.

[Fartsucker420]

uninstall the game and install it on a different ssd. play the game, if it boots up shut it down and transfer it back to the original ssd. you may have to delete the files for palworld on the original ssd before transferring. I had the same issue and this worked for me.

[Gargoyle Girl]

Originally posted by Boy Kisser:

Make a new world, Call it "World Fix"
Create a character in it, and then exit to main meny.

Then play your main world.
This fixes it as long as you launch "world fix" first.

I tried this method already. Sadly, it didn't work.

[Gargoyle Girl]

Originally posted by Ancient:

I mean, it could be a lot of things. It could just be a bug in UE5 or the game itself or something else totally unrelated to memory, but ruling out memory errors... it's not a bad place to start. Because you have SODIMMs in a laptop, and are not going to be expecting to OC the RAM, there's a lot less variables involved.

Another good test, one I often depend on even moreso than memtest86 or memtest86+ and one you might want to try is actually just a memory-intensive gauntlet using Prime95. Testing memory stability is pretty easy in P95 and you don't need to make a bootable thumb drive. You can just do it in Windows.

For a good memory stability test, use custom setting, make sure to uncheck "in-place" (otherwise it will only test your CPU mostly). For number of cores to test, you can set it to use either how many cores or how many threads the CPU has, it doesn't matter that much for testing memory. Using the number of cores is usually just fine, leaving the hyperthreading threads idle is generally not going to affect the test. Set the range from 448K to 4096K and allocate the ram to at least 70 percent of your total memory capacity. For example, if you have 64GB on two SODIMMs then around 50000 to 55000MB is good enough to ensure every stick's memory range will be included in the stress test. Let it run for about 2 hours and just keep an eye out for bluescreens or P95 crashing during the run. Doing so doesn't exactly guarantee there are no issues with the memory, but it's safe to say it eliminates 95% of the guesswork, because this kind of test will stress the memory and memory controller in ways games and general applications never will.

I have tried both Windows's memtest and various 3rd party ones and while they will usually find very obvious issues, they are rather slow and easy to pass such that passing doesn't always mean the memory is actually not throwing some errors under 1% conditions. P95 on the other hand, usually catches cases of RAM instability really fast.

I ended up running the windows memory tester and getting no errors back. I'm going to try playing again; if nothing happens, so be it. If it gives me stress I might try your suggestion for a more rigorous memory test.

[Gargoyle Girl]

Originally posted by Fartsucker420:

uninstall the game and install it on a different ssd. play the game, if it boots up shut it down and transfer it back to the original ssd. you may have to delete the files for palworld on the original ssd before transferring. I had the same issue and this worked for me.

Sadly, I don't have a second SSD to play around with.

[Boblin the Goblin]

Originally posted by Gargoyle Girl:

Originally posted by Ancient:

I mean, it could be a lot of things. It could just be a bug in UE5 or the game itself or something else totally unrelated to memory, but ruling out memory errors... it's not a bad place to start. Because you have SODIMMs in a laptop, and are not going to be expecting to OC the RAM, there's a lot less variables involved.

Another good test, one I often depend on even moreso than memtest86 or memtest86+ and one you might want to try is actually just a memory-intensive gauntlet using Prime95. Testing memory stability is pretty easy in P95 and you don't need to make a bootable thumb drive. You can just do it in Windows.

For a good memory stability test, use custom setting, make sure to uncheck "in-place" (otherwise it will only test your CPU mostly). For number of cores to test, you can set it to use either how many cores or how many threads the CPU has, it doesn't matter that much for testing memory. Using the number of cores is usually just fine, leaving the hyperthreading threads idle is generally not going to affect the test. Set the range from 448K to 4096K and allocate the ram to at least 70 percent of your total memory capacity. For example, if you have 64GB on two SODIMMs then around 50000 to 55000MB is good enough to ensure every stick's memory range will be included in the stress test. Let it run for about 2 hours and just keep an eye out for bluescreens or P95 crashing during the run. Doing so doesn't exactly guarantee there are no issues with the memory, but it's safe to say it eliminates 95% of the guesswork, because this kind of test will stress the memory and memory controller in ways games and general applications never will.

I have tried both Windows's memtest and various 3rd party ones and while they will usually find very obvious issues, they are rather slow and easy to pass such that passing doesn't always mean the memory is actually not throwing some errors under 1% conditions. P95 on the other hand, usually catches cases of RAM instability really fast.

I ended up running the windows memory tester and getting no errors back. I'm going to try playing again; if nothing happens, so be it. If it gives me stress I might try your suggestion for a more rigorous memory test.

It most likely isn't a memory issue.

This is a common error(I've been getting it too) that I've seen coming up. This is the only game that throws a memory error out of the multiple I play.

It's an issue with Palworld itself.

[deathspiralli]

I’ve been having the same issue as you OP, but the problems only started last night when I added a couple of mods. Are you using any?

[Fartsucker420]

Originally posted by Gargoyle Girl:

Originally posted by Fartsucker420:

uninstall the game and install it on a different ssd. play the game, if it boots up shut it down and transfer it back to the original ssd. you may have to delete the files for palworld on the original ssd before transferring. I had the same issue and this worked for me.

Sadly, I don't have a second SSD to play around with.

Uninstall the game, delete all palworld files and re download it. should work.