Game keeps crashing at loading screen

[Both_Coasts25]

Last time I played was on the 23rd of May. Now, whether it's an autosave or a manual save, I can't get past the loading screen.

Crashes on both DX11 and DX12.
Game is updated and verified.
I even updated Windows.

Anyone else encountering this problem?

[cheshirm]

there was an nvidia driver release may 30. you can check amd if you have one of those.
maybe new driver causing issue. or update didnt update correctly.
uninstall driver with something like DDU. reboot
CLEAN install latest driver or an older one. your choice.
reboot. try game again after deleting the .settings files in folder
Documents\The WItcher 3

there was a win 11 update kb5026446 May 24. maybe that screwed something up.

game still works on my win 11 desktop/nvidia 3060ti. might be new or continuing 40xx card issue

check windows event viewer and also windows reliability history. might be a game crash event or system related errors.

run the game from the game folder .exe. sometimes an error msg shows up not hidden by steam

[Both_Coasts25]

Originally posted by Both_Coasts25:

Last time I played was on the 23rd of May. Now, whether it's an autosave or a manual save, I can't get past the loading screen.

Crashes on both DX11 and DX12.
Game is updated and verified.
I even updated Windows.

Anyone else encountering this problem?

update 6/10 -
So I don't have Windows 11, and I didn't do a clean reinstall of my driver as suggested above, because this is the only game that's giving me problems right now and I didn't want to go there (but I really appreciate the advice).

That said, the game is still crashing on the loading screen, no matter how I start up the game - big picture, regular mode, desktop icon, or .exe in the game folder.

Most of the time, I'll verify the files and it will say everything is fine. Other times, after a few attempted start-ups and crashes, I will verify the files again and it will say 1 file needs to be recovered. And it's always 1 file. But then even when it gets the file, it still crashes.

Another odd thing that happens: When I open the game from the .exe file, the prompts on the main menu of the game will be half for controller, half for mouse and keyboard. And then it won't let me scroll and highlight certain things with the controller.

It's the weirdest damn thing, I've never seen this before. Everyone else's game still OK?

[cheshirm]

game uses your drivers to create settings files. half controller, half keyboard?
either the settings files are corrupt. or your drivers are.

unplug controller and just use keyboard mouse for now to see if game works with just one. then delete all the .settings files in folder
Documents\The WItcher 3

try game again with just mouse/keyboard

check windows event viewer and also windows reliability history. might be a game crash event or system related errors.

[Both_Coasts25]

Originally posted by cheshirm:

game uses your drivers to create settings files. half controller, half keyboard?
either the settings files are corrupt. or your drivers are.

unplug controller and just use keyboard mouse for now to see if game works with just one. then delete all the .settings files in folder
Documents\The WItcher 3

try game again with just mouse/keyboard

check windows event viewer and also windows reliability history. might be a game crash event or system related errors.

This is what the Event Viewer said:
Log Name: Application
Source: Application Error
Date: 6/10/2023 9:27:47 AM
Event ID: 1000
Task Category: (100)
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: DESKTOP-V5II82O
Description:
Faulting application name: witcher3.exe, version: 4.0.1.17107, time stamp: 0x00000000
Faulting module name: witcher3.exe, version: 4.0.1.17107, time stamp: 0x00000000
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x000000000204d83e
Faulting process id: 0x39fc
Faulting application start time: 0x01d99b9eefd2b52b
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\The Witcher 3\bin\x64_dx12\witcher3.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\The Witcher 3\bin\x64_dx12\witcher3.exe
Report Id: c684a5ac-b0b5-4da0-9948-88b0652f308b
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Application Error" />
<EventID Qualifiers="0">1000</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>100</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2023-06-10T13:27:47.1571495Z" />
<EventRecordID>49993</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="0" ThreadID="0" />
<Channel>Application</Channel>
<Computer>DESKTOP-V5II82O</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data>witcher3.exe</Data>
<Data>4.0.1.17107</Data>
<Data>00000000</Data>
<Data>witcher3.exe</Data>
<Data>4.0.1.17107</Data>
<Data>00000000</Data>
<Data>c0000005</Data>
<Data>000000000204d83e</Data>
<Data>39fc</Data>
<Data>01d99b9eefd2b52b</Data>
<Data>C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\The Witcher 3\bin\x64_dx12\witcher3.exe</Data>
<Data>C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\The Witcher 3\bin\x64_dx12\witcher3.exe</Data>
<Data>c684a5ac-b0b5-4da0-9948-88b0652f308b</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>

[cheshirm]

bin\x64_dx12\witcher3.exe so that looks like dx12. try dx11

Exception code: 0xc0000005 if you do a web search on this, there are LOTS of fixes to try. cannot suggest any one works better than another

just checked again. game runs on dx11 and dx12 with the nvidia 535.98 and windows 11 recent updates with a 3060ti card. do not know about 40xx cards

[Both_Coasts25]

Originally posted by cheshirm:

bin\x64_dx12\witcher3.exe so that looks like dx12. try dx11

Exception code: 0xc0000005 if you do a web search on this, there are LOTS of fixes to try. cannot suggest any one works better than another

just checked again. game runs on dx11 and dx12 with the nvidia 535.98 and windows 11 recent updates with a 3060ti card. do not know about 40xx cards

Doesn't work with DX11 either. So this means there is something wrong with the game itself, right? No other game is giving me trouble.

[cheshirm]

???? if you and I and the 17,000 in game currently have the same game binaries, looks to me like the issue is NOT the game but on your machine. but if you are convinced it is the game, roll back to the pre December version and run that maybe

[Both_Coasts25]

Originally posted by cheshirm:

???? if you and I and the 17,000 in game currently have the same game binaries, looks to me like the issue is NOT the game but on your machine. but if you are convinced it is the game, roll back to the pre December version and run that maybe

was just clarifying, man. thanks for the tips.

[cheshirm]

also the new version ran until may 23. cannot guarantee the pre Dec version will run either.
depends on what changed/updated/got corrupt on your system after may 23

[Both_Coasts25]

Originally posted by cheshirm:

also the new version ran until may 23. cannot guarantee the pre Dec version will run either.
depends on what changed/updated/got corrupt on your system after may 23

Update - 6/15
Nvidia just released a new driver, so I tried the game again.

The saves from May 23 still won't load.

But I went to a save from May 20, and after a really long loading period, it worked.

Could the save files from May 23rd somehow have been corrupted? Is there any way to check / fix that, or do I just have to replay the game from where I was on the 20th?

Thanks in advance.

[Just Guy 0_0]

Originally posted by Both_Coasts25:

Originally posted by cheshirm:

also the new version ran until may 23. cannot guarantee the pre Dec version will run either.
depends on what changed/updated/got corrupt on your system after may 23

Update - 6/15
Nvidia just released a new driver, so I tried the game again.

The saves from May 23 still won't load.

But I went to a save from May 20, and after a really long loading period, it worked.

Could the save files from May 23rd somehow have been corrupted? Is there any way to check / fix that, or do I just have to replay the game from where I was on the 20th?

Thanks in advance.

I would imagine If save is corrupt you can only check and fix it if you have advanced knowledge in coding, otherwise the only thing you can do is play older save.



You can
Upload your save on nexus and I can check if it loads for me.

If it does maybe I can overwrite it and send it back to you. (I don't know coding either so that's all I could think of )



(I have version 4.0 , 4.01 and 4.02 saves working fine)

So it has to be somehow related to your pc

[Both_Coasts25]

Originally posted by HIZ:

Originally posted by Both_Coasts25:

Update - 6/15
Nvidia just released a new driver, so I tried the game again.

The saves from May 23 still won't load.

But I went to a save from May 20, and after a really long loading period, it worked.

Could the save files from May 23rd somehow have been corrupted? Is there any way to check / fix that, or do I just have to replay the game from where I was on the 20th?

Thanks in advance.

I would imagine If save is corrupt you can only check and fix it if you have advanced knowledge in coding, otherwise the only thing you can do is play older save.



You can
Upload your save on nexus and I can check if it loads for me.

If it does maybe I can overwrite it and send it back to you. (I don't know coding either so that's all I could think of )



(I have version 4.0 , 4.01 and 4.02 saves working fine)

So it has to be somehow related to your pc

Update 2 - 6/15
So I decided to play from my older pre-May 23rd save mentioned above since it wasn't too far back from where I had progressed.

It took forever to load again, but as soon as I got in, I manually saved. Then a prompt came up that said something like "going forward this save will not work with other versions of the game."

So I went ahead and created this new save and was able to play past where I had stopped on the May 23rd save.

Then I made another manual save at the point where I had progressed to today. Exited the game, came back in, loaded today's new save, and the game not only didn't crash but it loaded fast as hell this time.

And then i tried this three more times and it worked every time.

So it looks like those May 23rd saves were corrupted after all? And since that's when the lasest game version apparently happened, maybe I had saved on the 23rd while the game was updating or something, and so it didn't save correctly?

All I know is that as of now, the game is working again.