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Windows 10 April Update

We’ve recently identified an issue where the Windows 10 April 2018 Update (version 1803) caused graphics drivers to revert to an unstable version. If you’ve taken this Windows Update, please confirm that you are using the most recent version of your graphics drivers provided by your graphics card manufacturer. You can find your most up to date graphics drivers on your manufacturer’s website (NVIDIA, AMD, Intel).

In general, please be aware that any update to your operating system has a chance to affect your video drivers, and that it may take time for our team and/or your graphics manufacturer to react and improve compatibility with the update. This is particularly true for major updates such as the Windows 10 April 2018 Update. If you’d like to prioritize stability, you may consider delaying major operating system updates until they’re confirmed to be stable.

Comments

  • aiqaaiqa Posts: 2,620 Arc User
    Are you saying updating the graphic driver after installing the update will fix the issues with CO? Multiple people that reported this issue said they already tried that.

    Is there any more information how that can be worked around?
  • draogndraogn Posts: 1,269 Arc User
    If this was caused by unstable drivers like you claim, why is it only affecting CO? Even STO and NWO were still working fine.

    The Windows update is stable. Nvidia had new drivers available the day that the windows update was released. (I don't know about AMD or Intel, but I doubt it'd take them much longer to get new drivers released)
  • aiqaaiqa Posts: 2,620 Arc User
    To keep an open mind I made sure I was using the latest graphic drivers.
    First I removed all traces of the old driver by running Display Driver Uninstaller in safe mode, and then installed the latest nvidia driver.
    But after that CO still stalls.

    So what ever is causing this problem, it's not an old graphic driver.
  • blazer2001blazer2001 Posts: 109 Arc User
    That's one of the first things many people has tried to do to try to fix the launcher getting stuck, but it doesn't helps at all, my guess is that there is something more than a video driver problem to this problem, but I understand it might take you guys time to find it out, I just hope you really keep looking in to it and it doesn't goes unsolved.
    I'm the ruler of the fire power.
  • sistersiliconsistersilicon Posts: 1,687 Arc User
    On the one hand, Nvidia released hotfix driver version 397.55 last Thursday that is supposed to block the Microsoft driver rollback. Their regular driver page and GeForce Experience will still download 397.31, so you have to visit their support site:

    http://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4661/~/geforce-hotfix-driver-version-397.55

    On the other hand, it made no difference after I installed it. GameClient.exe still hangs without displaying a window. The Patch Tuesday Cumulative Update that dropped today didn't help, either.
    Choose your enemies carefully, because they will define you / Make them interesting, because in some ways they will mind you
    They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
  • aiqaaiqa Posts: 2,620 Arc User
    On the one hand, Nvidia released hotfix driver version 397.55 last Thursday that is supposed to block the Microsoft driver rollback.

    I saw that, that was the driver I installed too.
  • jenghizjenghiz Posts: 3 Arc User
    I understand your (Cryptic) frustration with this issue, but blaming "OS stability" and "unstable video driver" for what's going on is the equivalent of poor sportsmanship. There's nothing wrong with the 1803 update, just like there was nothing wrong with 1709 update, and to say otherwise is untrue. Other games are not affected by this issue. On my PC, Secret World Legends and Wizard101 still play without issue, and SWL is far more video intensive than Champions.

    We, the players of your game, could be spending our time pointing fingers also, but we haven't. The posts I've seen in regards to this issue have all been level-headed and fair. All we want is to play Champions Online again, and we look to you to help us. Rather than waste all our times throwing shade at other manufacturers, I would rather see a solution to this issue.

    I will continue to check in daily. Thank you for all your hard work.
  • blazer2001blazer2001 Posts: 109 Arc User
    Adding to the above comment, if you devs require anymore information, it could be a good idea that you worked on making the game client do a "log" or something else so we can help you out as well, we all want to fix the issue, so we can continue playing normally, I'm sure it's in the best interests for everyone that things keep working.
    I'm the ruler of the fire power.
  • sistersiliconsistersilicon Posts: 1,687 Arc User
    jenghiz wrote: »
    I understand your (Cryptic) frustration with this issue, but blaming "OS stability" and "unstable video driver" for what's going on is the equivalent of poor sportsmanship. There's nothing wrong with the 1803 update, just like there was nothing wrong with 1709 update, and to say otherwise is untrue. Other games are not affected by this issue. On my PC, Secret World Legends and Wizard101 still play without issue, and SWL is far more video intensive than Champions.

    We, the players of your game, could be spending our time pointing fingers also, but we haven't. The posts I've seen in regards to this issue have all been level-headed and fair. All we want is to play Champions Online again, and we look to you to help us. Rather than waste all our times throwing shade at other manufacturers, I would rather see a solution to this issue.

    I will continue to check in daily. Thank you for all your hard work.

    I’ve been a professional software developer for almost 24 years. I spent at least one of those years ensuring that a suite of enterprise applications, originally written for 16-bit Windows 3.1 in 1995 and actively maintained and upgraded until Windows XP, could be made compatible with Windows 7. I have some first-hand experience with the long, slow, unceasing march of progress in operating systems.

    What Kael said was not “poor sportsmanship”, it was merely a statement of fact. There’s an entire stack of layered components, from kernel to hardware drivers to userspace to runtime libraries to shell to application, that add up to any game we play. Change any one of those components at any time, and there will always be an opportunity for something to fail. Or, put more simply in a joke that may be older than me:

    If engineers built buildings the way programmers build software, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.

    It is possible that this is Nvidia’s fault. After all, they did have to push that hotfix driver I linked to yesterday. It’s not likely, though, as the hanging issue doesn’t seem to be confined to one GPU architecture.

    It is entirely possible that this is Microsoft’s fault. They had a release candidate ready at the beginning of April, only to suddenly pull it to fix a BSOD problem. This is why the “April 2018” update was only technically on time because they posted the ISOs and USB creation tools on April 30th. I was hoping yesterday’s Cumulative Update would fix CO because one of the line items in the KB entry for the patch reads:

    Addresses an issue that may cause some devices to stop responding or working when using applications, such as Cortana or Chrome, after installing the Windows 10 April 2018 Update.

    To put it plainly, there was something wrong with 1803, and may still be. I’ve been running fast ring Insider Preview builds for a while now, and nothing like that came up before the build with the BSOD fix. Microsoft was fortunate that Patch Tuesday was so close to launch, because breaking their own assistant, the biggest browser in the world, and who knows what else with a last-minute change was going to demand an out-of-band patch anyway.

    It is entirely possible that this is Cryptic’s fault. Eight years of production on a single software product is bound to accumulate some technical debt. (See also: LOTRO and DDO still using bitmap fonts in 2018; my aforementioned year of Windows 7 compatibility testing.) It could be that GameEngine.exe is calling some function that went from recommended to deprecated, and finally tipped over to broken in 1803, but nobody remembered that it was being called because it never broke before. Theoretically, sharing an engine with STO and NW should have prevented that, but we fell out of lockstep with their branches of the engine a long time ago.

    Or it could be a very specific combination of factors that nobody could foresee.

    My point — now that I’ve finally gotten around to it — is that we don’t yet know what the root cause is, let alone who broke it or who is responsible for fixing it.
    Choose your enemies carefully, because they will define you / Make them interesting, because in some ways they will mind you
    They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
  • aiqaaiqa Posts: 2,620 Arc User
    What Kael said was not “poor sportsmanship”, it was merely a statement of fact.

    Well it's not all just facts. He explicitly stated this problem is caused by the windows update downgrading the graphic driver to an older unstable version. And hinted very strongly it would be fixed by updating your graphic drivers. That however doesn't seem to be the case. And there hasn't been anything coming forward after that, not even an acknowledgement that they are still looking into it. For all we know they are now sticking to their idea it's all caused by some older driver.
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Posts: 4,916 Arc User
    Well, I had STO crash seemingly at random when changing characters today, aside from that... no issues so far.... so far.
    ChampsWiki
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    My characters
  • cramneajcramneaj Posts: 7 Arc User
    Just update the latest NVIDIA driver v397.64.
    Absolutly NO CHANGE so...

    good luck.
  • magpieuk2014magpieuk2014 Posts: 1,268 Arc User
    Given that CO whined for six months or so about my AMD graphics drivers being out of date (when they were, in fact, too new) I would suspect the issue is a function within the CO client. I have always suspected that something like a Win 10 update, deprecation of DX9 or similar might do for the game and I hope this won't be the case. Back playing again on my old Win 8 laptop but it would be nice to be able to use my new proper gaming laptop.....
  • canadaciaocanadaciao Posts: 9 Arc User
    The game's still unable to launch on Nvidia driver version 397.64 on my main machine. Same behavior as the previous driver, it crashes as the launcher tries to start up GameClient.exe. GTX 970, Ryzen 7 1700.

    I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for an Nvidia software update to fix the issue. Cryptic should be the driving force in getting CO back to a happy state.
  • dpglerchdpglerch Posts: 46 Arc User
    edited May 2018
    Not sure what they are talking about, I did reinstall the video drivers it did not help one bit (just made me reset some options). I am not sure cryptic understands 100% what is going on, it does not crash it is just becoming unresponsive. If it was a graphics issue wouldn't it cause a crash versus locking up the launcher? I'm not a programmer but I have been playing online games for around 23yrs and I don't recall any game I have ever played that didn't have an issue at one point or another. (Launcher isn't crashing it just freezes trying to connect to the servers)
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    dpglerch wrote: »
    Not sure what they are talking about, I did reinstall the video drivers it did not help one bit (just made me reset some options). I am not sure cryptic understands 100% what is going on, it does not crash it is just becoming unresponsive. If it was a graphics issue wouldn't it cause a crash versus locking up the launcher?
    While it's likely Cryptic doesn't know exactly what's going on, plenty of software problems manifest as hangs instead of crashes, it depends on the details of the problem.
  • nbkxsnbkxs Posts: 776 Arc User
    I use a radeon hd 5870, and I haven't had any problems w/CO after the creator update once I reloaded the OS. I was getting that hanging nonsense until I did that. So, that may be a solution.
    [NbK]XStorm
  • kaiserin#0958 kaiserin Posts: 3,210 Cryptic Developer
    Posted this in the other thread but just an update: we have a fix we are currently testing. Current ETA is to have it out by Friday, but this may change.​​
  • dpglerchdpglerch Posts: 46 Arc User
    "everything is working as Intended"
  • themightyzeniththemightyzenith Posts: 4,599 Arc User
    I see quotation marks there.... who are you quoting?

    zrdRBy8.png
    Click here to check out my costumes/milleniumguardian (MG) in-game/We need more tights, stances and moods
  • ealford1985ealford1985 Posts: 3,582 Arc User
    Hey!!! How did he know I was going to say that.

    Can you quote a future comment? That’s crazy!
  • dpglerchdpglerch Posts: 46 Arc User
    I see quotation marks there.... who are you quoting?

    It was the reply you use to always get when you turned in any bug reports
  • kaiserin#0958 kaiserin Posts: 3,210 Cryptic Developer
    If you are having this issue, and can access PTS, please try to patch and log into PTS!​​
  • themightyzeniththemightyzenith Posts: 4,599 Arc User
    dpglerch wrote: »
    It was the reply you use to always get when you turned in any bug reports

    Okay, but a dev literally commented that they are currently testing a fix in the post just before yours... they are taking it seriously.

    zrdRBy8.png
    Click here to check out my costumes/milleniumguardian (MG) in-game/We need more tights, stances and moods
  • canadaciaocanadaciao Posts: 9 Arc User
    After a little fiddling, I was able to get the PTS build running on my machine. Huzzah!
  • grunspelgrunspel Posts: 15 Arc User
    (already posted on the other thread but repeating here)
    Yay! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I just tested and successfully logged into PTS. I'm sooooo looking forward to installing the patch on Live and playing my beloved heroes once again. Thank you all for your hard work in solving this.
  • dpglerchdpglerch Posts: 46 Arc User
    edited May 2018
    kaizerin wrote: »
    If you are having this issue, and can access PTS, please try to patch and log into PTS!​​

    Thx for the update.

    Post edited by dpglerch on
  • wraithshadow13wraithshadow13 Posts: 531 Arc User
    I still can't get into the game. Please fix.
  • dpglerchdpglerch Posts: 46 Arc User
    edited May 2018
    They didn't fix the main yet looks like they are still working on it and trying to see if something works, would explain them wanting people to try Preview Test Server (PTS)
  • dpglerchdpglerch Posts: 46 Arc User
    grunspel wrote: »
    (already posted on the other thread but repeating here)
    Yay! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I just tested and successfully logged into PTS. I'm sooooo looking forward to installing the patch on Live and playing my beloved heroes once again. Thank you all for your hard work in solving this.
    nice high hopes for tomarrow, have a good night


  • sistersiliconsistersilicon Posts: 1,687 Arc User
    kaizerin wrote: »
    If you are having this issue, and can access PTS, please try to patch and log into PTS!​​

    Worked for me. Thanks!
    Choose your enemies carefully, because they will define you / Make them interesting, because in some ways they will mind you
    They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
  • chaelkchaelk Posts: 7,732 Arc User
    is this where your account times out trying to load your character list?
    Stuffing up Freeform builds since Mid 2011
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  • blazer2001blazer2001 Posts: 109 Arc User
    chaelk wrote: »
    is this where your account times out trying to load your character list?

    Nope, that's a different problem.

    I'm the ruler of the fire power.
  • olyly94#9245 olyly94 Posts: 2 Arc User
    edited October 2018
    good.
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