Guild Wars 2

I’m using Windows 7, 64bits:
If you accidentally double click the game while it’s minimized on taskbar to bring it up again, it kittens up the computer so badly, that the only way to get your computer back is pressing the reset button. No other combination of keys (Alt+esc, Alt+F4, Alt+Tab…) or use of ctrl+alt+del can bring you enough control of the system to terminate gw2 or restart properly.
This bug has been there since the beggining, when are you going to fix it?

This is a fairly big thing to have around…

seems like you are playing in fullscreen mode, and your computer cannot handle restoring it? what are your computer specs

or maybe you have some other action binded to taskbar doubleclick – like starting 2nd instance of program?

have you tried windowed mode? (with same resolution as you are using)

I’m playing on fullscreen, and fine with it as long as there is no major reason to stop doing so.
What specifications are required? Has happened exactly the same on my old laptop and on my new desktop, totally different except for the Win7 64bits.
And I didn’t even know you could bind extra actions to double click on taskbar, so I doubt I did. Care to explain how to check that?
(As for the problem, yes, I would guess gw2 can’t be restored back to fullscreen if given the order for it twice before it’s completed. It’s a big flaw, and should be looked into… but devs have been completely ignoring the forums for a couple of months)

Yeah, kitten you all, my videogame tester’s nature just made me check it and yeah, same thing happened. Never before I have double clicked to bring the game up from alt-tab, but it did actually make the whole system unusable now that I tried.
I really don’t think this is caused by insufficient specs, as I have i5-3570k, 16GB of RAM and nVidia 560Ti with 2GB VRAM, which afair is way beyond any requirements for GW2. The common thing here is Win7 64-bit, though.

Bumping this, it’s really annoying bug, and it may end kittening up someone’s computer.

Win 7 64 bit here, alt tabbing in and out of the game works fine for me, in full screen. Even (double? a single click is all that’s required, but I tried both for argument’s sake) clicking it on my taskbar.

I prefer playing the game in windowed fullscreen though personally – there’s virtually no recovery time from tabbing out, even if it does make the game slightly more resource intensive.

Things are piling up, Arenanet…

This issue is local to your PC, and possibly other PC’s matching your specs/hardware/software configuration. Some conflict within the settings as it’s trying to render is using 100% of your Computers resources. (If this was not the case, your CTRL+ALT+DELETE key combo combination will interrupt windows like it normally should.)

Test it after you reduce your graphics settings to the lowest settings possible and see if it still happens.

If the issue persists, re-install you graphics driver.
If the issue is resolved, change 1 graphic setting at a time to what you normally like. and retest. Avoid Graphic settings that cause your PC to be overworked.
(Generally your most intense features will be • Shaders/Shadows • Anti-Aliasing • Post Processing Effects. Leave these settings till last when testing whats causing your PC to lock up)
I’m almost 100% certain that it’s your shaders. First thing I’d do is turn them to Low and Off (their lowest settings) and test that setup.

So you’re saying I can’t play on medium/high on a i5, 16GB RAM, gtx 650 Ti brand new computer? No, I don’t think this is a pure resource problem. Something is poorly developed, and I’m bringing it to attention.

I didn’t say anything was wrong with your Hardware Specs. I’m saying that a setting or controller in the Software Drivers for you hardware is the most likely cause. Suggesting to test the features of what particular item in graphics is causing the lock up, (shaders or anti-aliasing, etc.) will lead you to what you need to look at in your PC’s Graphic Settings (ie. ATI Catalyst Control or Nvidia Control Panel) to see if it has conflicting settings. In particular ACC and NCP can be set to override your ingame graphics, and also have full-screen filters which may be trying to kick on when loading gw2 in fullscreen. If you re-read my original response, you’ll see that this is what I am saying.

This still doesn’t change the fact that the issue should be tested by the game devs, not users. Although I work as a game tester, it isn’t for ArenaNet and I don’t see why any of us should risk multiple system locks and resets (and whatever these can cause) on our private PCs. If any game/graphic setting is causing a system lock in certain circumstances, this should be identified (and fixed) on their side. We gave them steps to reproduce the problem, the rest is unfortunately their job.

I’m using 64-bit Windows 7 and have never had this issue. I alt-tab out and come back in again multiple times when I play the game. If it was something serious affecting the way the game was programmed, it would affect more people.

Just as a matter of interest, why are you double-clicking on the taskbar? Single clicks are all that’s necessary there, could that be causing problems?

User testing on a one on one basis with the devs is the best way to see quick fixes.

Remember when Fractals came and the Karka event.? Around that time there was a serious issue with many users that caused us to be kicked over and over every hour or so. (With the upcoming 1-time only Karka Event coming, we needed a fix for these disconnects ASAP.)
It was with the direct support of users willing to submit DxDiag reports, server traceroutes, and settings testing. The combined effort of the Players and the Anet Team with the mountains of data provided from a variety of us on different networks, different locations, routing different pathways, on different stations, on different specs… etc. was what lead directly to us having an answer. Since it was impossible for Anet to test out where the breaks were coming from without testing every single network in every state globally (i use the non-US definition of state).

Testing out different settings and finding out that your shaders (for example) are causing the lockup, will allow the devs to know to look at their shader coding (for purposes of example) and narrow down the results.

This, “the ball is in your park” mentality isn’t going to get you your desired result quickly. While it is their product, it is extremely hard to reproduce the countless billions of software/hardware combinations that the game will ultimately be run on. (That why they do beta-testing and asked for your specs when you run a beta). They can’t foresee all, which is why you’re input could be the most important part of getting a permanent global fix in place.

Do the tests. See. Help. Be part of the solution. You have nothing to lose, and a faster fix to gain. :-)

lunawisp.2378:

I’m using 64-bit Windows 7 and have never had this issue. I alt-tab out and come back in again multiple times when I play the game. If it was something serious affecting the way the game was programmed, it would affect more people.

Just as a matter of interest, why are you double-clicking on the taskbar? Single clicks are all that’s necessary there, could that be causing problems?

Genius you are. I start a topic about how double clicking on minimized gw2 on taskbar stalls the computer enough to lose any control over it, and you (all by yourself, without anyone else’s help) figured that the problem might be… double clicking on minimized gw2 on taskbar! I take my hat off to you.
And if you think I’m doing this intentionally, after reading the effect that this has while in win7 64 bits, you may be one of the greatest minds of this era.

I remember this being an issue during the beta test and at the start (before Mac client). I in-game reported it then and thought it was fixed since I was able to pull the game up after minimizing without an issue before. I don’t remember if I single or double clicked it, but it definitely caused a huge crash on my boot camp system. Haven’t tested it since, but if it’s still there, that can’t be good.

(this never happened on my hubs pc running win7, 64bit, but I’m hesitant to test that crash on a system that isn’t mine, especially when I’ve crashed his gw2 multiple times reporting bugs lol)

Necrid.2705:

User testing on a one on one basis with the devs is the best way to see quick fixes.

Of course, although the steps have been provided and the issue has been reproduced already after the initial post. That’s as much user testing as is required, we are not the devs.

Necrid.2705:

It was with the direct support of users willing to submit DxDiag reports, server traceroutes, and settings testing. The combined effort of the Players and the Anet Team with the mountains of data provided from a variety of us on different networks, different locations, routing different pathways, on different stations, on different specs… etc. was what lead directly to us having an answer. Since it was impossible for Anet to test out where the breaks were coming from without testing every single network in every state globally (i use the non-US definition of state).

I am all in for providing the dxdiag and any other information that might be required. Problem is – nobody asked for it, I haven’t noticed any interest from the devs to investigate this issue.

Necrid.2705:

Testing out different settings and finding out that your shaders (for example) are causing the lockup, will allow the devs to know to look at their shader coding (for purposes of example) and narrow down the results.

This, “the ball is in your park” mentality isn’t going to get you your desired result quickly. While it is their product, it is extremely hard to reproduce the countless billions of software/hardware combinations that the game will ultimately be run on. (That why they do beta-testing and asked for your specs when you run a beta). They can’t foresee all, which is why you’re input could be the most important part of getting a permanent global fix in place.

Do the tests. See. Help. Be part of the solution. You have nothing to lose, and a faster fix to gain. :-)

Yes, and again, I don’t see any trouble in providing them with any information necessary. With that being said, I will not risk multiple system locks on my almost new PC, as this can cause many problems. I cannot afford repairs if anything happens and ArenaNet will not cover for it, you know? So as much as I want to help them, I cannot do it on my side. I have reproduced the issue, which can show them it is not an isolated case. I can provide them with all technical info if they need it, apparently they are not interested in this issue, though (otherwise, somebody from the Live Response Team would already show their interest in this thread). In my opinion, I have done as much as I can to find the problem as a user, not a game tester/dev on their payroll. It is not ‘ball is in your park’ attitude, this is just how this works.

Has anyone submitted a Support Ticket yet? Forum feeds are often missed by Devs. Support tickets usually have a 48-hour (at max) initial response time. It is through the Support Ticket that they will ask for you to submit your technical reports and information provided by the DxDiag.

(Honestly not trying to troll. Trying to provide the best advice possible, while my responses are bumping the thread to keep it near the top where devs can see it.)

By no means I would think you were trying to troll Neither am I, by the way, which is why I have just submitted the support ticket (even though it wasn’t my thread in the first place). Unfortunately, I don’t have my hopes up, as my history with support team says that the issues are actually fixed in 1 out of 2 tickets

Accidentally double clicked to bring up from tray bar a minute ago. Had to restart the computer. This kitten is still ongoing…

Common guys, THIS.

AeroJavi.1687:

lunawisp.2378:

I’m using 64-bit Windows 7 and have never had this issue. I alt-tab out and come back in again multiple times when I play the game. If it was something serious affecting the way the game was programmed, it would affect more people.

Just as a matter of interest, why are you double-clicking on the taskbar? Single clicks are all that’s necessary there, could that be causing problems?

Genius you are. I start a topic about how double clicking on minimized gw2 on taskbar stalls the computer enough to lose any control over it, and you (all by yourself, without anyone else’s help) figured that the problem might be… double clicking on minimized gw2 on taskbar! I take my hat off to you.
And if you think I’m doing this intentionally, after reading the effect that this has while in win7 64 bits, you may be one of the greatest minds of this era.

Not sure why you responded to Lunawisp with such sarcasm. They are correct, stop double clicking on GW2 on your taskbar and the problem will go away.

When you double-click you are causing the game to maximize and then minimize immediatly. There is some sort of race condition that crashes the client if it is maximized and then minimized again so fast.

Yes, the developers should take a look at this, however, there is a perfectly valid work around for you in the meantime: stop double-clicking the icon on your taskbar!

Eidola.9148:

AeroJavi.1687:

lunawisp.2378:

I’m using 64-bit Windows 7 and have never had this issue. I alt-tab out and come back in again multiple times when I play the game. If it was something serious affecting the way the game was programmed, it would affect more people.

Just as a matter of interest, why are you double-clicking on the taskbar? Single clicks are all that’s necessary there, could that be causing problems?

Genius you are. I start a topic about how double clicking on minimized gw2 on taskbar stalls the computer enough to lose any control over it, and you (all by yourself, without anyone else’s help) figured that the problem might be… double clicking on minimized gw2 on taskbar! I take my hat off to you.
And if you think I’m doing this intentionally, after reading the effect that this has while in win7 64 bits, you may be one of the greatest minds of this era.

Not sure why you responded to Lunawisp with such sarcasm. They are correct, stop double clicking on GW2 on your taskbar and the problem will go away.

When you double-click you are causing the game to maximize and then minimize immediatly. There is some sort of race condition that crashes the client if it is maximized and then minimized again so fast.

Yes, the developers should take a look at this, however, there is a perfectly valid work around for you in the meantime: stop double-clicking the icon on your taskbar!

You must have the same condition that made lunawisp tell me that, and get such an answer from me. If after reading my post you think I would do this on a constant basis or on purpose, you must be doing all kind of crazy things yourself!
Doesn’t mean it won’t happen to me occasionally… Last time less than a month ago. And it’s a ridiculously dangerous issue to be just ignored, I say.

I just tried to reproduce your issue without success. I minimized GW2 and then double-clicked on the taskbar icon. Each time the game just went back to full screen and everything worked. I tried this a good 20 or so times.

The interesting thing is a little bit later I alt-tabbed to look up something on Dulfy and when I went to alt-tab back to the game (no clicking on taskbar) my system locked up.

When yours locks up do you wind up with a black screen with a GW2 window titlebar at the top of the screen constantly flickering? I tried ctl-alt-del to bring up task manager to kill GW2, and while I was able to eventually get the ctl-alt-del screen, and was then able to click Task Manager, when it dropped back to the desktop everything was still unresponsive.

So, there is some sort of race condition happening, that much is for sure, and it is not specifically related to double-clicking on the taskbar. Hopefully some day a dev will take a look at this issue. However, that said, I would imagine it is not a common problem, and could be related to any number of other conflicts with drivers on our systems.

My only reason for saying to single-click on your taskbar is there are a number of people who double-click on everything, even if they don’t actually need to. By not double-clicking you will help prevent this issue from happening, which is why I suggested to take more care with your double-clicks for now until the issue is fixed.

Eidola.9148:

I just tried to reproduce your issue without success. I minimized GW2 and then double-clicked on the taskbar icon. Each time the game just went back to full screen and everything worked. I tried this a good 20 or so times.

The interesting thing is a little bit later I alt-tabbed to look up something on Dulfy and when I went to alt-tab back to the game (no clicking on taskbar) my system locked up.

When yours locks up do you wind up with a black screen with a GW2 window titlebar at the top of the screen constantly flickering? I tried ctl-alt-del to bring up task manager to kill GW2, and while I was able to eventually get the ctl-alt-del screen, and was then able to click Task Manager, when it dropped back to the desktop everything was still unresponsive.

So, there is some sort of race condition happening, that much is for sure, and it is not specifically related to double-clicking on the taskbar. Hopefully some day a dev will take a look at this issue. However, that said, I would imagine it is not a common problem, and could be related to any number of other conflicts with drivers on our systems.

My only reason for saying to single-click on your taskbar is there are a number of people who double-click on everything, even if they don’t actually need to. By not double-clicking you will help prevent this issue from happening, which is why I suggested to take more care with your double-clicks for now until the issue is fixed.

You reproduced the problem I had pretty closely then. Flickering gw2 titlebar included. But happens to me when accidentally going for double click in taskbar, never happened while alt+tabbing.
As I stated in the beggining, has happened to me in 2 different computers, a very old laptop and a very new desktop, having in common only that I run win7 x64… so I must be REALLY unlucky to get such an uncommon combination of conflicts, if people are not having this per norm…

Dulfy’s site is heavy on your system. I’ve noticed considerable framerate drops, anywhere from 5-15 while having Dulfy open in the background. I suspect it has to do with the sheer volume of data on any page of that site. I attempted to reproduce your issue to no avail even with Dulfy and another game (not all that resource heavy though) in the background.

If you don’t mind, could you elaborate as to what specific i5 you’re using? GW2 is supremely CPU dependent from my experience. My AMD 1055T (3.5GHz OC) with a 560ti is mildly outperformed by a Q6600 with a trash GPU. I’m no expert, but it may be an issue of your CPU unable to handle the quick open/minimize that is attempted when you double-click on GW2.

Edited to add: Are you experiencing this problem only when your character is in resource heavy areas like LA or is it anywhere?

We may have found another commonality, I too am running Win7 x64.

I am running 4 GB of RAM on a Core2Duo E7600 @3.0 GHz on an nVidia 460 with 1 GB onboard RAM.

Not the best system these days, but I can still play GW2 at 30fps average so I am happy.

To comment on ExTribble, I was in LA when attempting to replicate the issue, so that may have something to do with it as well. I can try testing again when out in the countryside with minimal resource usage.

To me, it does seem there is some sort of race condition happening with the deallocation and immediate reallocation of resources that causes the GW2 process to enter into an infinite loop of some sort.

My old laptop was an Acer Aspire 5520, but running on x64 instead of original x32, and many specific drivers missing (windows default ones instead), besides the geforce ones.
New desktop is 16GB RAM, i5-3450 @3.10Ghz (so, BY MY BALLS this can’t be just a heavy traffic issue, happening to me and not to most of people) and geforce GTX 650 Ti.
I’m pretty sure this is a problem related to win7 x64, and an unknown factor that I ignore, that is making this problem not general… but pestering me across computers.

Fair enough, CPU shouldn’t be the issue load-wise. Does this happen when you’ve been playing for a while, or anytime at all? Maybe it’s a cooling issue? Use something like CoreTemp/CPU-Z and GPU-Z to check your temps. Have you sent in a support ticket with the specs of the two (or more) computers you’ve had this issue with? They may not be great, but some support staff just might have an insight that can help solve this problem if it’s not purely on their end.

Sorry for the barrage of questions, but I’m just trying to guess at what the problem might be, no malice intended…

It has happened to me say… max a dozen times in these months, and not like I’m very willing to test; but I would say it’s not a requisite to have played during a lot of time, or have any other specific routine, and I have a pretty decent cooling in current comp. I would say it’s automatical on double click on taskbar, irregardless, something esential to win7 x64, and something else I might have shared between comps (or just my bad luck).
Didn’t send any ticket, as you can imagine sending ingame report is impossible… I came straight to forums to try to gather more people’s experiences before reporting something in particular.

I’m out of ideas, but you can submit a ticket here without being ingame: https://en.support.guildwars2.com/app/ask/

Just try to give them all the information you can on the affected systems (as you pretty much have in this thread) and hope for the best. Link this thread in the ticket so that they might post a solution here as well if they do have/find a fix. Keep in mind that since not too many people seem to be experiencing this (whether because they don’t double-click or it just doesn’t affect their computers as it does yours) it may take a while for them to resolve it, if at all.

In the meantime, try training yourself to use Alt+Tab to swap programs rather than the taskbar. It’s obviously not a fix, but it might help limit the times you accidentally double-click it if you force a new habit. Also consider running fullscreen-windowed mode if you aren’t. At least on my comp, the game minimizes/restores more smoothly since I changed to that setting to run the gw2stuff overlay.

Best of luck.

Common guys, don’t be lazy. Earn your paycheck.

This bug still exists. I just double clicked by game in the taskbar and it messed up my system, had to reboot.

I cause this to happen every so often because I accidentally hit RMB and then LMB on GW2.

I am on Win 7 64-bit.