Guild Wars 2

For 14 weeks the game has always let me in just fine – today out of the blue it decides that after I get past the launcher – I should go to a black screen that goes nowhere. No music, no character selection, just a hand mouse pointer.

Poked around and found this:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/tech/Black-Screen-Issue-Nvidia/first#post3964

My settings were already correct but I re-saved it anyway and tried again, no luck.

Then tried Mabinogi just for the hell of it, and got an error complaining about my video card. Ok, cool – must just be me I think to myself. Uninstall the driver, reinstall via safe mode, restart compy and hey Mabi works again. Sweet. Log in and out of there a few times just to make sure and it all seems good.

Try to start up GW2 again now, still black screen. Hmm. Retry Mabi – video card error again. Ehhhhh. Restart compy. Mabi works again. Tried renaming that .dat file as suggested elsewhere for GW2 startup solutions. No luck.

Any ideas on what I should try next?

I’m still running 306.97 fine.

Is your GPU able to pass stress test like Furmark or OCCT? Could be slowly dying hardware?

It sounds more like your windows services are failing… This has been known to happen with audio and that has to do with windows audio services.

First, do a direct x diagnoses whenever your game fails to run.
Second, inspect your video card to ensure that everything is plugged in, no dust being trapped or something.
Third, go to your device manager and right click on display adapters > detect any changes. If there’s a red ! mark on it, that means there’s a problem.

I have been having the same issue since last night (patched this week but not been online).

After a random time in game everything suddenly freezes forcing a full system restart. This has happened several times since the original patch for the Lost Shores. Something in it has totally knackered my game and it resurfaces every time a new update is released until they put out another patch. I am now convinced it is something in the LS update that conflicts with my system and the people that fix these issues are not talking with the people who put together the new content.

I’ve done everything to fix this repeatedly, from uploading tickets with log files, reinstalling the game, reinstalling windows, all drivers updated, run with no sound (thought it might have been the issue), run in super low settings, you name it, I have tried it…

I wish they would get this sorted.

Thanks all that have replied, alas no luck thus far. Haven’t yet done the physical examination (seekerking’s #2) nor the stress tests due to lack of time but I did do the device manager → detect changes (all ok) and am pretty sure I’m also running 306.97 atm like kirito (with the small k).

What I did find however was that the direct x diagnosis all worked fine before launching the game. After attempting to launch GW2, getting black screen then killing the process and running the diagnosis again for the 3D Video Test I get an error saying it’s having trouble changing the size of the display followed by… blue screen of death! Leaning towards aging hardware now because of that… x.x

@Toronagga – at least you make it in game. :P Looks like I’ll be missing out on Wintersday (Wintersweek?) because of this.

Will keep you posted on how I go! Or not go as the case maybe…

Was anything on the machine updates just prior to the issues taking place? Can you use System Restore to go back a day or more before the issues started occuring?

If you can use System Restore, go back a few days and test GW2. If it still isn’t working, then I would say hardware is probably the culprit.

If GW2 does work after the System Restore, then start doing the updates as needed (other than GW2, I don’t think you can stop it from updating) but be sure to test GW2 after each system change so you can pinpoint what update is causing the issue.

Thanks Cantur, unfortunately my machine had no new updates other than GW2 downloading something prior to me getting the problem. However there has been a development!

Last night I decided to clear out some space on the HD and defrag my machine (just because I wanted to). I was about to go to bed when it finished but decided just for kicks to try out GW2 again. There was a new patch since the loader downloaded something (not very big) then I did the usual login and…

I got to the character screen and got into Tyria! Wait what? So I’m not sure if it’s to do with the patch (maybe) or because I made space (probably) or because of a defrag (unlikely) or I just got lucky. It was too late to do anymore testing at that point so I just logged out and went to bed.

Just thought I’d post incase it helps anyone else getting the same issue. Will update again when I get to test it out more, I’m hoping it was a space issue though.