Game freezing on ship selection screen in empire creation.

[Armagus]

My game keeps freezing on the ship appearance selection menu of empire and when I look at ships in the system view for more than a few seconds. I have uninstalled the mod and completely reinstalled the game and it continues to have this problem even if with no mods enabled. The games audio continues to play and I can still move my cursor if I move the cursor over a button on the U.I I will hear the audio that normally plays for selecting it but the actual menu will continue to remain frozen. I have no idea what is causing this as the game worked completely fine for over a year and this did not start after an update and has been constant for several patches.

I have no mods enabled and all DLC's other than Plantoids and Humanoids enabled.

 

[AndrewT]

Try renaming the user_empire_designs.txt from /Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/ . Do you still get that problem with no mods enabled?

 

[Armagus]

I do still have the problem with no mods enabled. what should I be renaming the user_empire_designs.txt to? I have also noticed that if I make a new game with an already made empire preset my game will freeze if I look at ships in the system view for more than a few seconds.

 

[AndrewT]

what should I be renaming the user_empire_designs.txt to?

It doesn't matter, any other name will mean it is not taken into account.

 

[Armagus]

Renaming the user_empire_designs.txt did not stop the freezing.

 

[AndrewT]

That's surprising as your error.log above shows several errors in that file. If you delete that error.log and try the game again, do those errors come back into that log?

 

[Armagus]

The issues related to the file don't reappear in the error log but my game is still freezing at the same places it was previously.

 

[AndrewT]

Hmmm, okay then, let's try a full **clean** re-install:

- move any valued save games elsewhere, and user_empire_designs.txt from /Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/ if you have made any custom empires or races.
- "uninstall" in Steam-Stellaris
- manually delete both the Steam/SteamApps/common/Stellaris AND Documents/Paradox/Stellaris folders
- re-install game in Steam, run a Steam Verify when done.
- add stellaris.exe to the exceptions list of your antivirus app; ESPECIALLY if you have Windows Defender, add it to the Ransomware "Apps Allowed Through" list.
- start the game with no mods active and test

In particular you need to make sure there are no files or folders left under either the Steam Stellaris or Documents Stellaris locations, before installing again.

 

[Armagus]

I followed all the steps but it is still freezing in the same places I uninstalled completely deleted both folders, reinstalled, then verified. The executable is on the exceptions list and I have no mods enabled but its still freezing on the ship appearance selection menu and when I look at ships in the system view

 

[AndrewT]

DXDIAG is a program you run from a command prompt or the Windows start menu 'run' dialog box (or 'search programs' in Windows 7 or later). After running it will open a window and start collecting info with a progress bar in the lower-left corner. When it completes click the 'save all information' button and save it to a file then attach that file here.

Please attach your Documents/Paradox/Stellaris/settings.txt and pdx_settings.txt .
From your Documents/Paradox/Stellaris/logs/ folder, attach system.log

 

[Armagus]

Here are the files

 

[AndrewT]

That AMD driver looks like a problem:

Display Tab 1: The file aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx32,aticfx32,aticfx32,atiumd64.dll,atidxx64.dll,atidxx64.dll,atiumdag,atidxx32,atidxx32,atiumdva,atiumd6a.cap,atitmm64.dll is not digitally signed, which means that it has not been tested by Microsoft's Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL). You may be able to get a WHQL logo'd driver from the hardware manufacturer.

Although weirdly I see they have current Win7 and Win10 drivers, but no mention of Win 8.1:

https://www.amd.com/en/support/graphics/radeon-500-series/radeon-rx-500-series/radeon-rx-560

Frankly not sure which of those to try!

That aside I see some other unusual crashes recorded in that dxdiag. Are you having more general problems with this machine?

Do CK2 and HOI4 work okay for you still?

 

[Armagus]

That seems to have fixed it I can stay on the ship appearance selection screen for several minutes with no issue and I haven't had any freezing from looking at ships in the system view when I was testing it. I was actually having some problems with CK2 and HOi4 but freezing in those happened a lot less consistently than it was happening for me when I was trying to play Stellaris. Thank you for your help I really appreciate it I didn't even think about it being the AMD driver that was the issue.

 

[AndrewT]

That's good to hear. Did you pick the Win7 or 10 driver, as a matter of interest?

 

[Armagus]

I ended up going with the windows 7 I had some problems with installing it because the installer doesn't want to install it on Windows 8 so I had to manually install the drivers but I haven't had any issues so far with it.