PTR Pop-Up Coming August 5 - Focus on Freezing Issue
A PTR Pop-up is coming this Thursday, August 5. The focus for this PTR is to get into the details of what is causing lag spikes and/or game freezes for players. This has been a recurring issue for players, and we’re hoping to gather information with the intent to fix this inconvenience and improve game stability for all Diablo III players.
To be transparent, reproducing this issue has provided our internal teams with unique challenges, and with this PTR Pop-up, we’ve incorporated new player log capabilities within D3Debug.txt to dive into this issue with all of you. We’re hoping that our collective efforts can help contribute to a fix for all players.
We’re kindly asking for you to play the PTR Pop-up which starts on August 5, with the intent to specifically reproduce the bug/freeze issue.
If you encounter an instance of the freeze/lag bug, please share your D3Debug.txt file within this thread via https://pastebin.com/
Please share any steps to reproduce the issue within the same post.
Phase 2: Incoming Reactive Fixes
Our teams will be gathering the data with plans to update the build during the PTR Pop-up testing period.
The core process will involve pushing out a new build and asking for players to continue to test.
If players experience the issue again, we’re requesting for players to continue to update the thread with new D3Debug.txt files (via pastebin.com)
Phase 3: Rinse & Repeat
We’re hoping to go through this course to the point where we gather enough to fix the issue.
Continued request for D3Debug.txt files for those who encounter the issue.
Updates and More
We understand that this is taking place during Season 24, and we apologize if this time to test is taking away from your experience. We want to extend our thanks for considering participating in the Pop-up PTR and we hope to keep the thread busy with updates.
Thank you for taking the time to read and look forward to seeing you in the PTR!
Tips, Tricks and Additional Notes (Last update 8/5)
The test will take place using the PTR version of Diablo 3. This is important to note when sending over the D3Debug.txt file.
Only the most current play session is logged in the D3Debug.txt file. In other words, if the game client is closed and reopened, it will overwrite the previous log.
Once you encounter the bug, (FREEZE) please quit the game immediately to copy and share the D3Debug.txt file.
Kindly send a screenshot of the settings you had while the bug occurred.
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Major Updates
8/5 PTR Pop-up phase 1 is now live. [Completed, w/ feedback gathered]
8/6 PTR Pop-up phase 2 is now live. [Completed, w/ feedback gathered]
8/9 Updated thread to confirm that “Phase 3” of the PTR Pop-up is coming soon.
8/9 PTR Pop-up phase 3 is now live. New PTR version is now available for download.
8/12 PTR Pop-up has been updated and now available for download and testing.
Very good this is investigated!
I’d be happy to help.
Update:
Been playing on different machine on ptr for a while now, no freezes. Did several GRs. Tried to break it. Even ran a GR115 with my zDH just to activate all the baddies, collect them and chain em up… lol. (Obviously no kills).
Well i had these freezes when i played znec, god dh, the last two seasons at it was a nightmare. Only way i fixed it was to make sure sound is on and lower the sound channels to 16, but with 16 channels the sound is pretty crap to listen to. So i just also lower all sound - music values down to " 1 " so i dont hear anything but any sound will be played and not freeze. Because i used to have sound off and then i had these freezes all the time.
Very glad to see Blizzard is working on this problem. It’s very frustrating for players. Ongoing support for an 8 (or 9 now?) year old game reflects positively at a time when I think Blizzard could use some good vibes. Hopefully you can find the issue!
I find that doing the “Plague Tunnels” bounty in Act V will very often cause a lag spike. It seems some sounds in there are unique that my game has issues processing.
This has been around since S22 at least. It’s due to FMod and a windows change. Here is a post that explains what happens and shows the D3Debug.txt log showing the error. The fix was replacing the D3 FMod with the Heroes of the Storm FMod, and living without sound. Hopefully Blizzard can give us a better permanent fix. Wudijo and Leviathan and many other content creators have posted fix videos on youtube for this bug.
The timing of this is certainly suspect. A cynical man might note it’s a PR move. They’ve had a couple patch cycles to fix it, but now it’s a priority.
To date, I have been using the FMOD work around. Best wishes towards resolving freezing issue. It has been a year since Blizzard stated they had collected enough. Now here we go again.
Forcing game to run on core 0 and core 1 in task manager windows made me experience freezes like 95% less one in 4 h or less without it 10sec freeze each 8min
hey guys!
just for info
if you using Win 10 till build 1909 inclusive, Diablo 3 dont have any freezes etc…
Problem starts on build 2004 (20H1) and up to the current version!