Kernel Heap Corruption

Technical Support
1

When I open Overwatch the first time of the day there is a chance that my operating system will crash with the following message:
“Kernel Heap Corruption”. After a restart, the Battle-Net launcher can no longer find the game and the installation folder has to be specified manually.

This behavior seems to be completely random. Once Overwatch has been successfully started, this error can no longer occur until the next reboot.

I am using Microsoft Windows 10 Education Version 1903 (Build 18362.175)

My hardware drivers are up to date.
For my graphics card I am using “Nvidia 430.86-desktop-win10-64bit-international-whql”

2

ANTCRSTM,

We don’t provide much support for blue screen/system level crashes like this, because they’re nearly always a major system-level issue. I’d try reinstalling your graphics drivers, because that’s where a kernel heap corruption error usually starts.

  1. Download, but do not install the most recent driver for your graphics card from Nvidia
  2. Download Display Driver Uninstaller from The Wagnard Mobile Forum (Click Official Download Here near the bottom of Wagnard’s first post. It will automatically download)
  3. Run the Display Driver Uninstaller file you downloaded and extract it to desktop
  4. On your desktop, click Display Driver Uninstaller and run it. Do not run in safe mode.
  5. Click Clean and Restart
  6. After restart, install the driver that we downloaded above in step 1.

You can also run a stress test as follows: Try checking for overheating on the CPU or GPU by running a stress test. For this, I like to run three programs - HWMonitor for hardware sensing, Heaven Benchmarking Tool to test the GPU, and Prime95 to stress test the CPU.

You’re going to need to download these three programs, and run all of them simultaneously. For Heaven, try running in windowed mode at the high graphics setting. For Prime95 you want to run the “Blend” test. All of these need to run for 2-3 hours, so I recommend doing it at a time when you can casually monitor your HWMonitor results and keep an eye out for extended periods of overheating - like during a day you’re cooking something or watching a movie or something.

If you find overheating, you can take the computer to a PC tech to have that resolved. If the computer crashes or restarts spontaneously before the overheating test is over, you will need to do the same because there’s probably a power problem or an even more dangerous overheating issue.

Beyond that, your best bets are going to be at this link, or contacting Microsoft if you get a BSOD code or a local PC tech if you don’t. Someone else on this forum may be able to help in more detail, we just can’t do it as Blizzard Techs.

3

Hello!

Thanks for your detailed message, I completely reinstalled the system a month ago, after the described error occurred several times. Temperatures above 47°C are never exceeded and my RAM does not show any particular errors.

Ok, I’ll explain it in more detail anyway, in case such messages are kept.

Other games with similar hardware requirements do not trigger this problem. (For example Apex or CS.GO)
I will run Prime95 and the other programs today and see if I could cause that error.

I’m very surprised that this error doesn’t occur again after Overwatch has been started successfully once.
I can close and reopen the game 20 times, the error will no longer occur until next reboot or beyond.

One more detail: In the described error case, the Overwatch process opens, but nothing happens for about 2 minutes. During this time my system works without any problems. The temperatures are somewhere below 30°C and the utilization of my hardware is not higher than 10%.

Is there perhaps a list of software and drivers known to cause problems with Overwatch?
Thank you. :slightly_smiling_face:

UPDATE:
I think I figured out where the error originated. In my computer there is an old hard disk which is not used and has no letter assigned. Accessing the disk leads to the described error event.
Overwatch apparently accesses this disk during startup.

4

Interesting information! I’d hunt for any residual files from overwatch on that disk if you can access it in safe mode. If the harddrive goes unused, however, I would recommend simply removing it if possible. Based on that behavior, the harddrive likely has some kind of corruption. If you do want to try to continue using the harddrive you can try reformatting it, but it may also be giving up the ghost. My old SSD had some similar problems before it permanently crashed.

I appreciate the follow up!