Unreal Engine 4 crashing more frequently...starting to get annoying

Is there anything that can be done to reduce the frequency of crashes? Fortunately it recovers pretty fast but it’s just annoying cause I can never tell when it’s going to crash and it seems to be happening more frequently now.

1 Like

-what kind of crashes -> what do you do that the engine crashes
-post your log file
-which engine version do you use
-post a crash report on answerhub: https://answers.unrealengine/ :slight_smile:

[=;331482]
Is there anything that can be done to reduce the frequency of crashes? Fortunately it recovers pretty fast but it’s just annoying cause I can never tell when it’s going to crash and it seems to be happening more frequently now.
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Yea I get 3-4 per day.

I hit submit on all the reports. I posted once in answerhub on it but its not easy to get the information about the crashes.
I was relatively stable up til 4.8.x. 4.7.6 was the best it ever was for me. Since 4.8.x 3-4 crashes per day if im lucky. I posted that it was normally when animGraph was open or opened, which is still true it happens often when working in other parts and animgraph is left open in a tab somewhere. But it still crashes even when its not open and working on things. I think its when working with large blueprints. Seems like the memory is eaten up but not released properly and it either runs out or loses something that was stored and crashes, since its ‘seemingly’ random as in you dont have to do something specific to make it happen every time. which is why posting it on answerhub is a lost cause unfortunately. Staff (understandably) needs to recreate it and they can’t usually since its not specific enough. If it IS based around pure size of blueprints… then they’d need a hefty game with a bunch of animations and bp code in it to make it crash which isn’t their troubleshooting method. Need to recreate with exact steps or it didnt happen =P

I’m just in “save before switching tabs, save before making a variable, save before compiling, save before saving!” mode… :confused:

Oh and for the love of god don’t ever try and restore using the restore files options. I’ve had that thing set me back almost a days work thinking it was restoring the last opened file… nope. I guess its some autosave… and if you have that every 5 hours and cancel it once or twice… you’re in trouble. (havent used restore since 4.4 ish)

Good luck!

I know it’s hardly helpful, but I’m chiming in to say 4.8 is massively unstable for me as well compared to prior versions. It does just feel like memory issues, the crashes seem to be completely random. Everything is fine, then you open an asset and the editor chugs then explodes into smoke and fire. The only way I’ve found to ameliorate it is shut down literally every other program before trying to get any serious work done. Quite a handicap when you need to pop over into an image editor to fix a texture, or into Blender to re-export a mesh.

I dunno what happened that would have done this in 4.8, but it’s pretty bad.

its the other way round for me,
since 4.4/4.5 i got constant random crashing rendering ue4 completely useless, 4.8 its not so bad.

Well,
after I had a pretty smooth expierience with UE4 until 4.5 where it became more amd more unstable (4.7.6 having been the worst for me yet),
I have to say that 4.8 brought a massive improvement of stability for me.
Nearly all editor related (dragging a BP wire, clicking in the content browser, etc) bluescreens are mostly gone.
By now, only one more or less reliable source for bluescreens remains: “Static lighting build” .
Sometimes it just bluescreens during the process (at various percentages).
Other times it bluescreens after the build when it is “Encolding lightmaps”…
So I still keep making a full backup copy of my project folder every hour (which has saved my recent project twice already).

Conclusion: For me, 4.8 is definitely a step in the right direction in terms of stability, although not all potholes are fixed yet…

Hi everyone,

For those of you who are saying that you experience less crashes lately - Excellent! We have been working to eliminate the worst and most frequent crashes.
For those of you who are saying that you experience more crashes lately - I’m sorry to hear that. We are continuing to fix more as we identify them.

The numbers do indicate that unfortunately we have seen a slight increase in crashes with 4.8 over 4.7.6 (but much less than earlier 4.7 releases). However initial numbers from 4.8.2 are looking promising. Our goal is to continually improve stability and we aim to keep working towards that.

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Is there anything that can be done to reduce the frequency of crashes?
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  • Run a search to see if the crash has already been reported on the UE4 Answerhub. Many reports may have workaround information provided.
  • Always submit your crash report, along with detailed information. We review these, attempt to reproduce all with useful information, and prioritize the most frequently occurring ones.
  • If you have useful information about how to reproduce the crash, please log a bug report on the AnswerHub (if one doesn’t already exists). Bug reports get reviewed, and logged internally if we can reproduce.

The second and third points won’t help with the crash immediately, but they greatly increase the chances of the crash being fixed by the next release.

Thanks

Yeah, get about 10-15 random crashes a day, especially while working with Blueprints.

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If you have useful information about how to reproduce the crash…
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Thats a part of the problem. The crashes do happen but cannot be reproduced individually.

When I get a bluescreen during light build and after open the editor and just rebuild it again, it works flawlessly.
When I get a bluescreen because I move an actor in the viewport and after open the editor and just move the actor again, it works flawlessly.

While the editor bluescreens are mostly gone for me (still happening but a lot less frequently), the lightmass bluescreens are still happening.
Its just impossible to get a reproducible scenario description because it works fine on the second attempt and may crash on something else…

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The crashes do happen but cannot be reproduced individually
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same here
4.8 crashes a lot less with blueprints but it still crashes often enough.
all crashes seem completely random, i could be doing absolutely anything at the time of the crash. there seems no discernible pattern to it at all.

and yes i agree it is incredibly annoying and has stopped ue4 game development altogether for me until its is a lot more reliable, i have a play now and then just to see.
4.5 - 4.7 frequently corrupted entire projects, havnt had 4.8 doing that yet fingers crossed.

,

With regard to the fact that you experience regular bluescreens, I have some doubts that these are caused directly by the editor. For all of the engine crashes that we have experienced, reviewed and processed here at Epic, we don’t see crashes that cause a BSOD (even when we test on mid-spec machines). I’m concerned that there may be issues with your hardware which are causing these problems for you. You may want to look into using the Windows Event Viewer as a way to diagnose and troubleshoot these issues: ://windows.microsoft/en-us/windows/what-information-event-logs-event-viewer#1TC=windows-7 - You’ll get an error code when you recreate the issue, or you can view the log to see it. You should then be able to run a search for the code to find more information about it. Of course, if you do uncover information that the root cause is the editor, then please let us know with a bug report on the AnswerHub.

Cheers

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With regard to the fact that you experience regular bluescreens, I have some doubts that these are caused directly by the editor.
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But the editor is the only application giving me those bluescreens…
I know, if it was my hardware, that would be the “best” solution, from your perspective :stuck_out_tongue:
But I can positively assure you: There is nothing wrong with my hardware. Or that hardware defect would only maifest with the usage of UE4 and not cause problems with other applications. What hardware problem wopuld that be that only affects using UE4?
Usually I work with that machine about 8-12 hours a day. I do modeling with , images with photoshop. 3D renderings with POV ray, sound with Audition. Plus programming a nd a thousand things more. UE4 is the only application that causes BSODs or other crashes.
If the reason is really something else then it must be a sneaky flaw that holds back until I work with the editor and then… bam… :eek:

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For all of the engine crashes that we have experienced, reviewed and processed here at Epic, we don’t see crashes that cause a BSOD (even when we test on mid-spec machines). I’m concerned that there may be issues with your hardware which are causing these problems for you.
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Maybe the power of the machine is not the causing factor. All I can say is that my system runs rock solid with any application, except UE4. :confused:

And again: things do have improved with 4.8. But as expierienced for himself: https://forums.unrealengine/showthread.php?67395-UE-4-9-Suggestion-Quality-of-Life-Improvement-release/page4&highlight=+UE

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I was finally able to manage a repro of this extended use crash. I’ve entered a bug report, UE-16176 to be assessed by the development staff. It looks like what is occurring is that after doing intensive tasks such as building geometry/lighting, the editor is retaining most of the resources it was using during these tasks. It builds up over time (~7.5 hours) and eventually crashes due to using too much data at once. When I left the editor alone it didn’t have a problem, it was only when I performed a build that it seemed to be eating more resources. If you save and close before or just after resource intensive tasks as you said you should be able to avoid this buildup until we can find what is going on
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You may want to look into using the Windows Event Viewe
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I will see what I can find on the next one :slight_smile:

[=;333986]
But the editor is the only application giving me those bluescreens…
I know, if it was my hardware, that would be the “best” solution, from your perspective :stuck_out_tongue:
But I can positively assure you: There is nothing wrong with my hardware. Or that hardware defect would only maifest with the usage of UE4 and not cause problems with other applications. What hardware problem wopuld that be that only affects using UE4?
Usually I work with that machine about 8-12 hours a day. I do modeling with , images with photoshop. 3D renderings with POV ray, sound with Audition. Plus programming a nd a thousand things more. UE4 is the only application that causes BSODs or other crashes.
If the reason is really something else then it must be a sneaky flaw that holds back until I work with the editor and then… bam… :eek:

Maybe the power of the machine is not the causing factor. All I can say is that my system runs rock solid with any application, except UE4. :confused:

And again: things do have improved with 4.8. But as expierienced for himself: https://forums.unrealengine/showthread.php?67395-UE-4-9-Suggestion-Quality-of-Life-Improvement-release/page4&highlight=+UE

I will see what I can find on the next one :slight_smile:
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Hi ,

I’d like to clarify that in regards to UE-16176 I was able to reproduce the memory leak and the crash. I was not, however, able to reproduce the BSOD.

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I’d like to clarify that in regards to UE-16176 I was able to reproduce the memory leak and the crash. I was not, however, able to reproduce the BSOD.
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Thanks for clarifying that.
Is it possible thst what causes a mere crash on your system causes a BSOD for others?
For me, it seems that the probability for a BSOD corresponds to the level of “lightmass job”.
Small map with low lightmap resolutions, no problems.
Larger maps with higher lightmap resolutions, BSOD more likely.

Maybe I set up my camcorder in front of my screen and record my editor sessions. I can then put a clip of those “incidents” :slight_smile:

thats best answer what ever saw

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For those of you who are saying that you experience less crashes lately - Excellent! We have been working to eliminate the worst and most frequent crashes.
For those of you who are saying that you experience more crashes lately - I’m sorry to hear that. We are continuing to fix more as we identify them.
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Today alone I have had multiple crashes and it only happens when I exit the editor since 4.8.1-4.8.2 I even uninstalled and reinstalled to try and see if that would fix it…nope. Doesn’t crash when I am doing anything but as soon as I close the editor I get a crash report to send…never been this bad.

Weird … I have less crashes with 4.8 … albeit I am using the source version so that may be the reason. I am using numerous plugins and packaging for Windows and Linux and I didn’t experience a single crash the whole of yesterday.

Very weird.

[=;334388]
thats best answer what ever saw

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For those of you who are saying that you experience less crashes lately - Excellent! We have been working to eliminate the worst and most frequent crashes.
For those of you who are saying that you experience more crashes lately - I’m sorry to hear that. We are continuing to fix more as we identify them.
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Lol… for real.

I ended up somehow corrupting my 4.8.1 version playing with the JSON code. Afterward, everytime I tried a GET request in game, it would crash the editor. That one was my fault, but the point being, I ended up upgrading to 4.8.2. **Haven’t had any crashes since 4.8.2. **Haven’t been in the animgraph or UMG though. Mostly in charBP and item stuff, see how goes. I have had the PLAY freeze up completely for a good minute making me think it was gonna crash and then have it unfreeze and start playing.

yea scratch that… I’m getting non-stop crashes today in my character blueprint, when trying to spawn actors and set collisions on their BP’s…

1 Like

[=Keiyentai;334413]
Today alone I have had multiple crashes and it only happens when I exit the editor since 4.8.1-4.8.2 I even uninstalled and reinstalled to try and see if that would fix it…nope. Doesn’t crash when I am doing anything but as soon as I close the editor I get a crash report to send…never been this bad.
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Ya, I had a similar thing happen to me when I exited from a project that I started with the wild west multiplayer shooter template in 4.8.2. When I tried to exit the editor, it just died. I did send the reports upto Epic HQ but I haven’t a clue why it died.