Having completely random crashes lately? Possible solution inside!

[Froggy]

Long story short, about a week ago I started getting completely random CTDs.  I hadn't added or changed my mods, and these crashes not only corrupted my save game but all of my save games for all of my characters.  After restarting from scratch about twenty fucking times, picking through every mod I had trying to find the culprit (because it's always a mod issue, right?) I finally stumbled upon the answer buried in a Reddit post.

 

It's was all Bethesda's fault, the real culprit was (surprise!) their fucking Cancer Creation Club and it was causing this exact same issue for a lot of people.

 

The solution had nothing to do with mods or ini file edits or any settings in the game.  Nope.  The solution was this:

 

Go into your Windows Firewall (Advanced Settings) and outbound block all your Fallout 4 exe files.

 

Now I know all you evil pirate types probably already do that, but now we legit Steam users have to do the same damn thing to make the game work.  Apparently they used CC to inject new bullshit in there without telling anyone that is likely some kind of retarded attempt at security that tries to "call home" or something and since Bethesda is Bethesda it always failed.  So it wasn't just random bugs, oh no, it was eating my save games on purpose.  At this point I think their goal is to see if they can manage to get a worse reputation than Electronic Arts.

 

Anyways, before I couldn't make it 5 minutes out of the vault before it would CTD with no warning.  Now?  Just finished six hours straight without so much as a hiccup.  Worked like a charm.  Over 100 active mods and still perfectly stable, just like it used to be.  Fucking yay.

[WandererZero]

51 minutes ago, Froggy said:

After restarting from scratch about twenty fucking times, picking through every mod I had trying to find the culprit (because it's always a mod issue, right?) I finally stumbled upon the answer buried in a Reddit post.

 

I found your post here interesting, so on a lark (but also, because I did run into something *similar* with CC, but not your exact issue) I decided to do some research into this. I have a some questions for you though...

 

1. I assume you're using the steam version, and not Bethesda launcher?

2. Do you own any CC content?

3. Are you using the latest Fallout4 exe from the last update?

4. Could you link me to the reddit comment you found? 

 

Because, when I read your post, I fired up netmon and wireshark. I spent time in world, switch zones via fast travel, walked from one zone to another...and here is what I found: 

 

Aside from the initial game load, there is no traffic sent between mtx.bethesda.net or services.bethesda.net and my machine. Nada, zip. There's a burst of encrypted SSL traffic, but once the game is loaded, nothing. Once the game is loaded, the Fallout4.exe essentially shuts up. I generally never CTD, but on the last update, I did find the exe doing some hinky shit with new CC content, but while using the older F4 exe...so again I am very curious about this. 

 

It's not that I don't believe what you're saying here. Bethesda is well known for half assed implementations. I am just trying to see if I can find out what it is, where it might be coming from is all. 

[Froggy]

As a Steam user I'm kind of forced to always use the latest update, unless I want to play in Offline Mode.  Which I usually do anyway on principle (waste of resources if I'm not actively using it, after all).

 

I don't own any CC stuff.  I was using the "No more creation club news" mod and tried disabling that mod as part of the experiment, but it didn't help.  The firewall blocking did work, of course, and I left the mod off afterward because it was no longer relevant.

 

Other than that, my mod list hasn't changed any since before the problems started or after it was fixed.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/fo4/comments/8u8x5b/help_fallout_4_crashing_to_desktop_without_any/

[WandererZero]

4 minutes ago, Froggy said:

As a Steam user I'm kind of forced to always use the latest update, unless I want to play in Offline Mode.  Which I usually do anyway on principle (waste of resources if I'm not actively using it, after all).

No you arent. as you're using F4SE, you should be launching through that, with steam in the BG. 

 

 

With F4SE launches, you set your updates to "only when I launch it"....as you won't be launching through steam, but through F4SE... you are free to do the update when you want to. 

 

Most people using F4SE never let steam anywhere NEAR automatically updating their game. I don't update until F4SE and the mods I use that pull from it are updated. Don't launch from Steam if you do not absolutely need to. I personally use a Rainmeter launcher pointed to: SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Fallout 4\f4se_loader.exe

 

In any event, the reddit post you referenced seems to be mostly people who CTD'd at the menu. Hitting a key when the game loads actually triggers the TCP socket connection. While I can't rule that out, there does not appear to be anything malformed about the traffic. I'll look into this a bit more tomorrow though. See what I can find. 

 

[Froggy]

This is how it looks when I launch...
 

 

Even with F4SE, if I'm not in offline mode it will try to update.  Once had to quit playing for a couple of days because I forgot to stay offline, it updated even though I was using F4SE straight from MO2, and I had to wait for F4SE itself to update afterward because the game update wrecked everything (as always).  Maybe I just have bad luck?

 

My guess would be that, as you said, when it launches the game and triggers the connection, whatever malfunction it causes is triggered but with a delayed reaction.  It never crashed, even when bugged, until after I left the vault in the start up.  Afterward it would usually happen within 15 minutes, tops, but sometimes as little as 10.  And the one time I used "alternate start" as an experiment to start off outside the vault it crashed in under a minute (normally I've only ever used it to skip the intro stuff and go straight to playing from the cryo pod exit scene).  My theory is that is goes "security check failed, self destruct in 5 minutes."

 

Anyway, it's fixed now, and that's what matters. 

[WandererZero]

1 minute ago, Froggy said:

Even with F4SE, if I'm not in offline mode it will try to update.  Once had to quit playing for a couple of days because I forgot to stay offline, it updated even though I was using F4SE straight from MO2, and I had to wait for F4SE itself to update afterward because the game update wrecked everything (as always).  Maybe I just have bad luck?

Welp, I do not use MO2, so I cannot speak to that. But I have never had Steam run updates simply launching from F4SE. Ever. 

 

As to the networking...

 

Thing is, near as I can tell. The client doesn't do a whole lot. When the game loads and you see the background, there are *no* TCP connections from Fallout4.exe. When it says "hit any key to continue"...when you hit a key, and the menu pops up....Then Fallout4 initiates a TCP connection to either mtx.bethesda.net or services.bethesda.net, it establishes the socket. Then it stops. 

 

Loading a game, there is some back and forth. Not sure what the data is, it's all secured/encrypted/TLS. It does not appear to be a lot of data, but some back and forth happens. But once your game is loaded, it finishes, stops...but leaves the socket open. It only appears to do it once too. On subsequent loads of different save files...I did not see additional traffic. None of the packets are malformed, or throw error flags. It's really weird that you encountered this. I'll keep looking at thing privately, and I am glad you got your end fixed. 

 

As to whether or not this is Bethesda's fault...as much as I often like to lay blame at their feet...too many unknowns. A lot of stuff can cause an app to crash when you're dealing with networking. Blocking it at the local firewall solves the issue, but...that could also mean it blocked a bad response that would be incoming that smashed the Fallout4.exe. A bad response like that could come from anywhere down the line, believe it or not. 

 

Either way, you're all solved, and blocking at the FW is a valid solution to this issue. I just like a good networking mystery. ?

 

[icladel]

So, I got back into FO4 three weeks ago. I have had a similar issue that is driving me fucking nuts up the wall. The crash that I get is CTD when I save (auto, quick and menu save). 

 

What is infuriating is that absolutely nothing changes; not my game updates, not my mods, not my load order. All is well and suddenly I get the dreaded "CTD on save". Not only does this fuck up the active save game but a whole string of saves behind it. 

 

I have started over three times. Each character that I make starts off alright and I can play without problems. Its only until I get up to the point of that first CTD on save that fucks everything up.

 

I've diagnosed every mod on the save by doing the activate/deactivate one by one method (note that its the "clean/ish" save method...it takes so fucking long and its tedious watching fucking Bethesdas logo 9999 times). I've tried Fallrim tools for orphan script removal. Nothing works. As soon as I get that first CTD on save, everything breaks. I have done the whole validate steam files though this is an unlikely fix as I use MO2 and my Steam game folder is clean.

 

However I have noticed a trend. This first crash on save ONLY OCCURS AFTER THE FIRST 24 HOURS OF GAME. I.e. Each character/game has fucked up after the first 24 save hours. It could be 1day+1min, or 1day+25min, or FO4's most recent record, 1day+2hours+1min. 

 

My mods are not the issue as far as diagnosis can tell.  My base folder game files have never corrupted. What the hell else can I do to fix this shit? Unless I can finish the game in 24 hours, theres really no point to this ongoing headache...

 

EDIT: With regards to above posts, I don't believe it is Cunts Club as I have two redundancies to Bethesdas shitty updates. Running game through MO2/F4SE/Offline mode AND disabling auto-updates.

 

PS. Apologies for my french. This shit is extremely frustrating.

[guk]

The thing with blocking Fallout4.exe in the firewall - i had to do that since a patch about one year ago.

 

The crashes fixed by this only happen in the main menu though, after the game is done loading and the intro music / movie are playing. When i "press any key" (which would normally jump to the main menu), the CTD happens. All the time.

 

I also tried several things people recommended, like deleting some of the DNS info and whatnot, but nothing ever fixed it. Perhaps with reinstalling or just generating new INI files it might be fixable, but there's too much stuff i changed over the years that i don't remember.

TBH blocking a pure single-player game with the firewall is a very small price for enjoying a heavily modded game.

 

 

 

 

P.S.: I've heard that the forced auto-update in Steam happens when the Steam client is not (fully) loaded, so make sure you give it some time after booting up your PC. Probably because the F4SE launcher redirects to the standard launcher when Steam isn't running, and this definitely causes the update.

Also perhaps the Steam Offline mode is actually causing the update.