Black screen freeze solved: Unplug Corsair keyboard (K55)

[CROSSEYED_JIM]

EDIT: I resolved this issue completely by simply not using my Corsair keyboard on R6. Reverting to an older standard keyboard totally fixed the issue. It's a shame not to be able to use my nicer hardware, but at least the game works. Hope this helps someone.

After nearly 500 hours, I finally banished R6 Siege from my Steam library. Not because it's not fun or because I don't enjoy it, but because I can't finish a match without a black screen CTD since Para Bellum. The freezes tend to happen most often between rounds, but they will sometimes occur during gameplay. Sound almost always remains, but the screen locks up and then goes black.

I do not have these issues in ANY other game I play. My system specs are as follows: GTX 1080, i7 8700K at stock, 16 GB DDR4 RAM. Here is what I have tried to fix this:

-Verifying integrity of game cache
-Deleting and redownloading game
-Updating every driver I can think of, including but not limited to graphics, sound, keyboard, gamepad, and mouse (Note: My best guess on this is a conflict with iCUE, Corsair's software for keyboards and headsets, but neither uninstalling nor updating the program fixed it).
-Flashing BIOS to the latest chipset drivers
-Clearing CMOS battery to set BIOS to default
-Playing in borderless rather than fullscreen
-Adjusting graphical settings
-Monitoring temperatures (all of which are well within safe range)
-Running stability tests on CPU and GPU
-Researching the issue online and asking around on support forums

As I mentioned, I do not experience this issue in any other game--and I own a lot of games. I never even experienced it in Rainbow until Para Bellum dropped.

If you know of a fix, please tell me. If not, I think it's time for me to move on to greener pastures.

[76561198432872620]

Hey Jim,

I'm very sorry to hear this issue has prevented you from playing for this long. As you have tried an extensive list of troubleshooting, there is likely little I can now recommend myself that I would ask you to try before contacting our support team. Have you made a ticket via {LINK REMOVED}https://support.ubi.com/ and included a copy of your Dxdiag and Msinfo {LINK REMOVED}(https://support.ubi.com/en-GB/faqs/000026442/Submit-Dxdiag-and-Msinfo/) for our tech team to check out?

- Ubisoft Support Team

[CROSSEYED_JIM]

Originally posted by Ubi-Bandicoot:

Hey Jim,

I'm very sorry to hear this issue has prevented you from playing for this long. As you have tried an extensive list of troubleshooting, there is likely little I can now recommend myself that I would ask you to try before contacting our support team. Have you made a ticket via https://support.ubi.com/ and included a copy of your Dxdiag and Msinfo (https://support.ubi.com/en-GB/faqs/000026442/Submit-Dxdiag-and-Msinfo/) for our tech team to check out?

- Ubisoft Support Team

Thanks for the note. Glad to see someone on the dev team has noted the issue. No, I have not submitted a support ticket. I may give that a try. I'll report back if I hear anything.

[UbiBaron]

Thank you, let us know how you get on or if you're able to find a solution for this.

Just to confirm, did you check the event viewer/reliability report to check to see if it lists a reason for the crashes?

- Ubisoft Support

[CROSSEYED_JIM]

I have checked event viewer, but I haven't seen anything obviously related to Rainbow in the Error or Warnings tabs. I've tried looking by referencing rough time stamps of when the crashes occur, but it's still difficult to tell which are/could be related to Rainbow.

I submitted a support ticket with my dxdiag and system info. I also found this Reddit thread, which seems to be talking about the same issue (no fix): https://www.reddit.com/r/Rainbow6/comments/90g0gb/crashes_affecting_pc_players/

[UbiBaron]

Thanks for confirming that and providing the link.

It's certainly worth adding to the R6Fix ticket that is linked, if you haven't already.

- Ubisoft Support

[CROSSEYED_JIM]

So, I fired up Wildlands today for the first time in a while just to check out the new stuff. Not even half an hour in, I got the same freeze and CTD I get in Rainbow.

None of my non-Ubi games are doing this. Could it be something to do with Uplay? Or with the game engine itself (assuming R6 and GR share a common engine).

[76561198432872620]

Originally posted by Crosseyed_Jim:

So, I fired up Wildlands today for the first time in a while just to check out the new stuff. Not even half an hour in, I got the same freeze and CTD I get in Rainbow.

None of my non-Ubi games are doing this. Could it be something to do with Uplay? Or with the game engine itself (assuming R6 and GR share a common engine).

That's interesting, thanks for letting us know this might not be game specific. Have you tried launching your computer with a clean boot to see if you still experience this afterwards: {LINK REMOVED}https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/929135/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows

- Ubisoft Support Team

[CROSSEYED_JIM]

Wanted to follow up on this. Clean boot/disabling startup programs did not work. However, I did FINALLY get the game to throw an error code during a freeze in Ghost Recon Wildlands. I was also able to duplicate this code in Siege. It was "Game Security Violation Detected #00000001." The code will only appear if I force restart the computer after the game is frozen.

Googling around a bit, I came across advice from the Ubi team to uninstall and reinstall Uplay itself. I have now done that. So far, no freezes despite about an hour in Wildlands (previous crashes were every 10-20 minutes).

I'll test on Siege tomorrow.

[UbiBaron]

I'm glad to hear that you were able to locate the issue behind this.

Let us know how you get on with Siege.

- Ubisoft Support

[CROSSEYED_JIM]

Unfortunately, I got another black screen and CTD about 45 minutes into Siege. It looks like the problem was not fixed after all. I'm out of ideas on how to proceed at this point.

[UbiBaron]

Have you continued playing since that, did it come back with the same frequency?

- Ubisoft Support

[CROSSEYED_JIM]

Originally posted by UbiHolz:

Have you continued playing since that, did it come back with the same frequency?

- Ubisoft Support

I tried one more time, yes. Froze up again about two matches in (~20 minutes). It certainly feels less frequent given that I previously could not finish a single match, and often not even a single round. But it's hard to say with only two runs.

[UbiBaron]

That's certainly better than it was previously.

Have you tried checking the reliability history/MSINFO error reporting, to check for the Siege crash and see if there's a specific element causing it? Sometimes this can point to a particular file or location that causes the crash to happen.

- Ubisoft Support

[CROSSEYED_JIM]

Originally posted by UbiHolz:

That's certainly better than it was previously.

Have you tried checking the reliability history/MSINFO error reporting, to check for the Siege crash and see if there's a specific element causing it? Sometimes this can point to a particular file or location that causes the crash to happen.

- Ubisoft Support

I don't see anything related to R6 in the Reliability History or problem reports. There is one Windows error in MSINFO that roughly coincides with the crash yesterday. Here's what MSINFO shows. I don't know enough about the codes to say whether it's related to R6 or whether it is helpful.

EDIT: Looking more closely, this looks like a Corsair software crash (I use a K55 keyboard and a Void Pro USB headset, both Corsair). I have long suspected that the Corsair software had something to do with the crashing since I got my new keyboard and installed the requisite software around the time they started happening, but the crashes seem to occur even if I uninstall all (visible) Corsair iCUE software completely. Very strange.

I suppose the one thing I haven't tried is unplugging the Corsair keyboard and running with my old one. I'll give that a shot and let you know how it goes. Maybe not having it plugged in will kill whatever driver/process is running behind it.

8/11/2018 2:33 PM Windows Error Reporting Fault bucket 1957862694129189257, type 5
Event Name: CLR20r3
Response: Not available
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1: Corsair.Service.exe
P2: 3.5.0.31
P3: 5b3caa37
P4: System.Management
P5: 4.7.3056.0
P6: 5a8e5a11
P7: 8a
P8: 51
P9: PSZQOADHX1U5ZAHBHOHGHLDGIY4QIXHX
P10: 

Attached files:
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WER5C58.tmp.WERInternalMetadata.xml

These files may be available here:
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\AppCrash_Corsair.Service._f4e0b8f5709023314538cd63a8e668b2ca53cba1_a88ea5ac_1f48729f

Analysis symbol: 
Rechecking for solution: 0
Report Id: 66b92cb5-47b0-4215-86ee-6648695e9370
Report Status: 268435552
Hashed bucket: e33bbf75f81bf358cb2bb9bf428f4189
Cab Guid: 0

[CROSSEYED_JIM]

Great news! I just wrapped up 2.5 hours of uninterrupted R6 Siege. Zero freezes or other issues. All I did was disable all Corsair iCUE software (which did not work before) and unplug my Corsair K55 keyboard. Instead, I used my old Microsoft keyboard.

So, I guess it WAS a driver conflict, after all. I'm really bummed that I can't use my newer, nicer keyboard, but at least I can play.

Thanks for all your help and support. Hopefully you can let other players know that physically unplugging their Corsair keyboard may fix this issue for them. I'll update this thread if I get more crashes, but I think I'm solid at 12 or so matches.