Poppy Playtime Chapter 3 and Other UE5 Games Crashing with LowLevelFatalError

General Issues and Bug Reporting
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1

Summary

Game crashes on launch with a LowLevelFatalError.

Please select what you are reporting on:

Creative

What Type of Bug are you experiencing?

Assets

Steps to Reproduce

1.​ Launch Poppy Playtime Chapter 3 on Steam.
​
2. Wait for the game to start up.

Expected Result

The game should load to the main menu and be playable.

Observed Result

The game crashes immediately and shows a LowLevelFatalError message.

Platform(s)

PC

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Additional Notes

Hi everyone,

I’m consistently getting a game-breaking crash on my PC with Poppy Playtime Chapter 3 and i’m looking for some help.

I’m also seeing similar issues with other Unreal Engine 5 games.

The game crashes immediately upon launch with a specific LowLevelFatalError message.

Specific Error Message:

LowLevelFatalError
[File:D:\build#+UE51Sync\Engine\ Source\Runtime\RenderCore\Privat e\ShaderCodeArchive.cpp] [Line: 3451
ShaderCodeArchive::DecompressShad er (: Ccould not decompress shader (GetShaderCompressionformat-Oodle)

System Specifications:

CPU: Intel Core i9-14900KF

GPU: MSI GeForce RTx 3060 12GB • RAM: 32GB DDR5

Additional Game Behavior:

Still Wakes the Deep: Also crashes with a similar LowLevelFatalError.

Poppy Playtime Chapter 4: Crashes so quickly that no error message appears. On one occasion, it caused a full PC restart, which may be related to a conflict with my upscaling software (Topaz Al). The game’s process appears in Task Manager (BootstrapPackagedGame) but uses minimal resources before it closes. Troubleshooting Steps I’ve Taken:

Completed a clean reinstallation of althe games.

Verified the integrity of the game files on
Steam multiple times.

• Closed all background applications.
Increased the size of my virtual memory (page file).

Performed a clean installation of my graphics drivers.

Tried launching the games multiple times while monitoring the processes in Task Manager.

|'ve been in contact with the developers for over a month with no response. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated as I’m at a loss for what to do.

Thank you for your time

2

Hello everyone,

​I wanted to provide an update on this issue. I was able to fix the problem by updating my motherboard’s BIOS, which addressed a known CPU instability issue with the Intel i9-14900KF processor.

​Thank you to everyone who looked at my post. I’m happy to report that all my Unreal Engine 5 games are now working correctly.

​This will help anyone else who has the same problem.