Game Crashes If Connected to Internet

[Why Watt]

This one's a fun one so I'll try and work over it slowly.

Me and Bethesda games, we have a love/hate relationship and I'll often play, stop playing, start again and wonder why I am suddenly unplayable levels of crashing, having forgotten whatever voodoo magic I used to fix it.

For Fallout 4, the crash that makes the game unplayable is... wait for it... caused by being connected to the internet.

I can play the game for hours on end, without any crash or issues, so long as I turn the wifi off my computer. Well over a year ago, I'd play Fallout 4 and the fix to all my problems was just not being connected to any internet. I never really looked further into it, and having recently started playing again I am a little fascinated at this specific problem.

While I do know this fixes it, I was wondering if any of you had some idea of what software might be responsible for cuckholding me. I've checked online, and apparently nobody else is either having this issue, has reported this as an issue or has figured out that their crashes are being caused by some software not playing nice with the game.

I'll also update this post with what things end up being tested, naturally that will take time to see which play sessions will have crashes and which won't.

As some baselines, I am running the latest version of Windows 10 and am one of the like, 5 people on earth who have an AMD GPU. So potential culprits are either Steam Overlay, the XBOX game menu accessed via WINDOWS + G or Radeon interface.

If any of you can think of other things to check, I'd love to hear what avenues I should try to explore.

[GOD RAYS ON ULTRA™]

Could be something to do with cloud sync when fo4 performs a save.
What are your system specs? Top of steam> help> system information

[SuperSledgeNY]

I would suggest you install Buffout 4 from Nexus since this would actually give you a true crash log which just might let you zero in on what your issue really is.

From my own experience after installing Buffout 4, the crash log pointed to the file d3d11.dll 90% of the time, and always at the same address. The DLL file was actually added to my game when I installed my ENB so I went to the ENBSeries website and started reading.

I saw that the following are only SOME of the apps that have compatibility issues with ENB:

"Steam overlay, EVGA, Afterburner, Avast antivirus, EMET, D3D Overrider, Razer and Logitek utils"

Notice that most if not ALL of those apps have active internet connections.


I already had Steam Overlay disabled BUT I had the Logitech Gaming Software activated so I disabled that, killed their surround sound service and so far my game has been stable.

Now I'm not saying this is the cure since it's still too early to tell but its a helluva lot more than I had when I was sitting there scratching my head and wondering why I just CTD.

So yeah, Buffout 4 gave me a clue when otherwise I would have had nothing.

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by Why Watt:

While I do know this fixes it, I was wondering if any of you had some idea of what software might be responsible for cuckholding me. I've checked online, and apparently nobody else is either having this issue, has reported this as an issue or has figured out that their crashes are being caused by some software not playing nice with the game.

Pretty sure this has been posted about many times. Especially by people overseas where there is some sort of block in place.

My guess would be for some reason it is trying to connect to your Bethesda account while playing and then since it refuses the connection it leads to a crash. That is the only reason the game needs internet is to connect and verify your CC content.

[MaximumEffort]

I get this issue from time to time.

As far as I understand it relates to the ISP changing some security protocols and connectivity, so when the game tries to connect to Bethesda it crashes, until both sides have same protocols. Usually goes on for 4-5 days to a week.

If you use a mod to disable Creation Club, you can still stay online and play normally. Its the top right banner in Main Menu that causes the crash.

[Why Watt]

First I'd love to say, thanks to all of you for all the swift responses.

Originally posted by Hardware Hero™:

Could be something to do with cloud sync when fo4 performs a save.
What are your system specs? Top of steam> help> system information

I have cloud sync disabled because with my shoddy internet speed it can make bouncing from one game to another a chore. Also I typically play in Survival mode so saves aren't exactly often, and usually the sudden crashes happen when something is going on.

Originally posted by SuperSledgeNY:

I would suggest you install Buffout 4 from Nexus since this would actually give you a true crash log which just might let you zero in on what your issue really is.

From my own experience after installing Buffout 4, the crash log pointed to the file d3d11.dll 90% of the time, and always at the same address. The DLL file was actually added to my game when I installed my ENB so I went to the ENBSeries website and started reading.

I saw that the following are only SOME of the apps that have compatibility issues with ENB:

"Steam overlay, EVGA, Afterburner, Avast antivirus, EMET, D3D Overrider, Razer and Logitek utils"

Notice that most if not ALL of those apps have active internet connections.


I already had Steam Overlay disabled BUT I had the Logitech Gaming Software activated so I disabled that, killed their surround sound service and so far my game has been stable.

Now I'm not saying this is the cure since it's still too early to tell but its a helluva lot more than I had when I was sitting there scratching my head and wondering why I just CTD.

So yeah, Buffout 4 gave me a clue when otherwise I would have had nothing.

When I installed Buffout 4 previously I got an error about unsupported scripts in Mod Organizer 2 so I assumed it wasn't running correctly, but I'll reinstall and give that a go. I do have ENB and I have a Razer mouse & keyboard, so I'll also see if they're running anything in the background.

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

Originally posted by Why Watt:

While I do know this fixes it, I was wondering if any of you had some idea of what software might be responsible for cuckholding me. I've checked online, and apparently nobody else is either having this issue, has reported this as an issue or has figured out that their crashes are being caused by some software not playing nice with the game.

Pretty sure this has been posted about many times. Especially by people overseas where there is some sort of block in place.

My guess would be for some reason it is trying to connect to your Bethesda account while playing and then since it refuses the connection it leads to a crash. That is the only reason the game needs internet is to connect and verify your CC content.

Huh, Google wouldn't turn up much of anything unfortunately. But nice to know I'm not the only one.

Originally posted by MAXimumEffort:

I get this issue from time to time.

As far as I understand it relates to the ISP changing some security protocols and connectivity, so when the game tries to connect to Bethesda it crashes, until both sides have same protocols. Usually goes on for 4-5 days to a week.

If you use a mod to disable Creation Club, you can still stay online and play normally. Its the top right banner in Main Menu that causes the crash.

I'll give this avenue a check - I assume it's the mod "No More Creation Club News"? That one disables the banner (well, more like, hides it) but if there's one that I'm overlooking please feel free to lmk.

I do have a few creation club mods installed - really just weapons cuz I am a sucker for those. Would attempts to fix the interaction between Bethesda.net and my machine on my end compromise my ability to use this content or nah?

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by Why Watt:

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

Pretty sure this has been posted about many times. Especially by people overseas where there is some sort of block in place.

My guess would be for some reason it is trying to connect to your Bethesda account while playing and then since it refuses the connection it leads to a crash. That is the only reason the game needs internet is to connect and verify your CC content.

Huh, Google wouldn't turn up much of anything unfortunately. But nice to know I'm not the only one.

Search terms, you just did not use the right key words.
Most people had an issue where the game would not even start unless the internet was off.
Your issue was the internet coming on and crashing the game while playing.
Not exactly same symptoms, but same cause/effect sorta thing.