Starfield 1.8.86 Game crashes after update Solution - Nov 20, '23

[LordJamesX]

Assure you the game works, turns out it was my mods, but that is obvious I did remove all my mods using Vortex and deleted StarfieldUpscaler yet the game will not load. Crashes on start. Turns out even when I deleted all the mod files, some injected code remained it was generating logs as well.

Steps I took which worked for me:
1. Goto your Starfield directory X:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\Starfield (You can use steam game settings to find your specific location)
2. Select everything, EXCEPT the DATA FOLDER and DELETE IT. Remember if you delete the DATA folder you might as well fresh download the whole thing, but you do not need to. DO NOT DELETE DATA folder
3. Right click on Starfield in your Steam Lib -> Properties -> Installed Files -> Verify File Integrity. It will check and download a few missing files, barely takes a few mins to scan and a min more to download.
4. Startfield should work now, no more crash after update.

Hope it helps, do let me know if did. If you found some other solution which worked do post it in comments, I can edit and add here.

[zpc]

Thanks for putting up a report here

[robbyhensley]

I don't have any mods; but I did just realize my system is slightly under mim sys requirement for the processor i7 4820 vs i7 6800. I clocked over 1500 hours in SF up to yesterdays patch and now the game crashes after loading last save and trying to play, straight to desktop. So I guess I am done until I get a more up to date PC.

[Midarc]

Thanks for the advice. giving it a try.
there's just so little feedback in what's actually going wrong.
just that error message after two minutes.
no error log.
executable appears in task manager, but not as anything but the process.
will report back if this works for my version of the error (and link to here in other threads I've been active in).
wish me luck.

[Midarc]

I can confirm that this worked.
Thankyou.

[Rider]

Thanks. This worked for me. Deleting mods and verifying files did not.

[Matrix]

Can we use mods again after we do this?

[lechuck]

It didn't work for me, I still can't launch the game. For now if I want to play I need to put starfield.exe in windows 8 compatibility mode. Each launch, the shaders will be recompiled and the game will be less smooth but it could be launched.

[N7_BLADE]

well i had no mods installed and still crashes for me constantly at random loading points after patch

[zpc]

Originally posted by N7_BLADE:

well i had no mods installed and still crashes for me constantly at random loading points after patch

You could report your crashdumps to Bethesda support. There should be crashdumps in the main game directory. (e.g. see here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfield/comments/169pzdt/are_there_any_crash_logs_of_the_game/ )

If you are tech-savy you could check them with WINDBG and the command !analyze -v yourself for any pointers.

Most causes I heared of where related to memory & overal system stability (e.g. tempered with by overclocking, being it active by the user or passive by some bios setting). Some user also reported that there are problems with null pointers in connection to long running savegames. The latter could be solved for now by going to NG+ as long as there is no official solution. You can check the latter by starting a new game - if there are no crashes this might be your problem then.

[Midarc]

Originally posted by zpc:

You could report your crashdumps to Bethesda support. There should be crashdumps in the main game directory. (e.g. see here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfield/comments/169pzdt/are_there_any_crash_logs_of_the_game/ )

Sound advice.
I would have done so, but my issue was more a failure to start correctly and as such it wasn't leaving behind any crashdump file. the only one I found there was from the only other crash I'd experienced a few weeks ago. Probably the most frustrating part not having any feedback as to what was actually happening.

[Vlad 254]

IF using the DLSS setting ou also have to make sure DLSS Frame Generation is turned on.

On Windows 11 it's activated by default.

For windows 10 users you have to turn it on as follows.

DLSS Frame Generation - how to enable Hardware-Accelerated GPU scheduling
1. Press Windows key on your keyboard and type "graphics" and press enter. - Graphics settings menu should open.
2. In the Graphics settings menu toggle the "Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling" option.
3. Restart your PC.

[evz_gazer]

i never used any mods and the game exits to desktop at launch after a blackscreeen, no error message, no logs, just game wont launch. I uninstalled game from my external ssd, and installed it on the ssd built into my laptop, but same problem. i played just under 400 hours before this patch with all graphics settings at ultra or high with zero issues. My specs: nvidia geforce rtx 3070ti 8gb vram, i7 12650 intel cpu, 16 gb ddr5 ram. Have tried every solution I have seen in threads, but game will not launch. Baffled.

[OhPa]

Thanks for posting your solution. Unfortunately it didn't work for me.
After 2 days of working on this, I'm leaning toward the problem being the latest game patch.
I've posted elsewhere in these discussions with more details on my system and what I'm experiencing, but I did notice this today:
I saw a Steam (?) window that was behind the Steam site window that must have appeared after I tried to start the game from Steam. It looked like something was trying to open but not getting there.
The URL appeared to be "steam://openurl/http..."

[barnard_rubble]

This did not work for me. Not sure how to fix this beyond Bethesda fixing the patch

[52CRDS]

Same issue…game stable till 1.8.86. Have 3090FE, AMD 5950X, 64GB memory. Funny thing is game gone beyond 5 min on testing if no action taken, but crashes to desktop within 15-40 seconds if any action taken (move, trave,l, cycle inventory, etc).