Unreal5 Crashing when Importing Assets - Unhandled Exception EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION - NEED HELP

Unreal5 Crashing when Importing Assets - NEED HELP

Hey everyone, been amazed at what UE5 can do for a while now and decided to start learning. I am looking to use UE5 as a cinematic tool rather than a game development tool. Majority of the scenes I want to create include nature. Knowing the library of assets Quixel megascans has, I’ve been downloading them from the Epic marketplace. Then adding them into my project via the Vault in the Library tab. They then appear in my content browser. I can then drag them into the scene. Usually I can drag 2-3 assets (with nanite enabled) into the scene and then when I try to drag another asset in, unreal freezes and proceeds to crash. Sometimes I will BSOD all the way to BIOS. I get the error code “Unhandled Exception EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION reading address 0x00000000000006d8” Below I included a link to show crash log and a screen recording of my actions before the crash. The first video shows the crash, and the second video shows how I am usually setting up my scene (which also shows crash). No windows UE5 pop up unfortunately in the screen recording. But in both videos the black flash right before the end of the video signifies the crash.

Would say my computer is decently powerful so hardware shouldn’t be an issue (unless faulty).

Extremely new to UE5 so any advice / suggestions / tips are appreciated. I really want to deep dive into this software so I’m hoping for a fix.

PC SPECS -
Windows 10

Intel Core i9-14900k

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti

Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Pro X

128gb Corsair Vengeance RGB DDR5 (CMH64GX5M2B60000C40) (Not running XMP) 4000Mhz

C: System/Application File Drive (All application files located here) Samsung SSD 960 PRO 1TB

E: Working File Drive (All working/project files located here) Samsung SSD 990 PRO 2TB

Here is what i’ve tried so far -

All CPU and GPU drivers up to date
BIOS up to date
OS up to date

Unreal 5.3.2
Unreal 5.2.1

Reinstalled engine multiple times, clearing out all project file paths from SSD
Reinstalled windows, only downloaded and ran UE5.

Saved projects on both C: System/Application drive and E: Working/Project file drive

Running only 64gb of ram (2 sticks) 4000MHz
Running only 64gb of ram (2 sticks) with XMP enabled 6000MHz

DirectX 12 is enabled in project
Nantite is enabled on all geometry being imported into project

Reset global to defaults in NVidia Control Panel

LINK TO CRASH LOG AND VIDEOS – Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Greetings @slmn

Welcome to the Unreal Engine Community Forums! I’m glad to hear that you’re enjoying UE. It can get addicting. In regards to the crashes, you mentioned that you tried 5.3 and 5.2. Did the crashes happen there as well? Also, have you tested the product with DirectX 11 rather than 12? Thanks!