[0.18.21] Random GeForce 445.75/445.87 driver crashes when switching between Factorio/Programs on multidisplay setup

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MeduSalem
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[0.18.21] Random GeForce 445.75/445.87 driver crashes when switching between Factorio/Programs on multidisplay setup

Post by MeduSalem »

I have a weird bug to report... sometimes and in a none-reproducible way Factorio (0.18.19 & 0.18.21) seems to crash the GeForce 445.75 driver for my RTX 2060 when moving the cursor from Factorio Fullscreen on Display 1 and clicking in the Firefox window on display 2.

It doesn't do it always. In fact it only ever did it 2 times this week and only with Factorio.

First time it happened at the beginning of the week I thought the driver/GPU may have just been choking on too many mods loaded and switching out of Factorio to another program was the cherry on top to crash the driver or whatever so I wrote it off as a one-time mod-related incident.

Ever since I have done the exact same (switching between Factorio & programs) like 200 times already with certain mods left out and no problems at all so I didn't think of it any further.

But today when I wanted to start over with a clean new vanilla map without any mods loaded whatsoever the driver crash happened again when I wanted to take a quick look on Factorio Wiki in Firefox so I think it was not related to the mods or map in anyway.



The recent log files from today are probably useless (even though I included both current/previous) because I managed to shut down Factorio when I noticed Windows was starting to lag/freeze up while trying to restart the driver even before the driver crashed entirely so Factorio probably didn't even notice what was going on and only registered a normal shutdown.

And sadly even though the game even crashed the first time it happened there is no crash log in the factorio folder (but it was a crash due to graphics device drop or at least it said something like that, and no wonder if the driver restarted midgame).

The Windows eventlogs also only report a driver restart, hence why I know that it was the driver.



Whatever is the case it doesn't do that with any other programs at all or any other games I have played throughout the week and I tested several. In fact I can't even reproduce it with Factorio itself... even though it only does it with Factorio hence why I am also reporting it here.

I am also relatively sure the hardware itself probably isn't the problem yet since it is brand new (like bloody virgin 3 weeks old) and most likely I would probably have run into serious & numerous other errors during boot, on the windows desktop or at least under workload in other games/programs if it was faulty out of the box already.

In the meantime I have updated the drivers to 445.87 and I hope it is only a driver related issue and the bug has gone. So I will watch closely if it happens again eventually.

I can also run the game in Windowed mode and see if it eventually happens there too.
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Last edited by MeduSalem on Wed May 06, 2020 3:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: [0.18.21] Random GeForce 445.75 driver crashes when switching between Factorio/Programs on multidisplay setup

Post by Rseding91 »

Thanks for the report. Unless someone can show we're doing something wrong (not likely) I'm going to blame the drivers or the hardware as being buggy/broken and say you'll need to report the issue to Nivida.
If you want to get ahold of me I'm almost always on Discord.

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Re: [0.18.21] Random GeForce 445.75 driver crashes when switching between Factorio/Programs on multidisplay setup

Post by MeduSalem »

Rseding91 wrote:
Sat May 02, 2020 11:44 pm
Thanks for the report. Unless someone can show we're doing something wrong (not likely) I'm going to blame the drivers or the hardware as being buggy/broken and say you'll need to report the issue to Nivida.
It may really be the graphics driver I guess. It happened to me again immeditiately after launching Factorio the first instance of tabbing out of the game to the 2nd display today. It lost the graphics device and crashed. This time though at least it didn't cause the desktop to freeze entirely and I didn't have to reboot.

This time the error got logged too by Factorio (even waited for it to crash).

And Windows event logger reported an error of nvlddmkm which I guess is part of nVidia's driver:

Windows event log

So am I supposed to head over to nVidia to report it? Because I really don't know how to report it on their mess of a website.
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Re: [0.18.21] Random GeForce 445.75 driver crashes when switching between Factorio/Programs on multidisplay setup

Post by san »

if it is a driver issue, i suggest you update the driver. there is 445.87 available.
you may also install an older driver if it updated recently and newer one does not fix it.

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Re: [0.18.21] Random GeForce 445.75 driver crashes when switching between Factorio/Programs on multidisplay setup

Post by MeduSalem »

san wrote:
Wed May 06, 2020 3:11 pm
if it is a driver issue, i suggest you update the driver. there is 445.87 available.
you may also install an older driver if it updated recently and newer one does not fix it.
Already updated to that one doing a complete clean install, obviously didn't resolve the issue.

And kinda don't know if there is an older version that works properly because I got the GTX2060 only ever 3-4 weeks ago and hence used 445.75 from the beginning because it was the newest one then.

Now I am kinda stuck in the process of reporting the problem to nVidia but that is a lot tougher to do than I thought it would be. Not as easy as just dropping a forum thread and crashlogs there. I don't even remotely know what they need or want from me to look into the issue since this is the first time ever I am being sent there to get a problem fixed.

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Re: [0.18.21] Random GeForce 445.75/445.87 driver crashes when switching between Factorio/Programs on multidisplay setup

Post by san »

i am currently running on 442.59 on a rtx 2080 super
if you want to try that otherwise you would have to try nvidia support or maybe the manufacturers support is easier to deal with.

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Re: [0.18.21] Random GeForce 445.75/445.87 driver crashes when switching between Factorio/Programs on multidisplay setup

Post by MeduSalem »

san wrote:
Wed May 06, 2020 3:31 pm
i am currently running on 442.59 on a rtx 2080 super
if you want to try that otherwise you would have to try nvidia support or maybe the manufacturers support is easier to deal with.
Ha... Hahaha. The ASUS support probably is just as ugly knowing from experience. If their hardware works then it works and is unkillable for a decade or longer but if doesn't then you are f****d.

Meh I probably should reboot the computer because ever since the crash happened and the driver recovered I haven't rebooted but now windows kinda starts to feel awkward. Damn I hate this thing.

Honestly I just don't give a crap about it anymore at this point and abstain from playing the game for a few months... maybe someone else encounters the problem too in that time and has more endurance to go through that nightmare.

For me it is just too much of a hassle to get support. I am just getting too old for this kind of stuff. Sadly said but it is like that.

Maybe I will downgrade the driver to your version another day when I have the nerve.
Last edited by MeduSalem on Wed May 06, 2020 3:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: [0.18.21] Random GeForce 445.75 driver crashes when switching between Factorio/Programs on multidisplay setup

Post by posila »

MeduSalem wrote:
Wed May 06, 2020 3:25 pm
And kinda don't know if there is an older version that works properly because I got the GTX2060 only ever 3-4 weeks ago and hence used 445.75 from the beginning because it was the newest one then.
Is this new computer or just new GPU? It could be basically anything. Common culprit other than GPU, drivers or OS itself is power supply.

You can also try to switch to OpenGL (use --force-opengl launch option in Factorio properties in Steam Library) or you can try to lower number of render threads in graphics settings (stabbing into dark here, but this helped to some people that had issues with Factorio stability on Ryzen systems)

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Re: [0.18.21] Random GeForce 445.75 driver crashes when switching between Factorio/Programs on multidisplay setup

Post by MeduSalem »

posila wrote:
Wed May 06, 2020 3:49 pm
Is this new computer or just new GPU? It could be basically anything. Common culprit other than GPU, drivers or OS itself is power supply.
Well the worn out Power supply put an end to my last computer and I know what that feels like... usually random reboots... That feels definitely different... since I don't have random reboots or bluescreens.

It is a completely new computer and 1909 Win10 installation from 3-4 weeks ago. So chances are very low it is from wear & tear.

Also did several stress tests of the CPU, RAM using the common tools like prime95 and MemTest86 etc to see if it is any of them causing problems. Nothing at all. The computer runs just fine the way it is supposed to with everything else... and even with Factorio everything is fine for hours except for that random driver crash here and there the moment I click outside the Factorio fullscreen window.

When it comes to the GPU... I haven't run anything extremely Crisis-like yet either so that it could have burned out (I think the most extreme thing I ran yet was Frostpunk and that just ran fine even on maxed out graphics settings).

Which makes me really think that there is some weird bug probably in the driver when either unfocusing Factorio and putting it to idle/sleep and/or when changing focus and resuming on something else on the other display. It can be pinpointed to just that one application and that specific event that sometimes triggers the crash.


At least I think that if there'd be a hardware related issue already then I would have experienced it with other programs already too, especially the more graphically demanding ones (like earlier mentioned Frostpunk) in comparison to Factorio but there is nothing at all and I have tried several dozens by now since I am using the computer to work too. Instead everything just runs fine.

For example now I am running Stellaris instead and I have tabbed in & out of the game like 20 times just to test it and... no issues at all.


[edit]

Redid several of the CPU/RAM/GPU tests in the meantime to ensure that at least no harm was done by the gpu driver crash and everything seems to still work fine... especially the GPU tests. So at least I am happy about that.

posila wrote:
Wed May 06, 2020 3:49 pm
You can also try to switch to OpenGL (use --force-opengl launch option in Factorio properties in Steam Library) or you can try to lower number of render threads in graphics settings (stabbing into dark here, but this helped to some people that had issues with Factorio stability on Ryzen systems)
Will try both switching to the OpenGL renderer and limiting the render threads the next time launching the game even though I also doubt that the issue is coming from the CPU.

Also switched away from Fullscreen to windowed mode now like I used to on my old PC for many years and with which I never had any problems while using a multi-monitor setup.

Maybe that when I clicked outside the game window while running in Fullscreen mode instead of actually running Factorio in Windowed mode is the problem in the first place. Maybe the driver just chokes when the focus change away from fullscreen happens as it doesn't expect that. At least it never happened when I used Alt+Tab or Windows key to break the focus. Only on clicking outside with the cursor.


The way I know myself I won't be able to let it be anyway if it keeps on happening and eventually report it to nVidia directly when I have more time and I more patience for that even though I dislike their support system already from the glimpse I took at it... because it definitely seems to be meant more for developers who know their way around and already know exactly what nVidia expects for inputs and who obviously have to report problems all the time.

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Re: [0.18.21] Random GeForce 445.75/445.87 driver crashes when switching between Factorio/Programs on multidisplay setup

Post by MeduSalem »

I have an update on this one.

The driver crash really only seems to happen when running Factorio in Fullscreen.

Ever since I switched to windowed mode a month ago the driver crash never happened again... even though I switched between tasks a thousand times. Also still running the Nvidia 447.87 driver (edit: albeit I just saw a few minutes ago that there is a newer one already).

That said I didn't report the issue to Nvidia because I found their support system too much of a hassle for an average user like me so I think that the bug/problem when running the game in Fullscreen might probably still be there if no one else reported it (edit: and they didn't fix the issue with the newer driver).

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Re: [0.18.21] Random GeForce 445.75/445.87 driver crashes when switching between Factorio/Programs on multidisplay setup

Post by MeduSalem »

Well, I have done further research... it seems like the problem of random driver crashes on Nvidia GPUs (albeit more commonly on their RTX series cards) with AMD CPUs is actually affecting many people and not multi-monitor or program specific.

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads ... a.3594431/

Seems like AMD and NVidia have compatibility issues going for years already and both are pointing to the other when people report their problems when in fact they probably would need to work together to resolve the issue, which most likely won't happen because they hate each other too much.

People affected by it and who had more patience to toy around for a community based solution didn't even find a driver that works fine. Not even the default/older one from the Windows driver repository seems to help for those affected... so backrolling is also useless.


So with other words I just happen to have bad luck as I am caught in between their kindergarden arch nemesis crap like others affected by it.

Guess that means I will continue to play on windowed mode for the time being (as it seems to solve the issue mostly for me) and just accepting the inevitable since there is nothing that can be done.

Leaves me with one feeling about both Nvidia and AMD:


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