Anyone else seeing momentary freezing?

PTR Bug Report
1

Was playing last night on the PTR doing the new season there and every so often randomly the game would sort of halt, then resume. Most noticeably when changing rift floors and before the boss would show up. Sometimes when teleporting.

Like it was having trouble loading assets or something. My system runs this from a SSD drive, and normally I never see this issue. The regular game doesn’t do it, but the PTR was.

Just wondered if it was related to either server load or something else. There have been a lot of changes in the game after all. Could be indicative of a larger issue.

But it could be nothing too.

Game on.

2

Same on live I’d assume? Probably the fxmod.dll bug.

3

If that was the case, I would have it there. I don’t have any issues with the live game at all. Only the PTR version.

4

Try to check to solve the file issue, maybe reinstall the PTR. Because if the issue persist I would suggest try it out on d3 because often the PTR copies the d3 directory, so the issue could be also in there

5

What part of

Does not make sense here? I have NO freezing in live. Only the PTR. So if it were copied from the live copy, and it DOESN’T freeze, how does that apply here?

What, it suddenly started to have this issue only in the PTR? lol

Specifically I only see it when:

Transitioning to a new floor in a rift (any rift) and in maybe 1 out of 10 transitions.

Encountering elites or a boss. (and this happens with elites maybe 1 out of 30 packs, and bosses maybe once or twice during a session)

Randomly out of nowhere (usually during a fight) and I might see that happen once or twice in a session.

These freezes only last 2-4 seconds, and the game is continuing while the screen is frozen (I can hear game sound on in the background) and when it catches back up its fine. I will often continue to hit skill keys so that I don’t at least die while its waiting to catch up.

But till this PTR, I have never had these issues with the game in this fashion.

6

If your live game don’t show issues, doesn’t mean the issue could happen manipulating data from there, Like a broken pendrive, can maintain files integrity until you try to move, add or remove stuff.

Corrupted files can happen on copies, that’s why I said try to reinstall, one of the PTR process it’s copying stuff from the original d3 directory, if your storage has bad blocks, some problems or OS has issues, bad stuff can happen during the whole process. That’s why a common pratice when you do backups it’s test them afterwards.

After reinstalling, happens again could be a d3 game client(unlikely if you perform the process at least 2 times) or something messing with your storage or something OS related.

So before, try to solve common copy errors and stuff before consider a issue exclusive to the current patch.

7

I’m pretty confident the problem is not corruption of files.

I run multiple drives and have off-system backups. The nvme drive runs my OS, D3 live and OW. My 2TB SATA based Samsung pro SSD runs the rest of the games, and file storage. Then I have a 4TB for video files, downloads, backups, things like this. Then I have externals with backups of game folders.

I have already tried doing a file check with the game tool, replacing the entire game folder and re-updating. Nothing changes so far. I only have 8MB DSL here, so not really wanting to re-dowload the entire base package again if I don’t have to. And since the symptoms don’t present anywhere else, I can only conclude there is an issue.

While you may be quick to dismiss the problem as a problem with my system hardware, I’m not so much. If the problem were persistent across all versions and installations, that would be one thing.

I have no drive errors, system runs pretty much flawless for me. (doesn’t crash anywhere else, doesn’t blue screen, doesn’t randomly turn off, reboot, or anything else)

I do have limitations at the moment with memory as I only have 8GB currently installed, and that can cause some issues with memory in some cases, but to date not with D3.

The only change that I see is the addition of more stuff for the game to do. And its not outside the realm of possibility that there isn’t an issue with the patch either.

I have the latest version of Windows 10 (20H2) with its latest updates, the latest version of the nVidia driver for my GTX 1660, as well as other latest driver updates for my system. I manually check them every few months as needed if I run into problems.

So…

Not thinking this is a corruption problem.

Keep in mind, I’m playing for several hours at a time when doing the PTR game. Not 10 minutes or something.

And I am seeing these freezes happen maybe 1 to 2 times in an hour. That’s it.

Not game breaking, barely even annoying, but wanted to point it out.

8

Tried with other classes or without follower? To see if are file related issues with necro/wd/dh or the new followers? Because often would be files, network, drivers(some folks complained from recent nvidia drivers on games) or the new stuff. So to proper diagnose could be great to try out some outside the box things, maybe some in game options are enabled that on original installation isn’t? Because most of my game graphics and sound preferences didn’t ported well when I installed the PTR.

Sometimes windows processes can mess a bit with i/o on the os driver. I would suggest try to install in a different driver than the OS.

More than that I would suggest try to put some detailed data from some support posts to help them to diagnose properly

9

Yeah seems to be still the fxmod.dll problem, either they won’t fix their untable game at all or they are not skilled enough to do so. Vice versa, this game runs like a bag of fleas regarding stability and performance.
This is not a windows problem, many players of my clan and group are facing exactly the same problem. All other games are running as they should do…

1 Like
10

Yesterday tonight too I finished rift I’m laughing when I see thaht, very difficult to finish : 10 mn rift 25 normally 2-3 mn… Restart game and resolve it

11

I was having a similar issue. I was leveling a Necromancer from 1-70. I was using Siphon Blood as my primary skill. It would freeze constantly. I’m assuming that it’s not just the Necromancer having this issue? Now that I’m Level 70 and using a different build I’m not freezing as much. I am getting disconnects during greater rifts consistently. I hope that this helps someone.

12

Just some food for thought.

  • D3 Live runs on multiple servers and for separate Regions.
  • D3 PTR runs on one server only. (Everybody in the PTR is on the same server).
  • D3 PTR is a test server.

In case you haven’t seen it, every PTR Blog tells us:

WViRNOB.jpg840×260

I have been lucky enough to experience connection and freezing issues rarely on the Live server during Season 22. And I have completed the Season on the Americas, Europe and Asia Regions.

Some days I have no issues on the PTR server. But, some days I get frequent disconnections at the most inappropriate times. (Like during Greater Rifts, right when I’m about to talk to Urshi and upgrade my Gems. Or in the middle of the last Bounty for a particular Act).

The PTR server issues are to be expected, but still should be reported.

The Live server issues should definitely be reported. And I hope Blizzard can solve those issues to avoid future problems.

13

I also was getting frequent lags, freezes, up to the point of the game no longer responding, either in the middle of fights, or when changing floors.
Today I had crashes almost in every GR, once I could’nt even enter.
I dismissed my Templar, and suddenly I had no longer issues.
Then I hired him again with no emanating items equipped (only RoRG, Oculus, Freeze of Deflection shield and Thunderfury). Again no issues.
Next run I added Strongarm Bracers (non emanating item), and again no issues).
Next test included a full set of non-emantaing items on the Templar: No problems during the first level, but no response when trying to go to level 2.
Removed the chest, and had again no issues.
Another crash with full follower items (non emanating) when porting to town after finishing the GR. Next run though no issues.
When adding Nemesis Bracers no crashes during the GR, but it “felt” laggy occasionally, especially when the Boss spawned. Ported to town, but when I tried walking to Orek, the game frequently started to freeze again until I closed the GR.

My TL:DR: The emanating system causing freezes and lags, and game crashes due to client becoming unresponsive. And to a lesser degree when a Follower (only checked Templar) having all item slots equipped.