Why does UE4 not just crash, but completely freeze up my computer?

So I installed UE4 today and most of the time I spent in it was fine. However when it does crash/freeze I do not get any sort of error message or notification. My computer completely freezes, I cannot open the task manager, move the cursor, anything. Also I cant seem to narrow down what is causing it to crash. The first time I was just viewing the content examples and using PIE. It ran for 5-10 minutes then froze. The second crash was shortly after rebooting and loading the next content example. I hovered the cursor over “File” in the menu and it froze. I loaded the Effects Cave example and it ran for a minute or two then froze. I started a new map to build a simple arena with the geometry tools, when trying to open the 4 panel viewport it froze. I’m hoping these are just stability issues that are already being addressed but I haven’t found any other post about UE4 completely freezing other users computers with them getting some sort of error or being able to force quit from UE4. What am I missing here?

Heres my specs:
Motherboard: Asus P9X79 Pro
CPU: Intel i7-3930k (6-core) 3.20 GHz
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7950 x2(crossfire) driver version 14.4
RAM: 16GB
OS: Windows 7 (64-bit)
UE4 is installed on a Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD

Any thoughts or help appreciated.

Wish I could help but I have the same problem. It’s freezes my whole system when it crashes, whether I’m in a heavy scene like the Shooter level or a fairly empty level. Have to cold boot every time. Happens a few times a day.

12 gig ram, gtx560ti, I7-950.

This might help you Chimp

@sub_div & @Chimp

We apologize for the lack of follow up on this issue. Do you have any update on it? Is the problem still occurring for you, or were you able to find a solution?

Definitely please let us know if the issue is ongoing, and we will be glad to investigate or discuss our options with you.

We are marking this as “resolved” for tracking purposes, unless we hear back from you.

Thanks

Hi,
I have the same exact problem as sub_div
The computer just freezes without warning wether on a heavy scene or not, on a random basis.
I’m thinking it must have something to do with the gpu overheating (although speedfan shows temperature at 72c max)…
Specs:
i7 4770k
16RAM
gtx760
win7 X64

Thanks in advance.

Howdy nanasba13,

I know you have provided a bit of information about your specs, but could you attach you DXdiag to this post?

Would you have multiple windows open on your PC when using the Editor? Any additional information on this freeze would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks and have a great day!

I have the same kind of problem, my computer completly freeze when I use SetUniformBufferParameter on my compute shader. I don’t know why because I looked at the code in UE to see how to use it, and they use it like me. If I remove this function from my shader, everything work just fine.

My spec : Windows 8.1
Unreal Engine 4.5.1
Gfx Nvidia GeForce 465 GTX
Gfx Driver version 337.88

I will try to update my Gfx Driver to 344.75 (Latest) and see if it fix the problem.

Howdy Drayan,

Thank you for responding to this issue, Would you be using an SSD to run UE4 off of?

If not, is there a simple setup I could use to try and reproduce this issue internally?

Thanks and have a great day!

I’m using indeed an SSD to compile and run my project and UE4. (Could you explain me why my SSD is a problem ? thanks !)

For the setup, I could maybe give you my code ? It’s actually pretty simple.

I joined a readme in the zip file with my source, to help you locating the part that come into play.

I forgot to mention in the readme, you’ll find a method SetUniformBuffers in FContouringCS, you’ll have to comment the actual code and uncomment the rest to be able to reproduce my problem.

Thanks for your help !

Okay, I tried to move everything on my Harddisk, to see if the SSD could be a problem. Recompiled everything, run, and…Crashed again.

I’m looking after your insight Sean.

New Update :

I modified my code to not use UniformBuffer, instead I use standard FShaderParameter, and I’ve got the same problem. The computer freeze.

I don’t know if that me who don’t make good code, or something else.

Update :

Okay, I managed to get rid of the freezing, it was the video driver who crashed (probably due to my compute shader who was not well coded). The problem was NVIDIA nSight that was installed and who removed the driver recovery.

Therefore, when the driver crashed, it was not rebooted, hence the freezing.
Now that this is fixed, I can see where it crashed, because UE4 return me a DXGI_DEVICE_REMOVED error.

Sorry Sean, I’m thinking that my problem is actually my ugly compute shader, and not your engine ^^’.

Glad you got it figured out Drayan.

Multiple people have posted to this topic with what appears to be the same issue, but in truth are probably all caused by different hardware/software issues. I am going to close this post now. If anyone is experiencing a similar issue, please make a new post so it can be investigated individually.

Thanks