[Main Thread] Windows 19041 - Freezing for 5-10 seconds

i uninstalled the latest windows update and no longer have those lock ups. (KB5001330) was also recommended by Gforce
I would post a link but unable to. keeps saying unable to post links

How to Post Links

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  2. Paste the "Direct Link" to your image and/or video in your post. (See image below).

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This, Google “PC Gamer recent Windows 10 update”, it’ll recommend to rollback the latest Windows KBB5001330

While that may help performance in other games, this D3 issue has been ongoing for over a year, all because of the fmodex.dll. Not saying rolling back isn’t a good idea anyway, just don’t want to see Blizzard tech support offering another “not really a fix” instead of fixing the actual issue.

Surely after two seasons Blizzard has looked at this. At one stage the blame was laid on Microsoft. Maybe it is, but why is D3 the only game that does this? Surely the programmers have contacted Microsoft for a work around.

I lost five toons last season and four this season. Last season I went without the work around, this season ticked me off too much. So now I play without sound which is not perfect, especially when you run right into Gob packs, or miss gobs in Bounties or Rifts.

My version is Windows 10 Pro 20H2 and my D3Debug has the same as everyone else.
Fmod Error sound not ready in 200ms
It froze for 5 sec, recovered, froze again, recovered, then froze for 15 sec both follower and my toon proc’d and RIP.

Not fun

2 Likes

Hey All,

Like most of you I too have experienced the lag that has at times rendered the game unplayable as well has having more crashes to desktop in the last month than I have over my entire history playing the game.

Personally, I like playing with sound so the DLL file swap business wasn’t the right fix for me. What has worked reasonably well so far is to set the affinity to processor 0 and 1. However, that was tedious as I had to take an extra step and it would occasionally revert or I would be a dumb dumb and forget to actually set it…

I eventually just created a shortcut with a specific target and specific information in it to do exactly what I wanted. This was namely to open the game, set the affinity to core 0 and 1, and to do it with out loading the Battle.net launcher. Below I’ll outline the steps I took.

  1. Right click on your desktop and hover over New, then click on Shortcut
  2. In the window that pops up there is a box where you “Type the location of the item”
    2.1 Copy and paste the following:
    2.2 C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start “Diablo III64” /affinity 3 “C:\Program Files (x86)\Diablo III\x64\Diablo III64.exe” -launch
    2.2.1 edit The above works for me on my computer and MAY work for you as long as your Diablo III64.exe file is located in the same place. edit
  3. In the next window type a name for your shortcut - I called mine Diablo III CPU 1-2
    3.1 After you click next you will have a cmd icon on your desktop
    3.2 You can stop here but I chose to change the icon
  4. To change the icon, right click on your newly created shortcut and select properties
  5. In the properties window select the Shortcut tab and click on the “Change Icon” button at the bottom
    5.1 A new window will pop up asking which folder to look in for an icon to use
    5.2 I directed it to the x64 folder where the Diablo III exe is located and was presented with two icons to choose from
  6. Enjoy playing the game with minimal lag and freezes.

One thing to note, this will open D3 and bypass launching Battle.net so it might will ask you to log in on the main D3 screen. To avoid this, have Battle.net open before you click your new shortcut to open D3 and it should load right into your character selection screen. You will need to enter your password and authenticator with this method. Unfortunately, I’m not aware of a way to make D3 launch to go right into character selection if you have Battle.net open.

Have a great day!
Avasture

3 Likes

Setting the affinity works for me as well. The shortcut idea is great, although took some modifications because my install location isn’t the default, so might not be bad to make a note there for that.
Also, even with Battle.net open, when I launch from the shortcut, I have to sign in each launch, which is a pain while also using the Authenticator.
But good fix nonetheless.
Thanks.

I tried this shortcut but it would post an error:

Windows cannot find ‘"Diablo’. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again.

I never modified the install or altered the pathing, and everything is where it should be when I checked manually.

Running the line directly from CMD.exe does work; however, it still makes me log in even with Battle.net up.

thank you avasture, I tested it right now and I didn’t have a single lag spike after 25 gr 120 tier solo! Now I think how it’s possible a big company like Blizzard did a crap app and how they didnt fix it yet. It should be a easy task I guess or maybe there is something I didn’t catch atm :slight_smile:

The location of the Diablo III64.exe file will need to be changed based on where you have it installed. Try adjusting the location and also don’t forget to use quotes.

Try to copy the path from the post above and replace the quotation marks with your own. I had the same error and this worked for me. The quotation marks in the post are a bit different from the ones i use (“, "), they are a little bit turned to the side.

I just died twice in Hardcore due to these exact issues. Late last night and now this afternoon. I don’t mind dying legit but this is infuriating. So SO ANNOYING!!! They happen at least 2-4 times a day. They can happen immediately or into longer play sessions. I am constantly rebooting Diablo or the entire PC every couple of hours praying for stability. I have clean installed my PC with just Diablo to minimize issues. They persist.

We had around 14 people playing at the Season start in Hardcore but everyone was experiencing these freezes/crashes. Most have quit because of how ridiculous it is to try and play. Just talk to anyone playing and they have experienced these issues. FIX THE GAME!

Edit: I was on Win10 20H2 fully updated having issues. Figured I’d clean installed Windows 10 1909. It appeared to be the fix! It ran flawlessly for 5 hours and 27 minutes… “Diablo is not responding” We’ll I hope I didn’t die. OF COURSE I DID. Diablo uninstalled. Good luck Blizzard! :v:

5 Likes

Hey Activision…I don’t normally post but you have cost me 6 HC toons now…all 3mil+dps…this freezing issue has been going on for how long now? a year? going on two? Why are you guys crapping the bed so hard? Maybe you should let nerds run the company again instead of suits? Your greed is costing your player base much frustration Activision. Stop soiling Blizzard’s name…take it out of your association. You milk old ip’s by “remastering” but you forgot the core tenet of Blizzard Entertainment and that is SUPPORTING your games. So please…stop using the Blizzard name, you don’t deserve it. /end rant

8 Likes

The suggestion rAZ posted worked! And when I compared the copied quotes they are indeed slightly different from the manually typed version, very strange!

The fix works GREAT, and I get to keep the sound! I don’t understand why Blizzard doesn’t hotfix this into their launcher? Do they even know about this?

Ah well, can’t help the font Blizz uses.

Maybe we need to upgrade our GPU to RTX 3080 SLI and Sound card to NAIM DAC-V1

It’s a discontinued model, so no, won’t cut it. Besides, it doesn’t seem to have ASIO support…
:rofl:

installing an older version of the windows - which is 1909 actually fixed the game freezes?

1 Like

Unfortunately it did not fix the game. However I did this fix and I ran stable for 8 hours today not a single freeze or crash.

The post has odd " " marks so I fixed them here.
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start “Diablo III64” /affinity 3 “C:\Program Files (x86)\Diablo III\x64\Diablo III64.exe” -launch

Hello Avasture. Thank you for everything! I tried your fix and I ran STABLE for 8 hours today. Not a single issue all day. Everyone try this it works!!!

I cleaned up the " " marks here for people having issues with that.
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start “Diablo III64” /affinity 3 “C:\Program Files (x86)\Diablo III\x64\Diablo III64.exe” -launch

or just replace the " " with your own after you copy it.