Black screen on cutscenes

[CoinTheLegend]

I have 200 hours on this game, and the problem is just now starting. I have made no changes to my computer since the problem began. The intro sequence, the loading screen into the game, dialogue scenes, in game cutscenes, all black screen crashes. I have to mash the skip button just to get into the game.

Some fixes I have tried include verifying the integrity of the game in which I receive the message, "1 file failed to validate and will be reacquired." No matter how many times I validate it will give me the same answer

I also tried fiddling with my antivirus, going as far as turning it off completely, this allowed me to get into the same, but any sequnces were still a black screen.

I have also tried running as administrator, which helped none.

Any help is greatly appreciated and I'd really like to get this fixed soon. This is my favorite game and with the new release of blood and wine, I'd really like to play.

[LucidusAtra]

I have a friend who plays Witcher 3, and he's having this issue. Has anybody found a fix for this one yet? I've been googling around, but this is the first time I've actually found somebody with this exact issue.

[tonypa]

As long Verifying Integrity of Game Cache claims file is missing, something is wrong with the game installation. It must find no errors at all.

Complette reinstall could be only option. Also might help to try change the installation folder and clean up all the settings saved in UserName\Documents folder

And like with every rerror, remove all the mods first.

[LucidusAtra]

We were able to fix my friend's issue with a complete reinstall, but it was only temporary. After a few days, the issue returned. If it's not the antivirus, I'm stumped...

[CoinTheLegend]

Originally posted by LucidusAtra:

We were able to fix my friend's issue with a complete reinstall, but it was only temporary. After a few days, the issue returned. If it's not the antivirus, I'm stumped...

LucidusAtra. I have found a fix. I went looking around in the game files. Go to your file explorer, then go to The Witcher 3 file. There should be one folder and 3 notepad files. There should be "game saves" "input" "user" and "user.settings." You should click on the "user" file and NOT the user.settings file. I reccomend making a copy of the user notepad file just in case you accidentally mess something up. After this, you must open the user file with notepad and there should be a setting just called "fullscreen." For some reason this setting likes to default to "2" whenever I plug my laptop into a different display. If youre having the same problem as me, changing this number to "1" and then saving the file should make your game work again. Make sure that when you open, change, and save the file that witcher 3 and steam are completely closed. I do that just because im super cautious.

I do not know why this problem happens, but for example when I take my laptop to my girlfriends house, then back home and plug it back into my TV, the setting defaults to 2. It really isnt that big of a problem as it only takes a couple seconds to change, but it is a minor inconvenience, and if anyone has any info on why this happens or how to fix it permanently, I would love to hear it.

[diffindo]

Originally posted by killianoh5:

Originally posted by LucidusAtra:

We were able to fix my friend's issue with a complete reinstall, but it was only temporary. After a few days, the issue returned. If it's not the antivirus, I'm stumped...

LucidusAtra. I have found a fix. I went looking around in the game files. Go to your file explorer, then go to The Witcher 3 file. There should be one folder and 3 notepad files. There should be "game saves" "input" "user" and "user.settings." You should click on the "user" file and NOT the user.settings file. I reccomend making a copy of the user notepad file just in case you accidentally mess something up. After this, you must open the user file with notepad and there should be a setting just called "fullscreen." For some reason this setting likes to default to "2" whenever I plug my laptop into a different display. If youre having the same problem as me, changing this number to "1" and then saving the file should make your game work again. Make sure that when you open, change, and save the file that witcher 3 and steam are completely closed. I do that just because im super cautious.

I do not know why this problem happens, but for example when I take my laptop to my girlfriends house, then back home and plug it back into my TV, the setting defaults to 2. It really isnt that big of a problem as it only takes a couple seconds to change, but it is a minor inconvenience, and if anyone has any info on why this happens or how to fix it permanently, I would love to hear it.

Same Problem but this not work for me. anyway thank.

[Brotherhutch]

LucidusAtra. I have found a fix. I went looking around in the game files. Go to your file explorer, then go to The Witcher 3 file. There should be one folder and 3 notepad files. There should be "game saves" "input" "user" and "user.settings." You should click on the "user" file and NOT the user.settings file. I reccomend making a copy of the user notepad file just in case you accidentally mess something up. After this, you must open the user file with notepad and there should be a setting just called "fullscreen." For some reason this setting likes to default to "2" whenever I plug my laptop into a different display. If youre having the same problem as me, changing this number to "1" and then saving the file should make your game work again. Make sure that when you open, change, and save the file that witcher 3 and steam are completely closed. I do that just because im super cautious.

I do not know why this problem happens, but for example when I take my laptop to my girlfriends house, then back home and plug it back into my TV, the setting defaults to 2. It really isnt that big of a problem as it only takes a couple seconds to change, but it is a minor inconvenience, and if anyone has any info on why this happens or how to fix it permanently, I would love to hear it.

I did not have the user file but I did have user.settings. I changed the setting to 1 as suggested in that file and it worked! Thank you very much I would never have found this on my own!

[Rou Kowalski]

I know this is an older post. I am responding in hopes of helping the next guy as this just happened to me. I discovered my antivirus detected Witcher3 as trying to change a game file (save at cutscene) and blocked it. this created a game crash situation leaving me with a black screen with loading icon on lower right.. so Check your anti-virus to let witcher 3 save

[Mr. Puff]

I recently had this same issue. Over 200 hrs of gameplay, completed both main story and HoS DLC. Got about an hr into the BaW DLC and came to a cut scene before you fight the beast before meeting the duchess. Every time it would transition cut scenes, my screen would flicker, as if my gpu output had been unplugged, audio would continue up until a point then it would heavily distort, resulting in me having to hard restart my computer. I tried the other solutions listed here but none worked for me so I just started messing around in my graphics settings in the game on the start menu, not after loading my save. I turned my quality to low on everything (was all ultra before issue) and then tried to do the same cut scene. It worked! I then fought the monster and got to a point where I could save properly. After this save i returned my settings to the original and everything has been fine since. Not sure what the issue was for me but this solved it, just relaying for anyone else who may have this issue in the future.

[Holy Dave]

Posting this for the next person who might have the same issue as none of these fixes worked for me.

My sound device output settings were causing the problem for me. I was playing sound through my TV speakers, connected to my laptop via HDMI.

Switching to headphones plugged into my laptop - requiring me to switch output to onboard sound/sound card via the taskbar - fixed the problem completely.

This particular manifestation of the glitch is probably unique to mobile chipsets and there are likely many possible causes of these symptoms in other machines, but maybe this’ll help somebody.

[Luckvieh]

Originally posted by SinisterTone:

I recently had this same issue. Over 200 hrs of gameplay, completed both main story and HoS DLC. Got about an hr into the BaW DLC and came to a cut scene before you fight the beast before meeting the duchess. Every time it would transition cut scenes, my screen would flicker, as if my gpu output had been unplugged, audio would continue up until a point then it would heavily distort, resulting in me having to hard restart my computer. I tried the other solutions listed here but none worked for me so I just started messing around in my graphics settings in the game on the start menu, not after loading my save. I turned my quality to low on everything (was all ultra before issue) and then tried to do the same cut scene. It worked! I then fought the monster and got to a point where I could save properly. After this save i returned my settings to the original and everything has been fine since. Not sure what the issue was for me but this solved it, just relaying for anyone else who may have this issue in the future.

thanks, i had the exact same error, worked for me too

just curios, what graphic card do you use? i have a RX 5700, i think it's a driver issue, had a lot of trouble with the newer graphic driver

[maximilian.bradley]

Commenting with my solution. It seems other commentors have multiple screens, possibly connected to a laptop by HDMI. That is my setup, I'd plugged my speaker into the monitor, instead of into the laptop directly. Changing this round, so the speaker was plugged into the laptop, resolved it for me.

[LProngs]

Thank god for this thread. I've never had problems with this game before, but suddenly it's having all of these problems. No cutscenes, no loading screens, it just remains stuck until I spam Space and will often crash or end up "Not Responding" instead. Tried verifying, reinstalling, changing all sorts of graphics settings - no luck. Nothing worked for weeks. Turns out it was one of the above fixes: I changed the fullscreen to 1 in user.settings (didn't have just "user") and plugged in headphones at the same time. One or both of them fixed it.

I hadn't played this game in almost 2 years, so I'd forgotten that I'd never actually played with my current setup (separate monitor and speakers through HDMI), just on my laptop with onboard everything. Makes perfect sense that this would change something but definitely didn't think of it.

[Traveler Foolish]

I encountered the same problem similarly on a laptop HDMI to external display setup. Verified game files also with 1 replaced. Also made edit to that User.Setting file.

NOTE: some confusion in prior responses, I noticed after I edited User.Settings in Notepad++ that it was renamed to just User

Either way, seems fixed for me now.