DOTA 2 stops working randomly during a game

[kontood]

Hi all,

Before this, I'd been playing DOTA 2 flawlessly since late 2020. However, just about a month ago, I've been experiencing random crashes during a match. It's like, you're playing normally and suddenly the game just stops working (the screen freezes and never recovers).

When the issue first happened, I just closed the game via task manager and restart it. After a while, things got worse. I could not close the game via task manager anymore because my laptop stopped working entirely. After a week, it got even worse when my laptop popped up a blue screen every time this happened and restarted itself. And as of yesterday, after all of that had happened, I restarted the game but could not rejoin the game (it was just trying to reconnect and kept on failing).

I've tried several ways I could find on the internet (keyword is something like "DOTA 2 stops working randomly" or "DOTA 2 crashes during a game") in a hope that one of them might fix mine, but none of them did. Steam supports told me that my machine might be in a bad state but in fact this problem only happens with DOTA 2 so I hardly believe so.

I'm out of ideas now so I'm creating this post in case someone has had this same issue before. This stupid problem has cost me so many losses as my play was always interrupted (and you all know that every moment counts in this game). And for yesterday when I wasn't able to rejoin the game, I was also penalized for it as abandoned.

Here is my laptop specs:
Manufacture: Lenovo Ideapad Gaming
OS: Windows 11 64-bit
Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 4600H (12 CPUs) 3 GHz
RAM: 8 GB
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti

Many thanks in advance for any suggestion or advice.

[Profile Name]

This reads as a RAM issue.
Your 8GB of RAM is rather low especially since your on Windows 11 and not Windows 10.
Try and make sure when you play you have other applications like Chrome/Firefox closed out entirely.

[76561199219534651]

Although I recommend upping your RAM, that isn't the issue per se. I have 32GB of RAM OC and still experience these crashes you describe. And you're right, it only occurs in Dota 2 never with any other game or application. It's likely related to their highly questionable actions involving how they track players via hardware ID (and other means) which is bound to initialize conflicts against various system and application security. Sorry I don't have the solution, just wanted to chime in b/c you're not alone.
Note though, how you have to bank on forum assistance in most all cases as there is practically zero communication from Valve regarding anything about this game despite how much money it sucks up. You'll never know if such issues are even on their radar much less actually being scoped. The only certainty here is the continued inundation of purchasable garbage, fixed matchmaking and radio silence from Valve regarding anything players deserve to know.
I look forward to the day when Valve's negligence and shady retention methods utilized to secure revenue through this deceptive "free to play" business model are forcefully revealed through litigation as it's become very clear kids are just being exploited and mentally damaged in large capacity via Valve's gross mismanagement of this game.

[76561199377342073]

Originally posted by kontood:

Hi all,

Before this, I'd been playing DOTA 2 flawlessly since late 2020. However, just about a month ago, I've been experiencing random crashes during a match. It's like, you're playing normally and suddenly the game just stops working (the screen freezes and never recovers).

When the issue first happened, I just closed the game via task manager and restart it. After a while, things got worse. I could not close the game via task manager anymore because my laptop stopped working entirely. After a week, it got even worse when my laptop popped up a blue screen every time this happened and restarted itself. And as of yesterday, after all of that had happened, I restarted the game but could not rejoin the game (it was just trying to reconnect and kept on failing).

I've tried several ways I could find on the internet (keyword is something like "DOTA 2 stops working randomly" or "DOTA 2 crashes during a game") in a hope that one of them might fix mine, but none of them did. Steam supports told me that my machine might be in a bad state but in fact this problem only happens with DOTA 2 so I hardly believe so.

I'm out of ideas now so I'm creating this post in case someone has had this same issue before. This stupid problem has cost me so many losses as my play was always interrupted (and you all know that every moment counts in this game). And for yesterday when I wasn't able to rejoin the game, I was also penalized for it as abandoned.

Here is my laptop specs:
Manufacture: Lenovo Ideapad Gaming
OS: Windows 11 64-bit
Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 4600H (12 CPUs) 3 GHz
RAM: 8 GB
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti

Many thanks in advance for any suggestion or advice.

maybe there's a pending OS update and that might help you once you installed it or maybe the game is just using a bit more resources in your laptop and cause it to heat a bit so try putting a fan near it when playing and see if it helped, if you're still getting blue screen maybe reinstalling the game might help.

[kontood]

Originally posted by Profile Name:

This reads as a RAM issue.
Your 8GB of RAM is rather low especially since your on Windows 11 and not Windows 10.
Try and make sure when you play you have other applications like Chrome/Firefox closed out entirely.

Thank you so much for your reply.

This is quite interesting. I've been using Windows 11 for a really long time but this issue just started about a month ago. Maybe the latest Windows update caused the OS to suck more resources than it used to?

If that is the case, maybe I should increase the RAM to 16 GB as I still have 1 more slot available.

[kontood]

Originally posted by Valv Is Trash:

Although I recommend upping your RAM, that isn't the issue per se. I have 32GB of RAM OC and still experience these crashes you describe. And you're right, it only occurs in Dota 2 never with any other game or application. It's likely related to their highly questionable actions involving how they track players via hardware ID (and other means) which is bound to initialize conflicts against various system and application security. Sorry I don't have the solution, just wanted to chime in b/c you're not alone.
Note though, how you have to bank on forum assistance in most all cases as there is practically zero communication from Valve regarding anything about this game despite how much money it sucks up. You'll never know if such issues are even on their radar much less actually being scoped. The only certainty here is the continued inundation of purchasable garbage, fixed matchmaking and radio silence from Valve regarding anything players deserve to know.
I look forward to the day when Valve's negligence and shady retention methods utilized to secure revenue through this deceptive "free to play" business model are forcefully revealed through litigation as it's become very clear kids are just being exploited and mentally damaged in large capacity via Valve's gross mismanagement of this game.

Thank you so much for your reply.

I feel you man, the frustration when this crash occurs. I'm considering increasing my RAM from 8 to 16 GB as I have one more slot available. I'll keep you posted if it helps.

Regarding Valve, I totally agree with you that we should be able to provide more feedback to them regarding the game experience, especially toxic behaviors that are currently dominating the game.

[kontood]

Originally posted by SEKIRO:Shadows Die Twice-Kuro:

Originally posted by kontood:

Hi all,

Before this, I'd been playing DOTA 2 flawlessly since late 2020. However, just about a month ago, I've been experiencing random crashes during a match. It's like, you're playing normally and suddenly the game just stops working (the screen freezes and never recovers).

When the issue first happened, I just closed the game via task manager and restart it. After a while, things got worse. I could not close the game via task manager anymore because my laptop stopped working entirely. After a week, it got even worse when my laptop popped up a blue screen every time this happened and restarted itself. And as of yesterday, after all of that had happened, I restarted the game but could not rejoin the game (it was just trying to reconnect and kept on failing).

I've tried several ways I could find on the internet (keyword is something like "DOTA 2 stops working randomly" or "DOTA 2 crashes during a game") in a hope that one of them might fix mine, but none of them did. Steam supports told me that my machine might be in a bad state but in fact this problem only happens with DOTA 2 so I hardly believe so.

I'm out of ideas now so I'm creating this post in case someone has had this same issue before. This stupid problem has cost me so many losses as my play was always interrupted (and you all know that every moment counts in this game). And for yesterday when I wasn't able to rejoin the game, I was also penalized for it as abandoned.

Here is my laptop specs:
Manufacture: Lenovo Ideapad Gaming
OS: Windows 11 64-bit
Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 4600H (12 CPUs) 3 GHz
RAM: 8 GB
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti

Many thanks in advance for any suggestion or advice.

maybe there's a pending OS update and that might help you once you installed it or maybe the game is just using a bit more resources in your laptop and cause it to heat a bit so try putting a fan near it when playing and see if it helped, if you're still getting blue screen maybe reinstalling the game might help.

Thank you so much for your reply.

Actually, every time I play a game, not just DOTA 2, I always use a cooling pad so my laptop is not overheated.

I just checked my Windows update status. It seems everything is up to date, including the drivers. I tried to play the game yesterday and kept monitoring RAM usage. The percentage shot up to around 96% all the time when I was playing the game so maybe Windows 11 is sucking up more resources than it used to, perhaps from its latest update. I'm considering upgrading from 8 to 16 GB RAM to give my laptop more resources.

[kontood]

Hi all,

Just to update. Upgrading the RAM from 8 to 16 GB does not help at all. I just experienced another crash while RAM usage was only 49% as of that moment. This has led me to believe that the issue is not caused by domestic hardware anymore, but still no idea what.

Maybe this is a good reason for me to stop playing the game as I've been overwhelmed by the toxicity of the players out there.

[Kagami]

Originally posted by kontood:

Here is my laptop

Thats your problem. Cause i use Asus ROG strix scar 17 2021. And when its started to heat up after 30 minutes. It start to cause problem (fps drops, lags, ended up crash).

I change to PC (with liquid cooling) in 2021 and This problem disappear forever.

Thats my personal experience.

[kontood]

Originally posted by Kagami:

Originally posted by kontood:

Here is my laptop

Thats your problem. Cause i use Asus ROG strix scar 17 2021. And when its started to heat up after 30 minutes. It start to cause problem (fps drops, lags, ended up crash).

I change to PC (with liquid cooling) in 2021 and This problem disappear forever.

Thats my personal experience.

Ahh yes, the PC. That crossed my mind indeed. But I still prefer a laptop so I can still carry it to places like a cafe and work with it.

Maybe I should get a new, more powerful cooling pad?

[Der Oberunterdrücker]

I have the same screen freezes and laags during Dota 2 gaming. That is only a Dota 2 issue. Maybe Valve will fix it ?

[Kagami]

Originally posted by kontood:

Originally posted by Kagami:

Thats your problem. Cause i use Asus ROG strix scar 17 2021. And when its started to heat up after 30 minutes. It start to cause problem (fps drops, lags, ended up crash).

I change to PC (with liquid cooling) in 2021 and This problem disappear forever.

Thats my personal experience.

Ahh yes, the PC. That crossed my mind indeed. But I still prefer a laptop so I can still carry it to places like a cafe and work with it.

Maybe I should get a new, more powerful cooling pad?

That won't help. But again i'm talking from experience. Maybe yours will be different. I have apps called armoury crate in my ROG strix laptop and even after using the cooling pad it doesn't cool off my laptop faster without the cooling pad.

[Der Oberunterdrücker]

Have anyone a Idea what is happend with Valve server or have only few this problem?

[Profile Name]

Originally posted by Der Oberunterdrücker:

Have anyone a Idea what is happend with Valve server or have only few this problem?

This is not a server issue

[Der Oberunterdrücker]

Originally posted by Profile Name:

Originally posted by Der Oberunterdrücker:

Have anyone a Idea what is happend with Valve server or have only few this problem?

This is not a server issue

How do you know this? Give us some information.

[Profile Name]

Originally posted by Der Oberunterdrücker:

Originally posted by Profile Name:

This is not a server issue

How do you know this? Give us some information.

A server issue would present an error message of some kind. Something like "Connection lost" or "Unable to reach Dota 2 Servers".

OP has stated that his game just freezes. The application at a local level has hit some kind of issue. My view originally was a lack of RAM as apps freeze commonly with a lack of memory and OP advised they only had 8GB on Windows 11.

I host many servers for different services, applications at a local level dont just crap out when theres a server issue.