Game Update 7.4 "Chains in the Dark" Updates

[HanniShindeiru]

4 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

You need to delete the file & it will create a new one be default. Or if you want to be on the safe side. Just rename the file & it should do the same thing.

i did delete all of it but not even working , weird

[TrixxieTriss]

7 hours ago, JackieKo said:

For players who are experiencing a memory leak: 

• Does this happen for all your characters? 
  • If only specific ones, which characters? 
• Does this happen on every server? 
  • If only specific ones, which server(s)? 

Again, if you are not a player experiencing the above issues, please give impacted players the space to provide the info we need. 

Thanks! 

Tested 3 characters today. Memory usage now seems to be topping out around 3.9-4GB. Which is much better than yesterday hitting 29GB. I’m using the same character as yesterday too & been playing an hour. So far so good. Sadly PvP isn’t popping, so I can’t test that 😔. If anything changes, I’ll report back. 

edit: Spoke too soon. I tabbed to my desktop and it spiked the memory usage in swtor.exe & then the game & PC crashed. Had to do a hard reboot.

Edited December 7, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[TrixxieTriss]

1 minute ago, HanniShindeiru said:

i did delete all of it but not even working , weird

Can you list your PC specs

[Jursy]

3 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

It can. But that’s just cause and affect and it could be anything, including stuff not related to swtor.

The easiest way to track a memory leak is to have your windows task window open so you can see what your individual programs & services are doing with resources. You can also run a Windows performance file while using your PC.

If you’re semi computer literate, you can try following these instructions to setup a data file to log what is happening. https://www.windowscentral.com/how-use-performance-monitor-windows-10

Yeah, I had the resources tab open for a bit and it was going up and up and up.  By the time it crashed I hadn't checked it for a few hours.  The memory numbers didn't seem too terrible at first though - 2K to 3.8K.  I figure just exit the game every 3 hours and I should be fine.  Thanks for the reply.

[HanniShindeiru]

Just now, TrixxieTriss said:

Can you list your PC specs

just want to clarified if this update 7.4 would bring an end ? are they new specific requirement to play it? because 7.3 was working fine...then 7.4 showed up and its now doesn't working like it usually.

[TrixxieTriss]

3 minutes ago, HanniShindeiru said:

just want to clarified if this update 7.4 would bring an end ? are they new specific requirement to play it? because 7.3 was working fine...then 7.4 showed up and its now doesn't working like it usually.

Still need your pc specs to help

[jiati]

I and many other players are experiencing what we call the "infinite loading screen" which occurs usually when exiting the phase of an operation but sometimes happens when we try to enter. It seems more frequent when playing in the R4 Anomaly operation. This has been a longstanding issue which you have previously stated is one that you cannot replicate in your development box. Today, after finishing a session in the R4 anomaly on Star Forge, while still inside the phase, I opened my stronghold list and selected my fleet stronghold. The loading screen appeared (the one with the progress bar and the animated cog in the bottom right hand corner). The progress bar was close to being complete but progress stopped. The cog animation continued. This is a typical occurrence of this bug. I pressed Alt + F4 and relogged. That is the workaround when presented with this bug. The other workaround is to leave the group before exiting the phase, which I neglected to do today. Prior to this happening, several players were appearing as "dead" in the operations frames which impacts some healers from casting healing abilities on the zombie players in their frames. I mention this only because it seems the two bugs are connected. When a player appears dead in someone's frames when they are not dead, it is almost guaranteed that everyone in the group will get the "infinite loading screen" upon exiting the phase unless they drop group first.

[Melaras]

33 minutes ago, HanniShindeiru said:

i did delete all of it but not even working , weird

Delete everything game-related to force the computer to autorun the game with specs that make it playable, if merely deleting  client_settings.ini didn't work for you.

[Melaras]

1 hour ago, ShadowyKai said:

Melaras ... THANK YOU!!!

When I read your post, I was skeptical that lowering the graphics settings would do any good.

Up until now, I had been thinking that the freezing issue had to be something specific to my ShadowyKai account, because there were two other SW:TOR accounts that could log in just fine on this computer. I thought that if it was the graphics that was the problem, then the application would freeze up on all of the SW:TOR accounts, not just mine alone.

But with no better ideas, I gave it a try. In the case of our computer, we didn't need to delete any files. We just used one of the other two accounts to get into the game and lower the graphics settings. And it worked! Now, I can log in to my ShadowyKai account again. Thank you!

Also, I mentioned earlier that the other two accounts were having freezing issues when trying to log into Jedi Knight characters on Tython. That freezing issue was fixed with this, too.

Finally, your advice actually resolved something that had been bugging me for the past three years. In another post, I said that I had a very old SW:TOR account, one that I played with when the game first launched in 2011. In early 2021, I tried to log back in to it, but it kept freezing up every time I tried to log in to it.

After I got my ShadowyKai account working again, I wondered if this same solution would work with that old account.

When I brought up that old account and tried launching it, I was thinking :

"This cannot possibly work ... There is no way ... When I tried to get this account running three years ago, I tried everything I could think of. I tried everything that anybody suggested to me. There is no way it could be something as simple as lowering the graphics settings. It can't - WHOA!"

So I finally got that old account back. Thanks!

You know, I still think the problem might have something to do with the number of characters on a Legacy.

With ShadowyKai, I was able to log in to Satele Shan, Darth Malgus, The Leviathan, and Tulak Hord, but it froze up when I tried to log in to Star Forge, and my Legacy on Star Forge has the most characters.

With that old account, I was able to log in to Darth Malgus, which was under the character limit, but it froze up when I tried to log in to Star Forge, which was overloaded with over 100 characters.

But I'm grateful that my problem has been resolved, and I hope they figure out a solution for everyone else's. Good luck, folks!

 

1 hour ago, Lord_Malganus said:

ShadowKai, so glad to hear this!

Melaras, thanks so much for sharing a real fix!

 

You are most welcome dear sirs, and thanks for all the support and empathy. Time to experience the memory leaks and the rest of the bugs yay!

[UberMalak]

3 hours ago, Melaras said:

OK, I figured it out.

As mentioned in previous posts, I was running the game in very high graphics. Apparently with 7.4 the graphics are more demanding ergo my laptop cannot run the game with the pre 7.4 settings and the initial loading screen freezes.

When I deleted the client settings file (C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Local\SWTOR\swtor\settings) all the settings defaulted and I was able to login. Then I experimented a little and apparently if I set the graphics quality to very high again and try to relog it's back to the initial loading screen freeze.

Therefore I deleted the file, managed to login once more, changed the graphics to high and now the game works.

This actually worked for me. May be getting ahead of myself but deleting client settings did it. Currently in-game hoping I can get my graphics set-up to be to accessible going forward. Good advice!

[SoraKatarn]

5 hours ago, Melaras said:

OK, I figured it out.

As mentioned in previous posts, I was running the game in very high graphics. Apparently with 7.4 the graphics are more demanding ergo my laptop cannot run the game with the pre 7.4 settings and the initial loading screen freezes.

When I deleted the client settings file (C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Local\SWTOR\swtor\settings) all the settings defaulted and I was able to login. Then I experimented a little and apparently if I set the graphics quality to very high again and try to relog it's back to the initial loading screen freeze.

Therefore I deleted the file, managed to login once more, changed the graphics to high and now the game works.

thank you very much this got me in the game at least... im playing... but im getting the flashing bug again from 2 updates ago...lmfao.... this game 

[iceskyguy]

Has anyone else noticed that the game has become so much more unstable since the 7.4 patch? My game is freezing and crashing constantly now, on some planets it's even worse, even something as simple as changing my active companion causes a freeze. Otherwise I can run the game well on high settings but things have been consistently bad since the patch compared to before. Is anyone else experiencing this?

[Nee-Elder]

18 minutes ago, iceskyguy said:

Has anyone else noticed that the game has become so much more unstable since the 7.4 patch?

s but things have been consistently bad since the patch compared to before.

Is anyone else experiencing this?

uhh i'm gonna take a wild guess  you didn't read this thread before posting

[Unagi]

6 hours ago, JackieKo said:

Hi everyone,

Follow up from the team regarding the freezing screen issue. We're still investigating and would love to know the following:
If the game is NOT currently running, please go to the following locations:

• C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\SWTOR\swtor\DiskCacheStatic
• C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\SWTOR\swtor\DiskCacheStream

Please answer the following:

• Do you see these files?
• Are they read-only?
• When you delete the files (it's safe to do so!), what happens when you run the game? Does deleting these files change what happens when you run the game?

 

I am delighted to confirm that nuking those two diskcache files along with client_settings.ini fixed my loading screen freeze issue.

Specs: Microsoft Surface Laptop 5 13.5" (i7-1255U/16GB RAM/Iris Xe)

[OwenBrooks]

easiest way to get to the client_setting file mentioned by melaras for those with the loading screen issue is per below 
 

Press the [Windows] Key + [R] at the same time 

Copy the following in to the text box and press ok 

%localappdata%\swtor\swtor\settings

initially just delete the client_settings.ini file

it appears this is a gfx setting issue by the looks

Edited December 8, 2023 by OwenBrooks

[DeannaVoyager]

9 hours ago, Melaras said:

OK, I figured it out.

As mentioned in previous posts, I was running the game in very high graphics. Apparently with 7.4 the graphics are more demanding ergo my laptop cannot run the game with the pre 7.4 settings and the initial loading screen freezes.

When I deleted the client settings file (C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Local\SWTOR\swtor\settings) all the settings defaulted and I was able to login. Then I experimented a little and apparently if I set the graphics quality to very high again and try to relog it's back to the initial loading screen freeze.

Therefore I deleted the file, managed to login once more, changed the graphics to high and now the game works.

That makes sense.

I assume a lot of people accepted the popup to use the updated graphics settings when they first logged in? I did, joined a world boss group and the game turned into a slideshow (it never did before, not even in 24m groups).

So the first thing I did after that was to go through the graphics settings and return everything to what it was before the patch. On a second computer I declined the popup, and haven't patched the third one yet. In my experience with various computers in the past, the first culprit for performance issues on swtor has been the graphics settings, so that was the first place I looked. 

[HanniShindeiru]

7 hours ago, Melaras said:

Delete everything game-related to force the computer to autorun the game with specs that make it playable, if merely deleting  client_settings.ini didn't work for you.

did that but still doesnt working

[Melaras]

14 minutes ago, HanniShindeiru said:

did that but still doesnt working

As @TrixxieTrissmentioned yesterday, it would help if you could share some info regarding your computer's specifications. Or even the graphic settings that  you were playing with before 7.4.

[HanniShindeiru]

5 minutes ago, Melaras said:

As @TrixxieTrissmentioned yesterday, it would help if you could share some info regarding your computer's specifications. Or even the graphic settings that  you were playing with before 7.4.

the shader was on low and shadow actually low , and all was low settings , in 7.3 

[OwenBrooks]

22 minutes ago, HanniShindeiru said:

the shader was on low and shadow actually low , and all was low settings , in 7.3 

can you provide the dxdiag as requested in https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion-Technical/SWTOR-7-4a-Freezed-Loading-in-first-loading/m-p/13288274#M106196 , the contents of the client_setting file would help too

[Melaras]

22 minutes ago, HanniShindeiru said:

the shader was on low and shadow actually low , and all was low settings , in 7.3 

I see. Then that's why my solution won't work for you. The thing is that 7.4 is way more demanding graphicwise therefore I cannot keep playing at very high settings anymore and that is why I couldn't get past the initial loading screen.

Deleting the aforementioned files reseted my pre 7.4 settings and I did login but even so I had to go from very high to high which is no big deal in my case as tbh it looks better now with high than before with very high. What I am saying and I really hope I'm wrong and our Broadsword friends can find  another solution for you is that one can go from very high to high but there's not many places left to go when one is already at low.

[HanniShindeiru]

also forget anything i say , it seems swtor need new graphic requirement like warframe so i am might not able to do life day event for now maybe next year , and i am may not completed my GS5 Achiviement that almost complete + i talk to my co-leader of guild to take care the guild while i take break from it , but i will get new pc at january probably 9th january  , might not playable swtor for now...

[iceskyguy]

17 hours ago, Melaras said:

OK, I figured it out.

As mentioned in previous posts, I was running the game in very high graphics. Apparently with 7.4 the graphics are more demanding ergo my laptop cannot run the game with the pre 7.4 settings and the initial loading screen freezes.

When I deleted the client settings file (C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Local\SWTOR\swtor\settings) all the settings defaulted and I was able to login. Then I experimented a little and apparently if I set the graphics quality to very high again and try to relog it's back to the initial loading screen freeze.

Therefore I deleted the file, managed to login once more, changed the graphics to high and now the game works.

I have tried deleting client settings and the two caches then setting the game to what I was using for 7.3 and unfortunately I haven't seen any improvement. Done it three times and my game is still freezing every few minutes. I've tried tweaking the graphics settings a bit but still no luck. I'm able to log into the game and get past the key art no problem but staying in the game is another story.

Guess it was wishful thinking this solution would work on my part

[ddifrisco]

12 hours ago, iceskyguy said:

Has anyone else noticed that the game has become so much more unstable since the 7.4 patch? My game is freezing and crashing constantly now, on some planets it's even worse, even something as simple as changing my active companion causes a freeze. Otherwise I can run the game well on high settings but things have been consistently bad since the patch compared to before. Is anyone else experiencing this?

Yes, same. Crashing constantly on top of the line hardware. Game is not playable in this state. 

[Lord_Malganus]

So at the very least, if the graphics update in 7.4 is causing enough issues that the min PC requirements to run the game has changed, the 7.4 patch notes needs immediate updating to reflect that.

Edited December 8, 2023 by Lord_Malganus