Black screen at random times

Black screen at random times

in Account & Technical Support

Posted by: Nefertaris.2346

Nefertaris.2346

I don’t even know if I should bother to make this thread. I have seen plenty of other people asking for help about this issue, a big number of “possible fix!” replies which date since last year… but nothing certain, no official word on how to fix it or some things I don’t even know how to deal with because I am no tech expert.

You know the story: you are playing this game (And only this game), even at lowest resolutions-graphics settings. It can be just 5 mins after you started, it can be 1 hour later. You never know, but out of nowhere even if you are standing still, the screen goes black. You can still hear the music and you can still access the menu with F11, but that’s about it, you are forced to close the game and re-open, which is a BIG issue in Guild Wars 2 because re-logging makes you lose any progress you had in whatever you were doing. PVP, event chains, Heart of Thorns map participation, story instance progression, etc.

I just bought the expansion couple weeks ago, and I am really loving the story and the new features but this issue has been driving me to the point where I wish I could ask for a refund of the expansion. Please help.

EDIT: And yes, it only happens with this game. I dont think its an issue with overheating or that my computer can’t handle the game since it can run other games with far better graphics without issue (Fallout 4 and Witcher 3 at high settings for example).

(edited by Nefertaris.2346)

Black screen at random times

in Account & Technical Support

Posted by: Loli Ruri.8307

Loli Ruri.8307

My graphics card in the middle of summer on liquid cooling custom loop, tops out at 42c. Of course if the overclock becomes unstable, even at such a low temperature, my graphics card can crash and thus result in the game going black screen. However, it’s just speculation at this point in time as to what could be causing it. I wonder if there are any error logs in Windows that might explain what is going on.

For now, you could try lowering the clock rate on your graphics card. Try knocking 50 MHz off the top of the existing profile, and see what happens. You lose nothing from trying at least.

Intel Core i7 4790K @4.7 GHz, 32 GB 2133 MHz DDR3.
MSI GTX 1080 Sea Hawk EK X 2xSLI 2025 / 11016 MHz, liquid cooling custom loop.
Samsung 850 Evo 500 GB. HTC Vive.

Black screen at random times

in Account & Technical Support

Posted by: Nefertaris.2346

Nefertaris.2346

I lowered the clock rate by about 100 (down from the normal, I’ve never had it overclocked before) and… well so far (1 hour or so playing) no black screen though the game now runs at a slightly lower framerate for some reason (had it limited to 30 and it would usually run at that, now it jumps betwen 18-23). Then again, other times before I thought the issue was fixed since it didn’t happen for a few hours but it came back after a while. We will see.

Also kept an eye on the gpu temperature while playing and it never went past 35c. Right now standing in Lion’s Arch with a decent number of other players running around and it is at 32c.

Update: Yep, still happening. Got black screen while mining around Gendarran, then about 15 mins later again while crafting stuff on lions’ arch. Bleh.

(edited by Nefertaris.2346)

Black screen at random times

in Account & Technical Support

Posted by: Iroh.4375

Iroh.4375

Nefertaris what graphic card do you use AMD or NVidia? I got same problem. I use AMD.

Black screen at random times

in Account & Technical Support

Posted by: Nefertaris.2346

Nefertaris.2346

Nefertaris what graphic card do you use AMD or NVidia? I got same problem. I use AMD.

GPU: GeForce GTX 650Ti
CPU: AMD A10-5700

Update: Not sure if worth mentioning but the issue happens on both the gw2 client and the gw2-64 client. Saw an old thread that dates back since 2012 and someone there mentioned switching to the 64 client could fix it but it didn’t.

(edited by Nefertaris.2346)

Black screen at random times

in Account & Technical Support

Posted by: Nefertaris.2346

Nefertaris.2346

Now tried out doing a fresh re-install of my video card drivers and such. Also gave the pc a good cleaning. Tweaked around some settings on the Nvidia control panel (maximise performance for GW2 in specific) and also set windows 7 power management to prioritize performance. The game now runs at a beautiful 40ish fps even in combat and at med-high graphic settings… but then the black screen happens pretty much about 15-20 mins after I started playing.

Black screen at random times

in Account & Technical Support

Posted by: Iroh.4375

Iroh.4375

Nefertaris what graphic card do you use AMD or NVidia? I got same problem. I use AMD.

GPU: GeForce GTX 650Ti
CPU: AMD A10-5700

Update: Not sure if worth mentioning but the issue happens on both the gw2 client and the gw2-64 client. Saw an old thread that dates back since 2012 and someone there mentioned switching to the 64 client could fix it but it didn’t.

I solved this problem. It was my internet connection. sometimes just lost connection on the little moment and game got black screen (not always disconnected from the game, just black screen). I change my router settings and that’s all. Now all good. So it was not my video card or video driver or whatever, just internet.

(edited by Iroh.4375)

Black screen at random times

in Account & Technical Support

Posted by: eridani.4158

eridani.4158

I’m affected by this problem too.

I play on OSX Yosemite using the official game client in windowed mode (yes have tried fullscreen too). And have noticed that only the game window goes blank, (exact same symptoms Nefertaris.2346 wrote above), the rest of my desktop is good. So It probably isn’t my GPU (Integrated Intel Graphics 4600) because there are no other graphic issues on my desktop. And can perfectly write this, play a Youtube video or even launch Steam and play Dota out of frustration while the game window is blank.

It probably isn’t my connection either because when raiding with friends I can still talk to them in TS. TS didn’t notified of any connection loss. And to be on the safe side, today launched Terminal and ran a ping process for 40~ mins in the background while playing (to 8.8.8.8) and had no time outs when the black window appeared, at the end, the summary informed me of a ~4% packet loss tho.

Trying to fix my client just in case I’ve:

Lowered all the graphic settings to potato, cleared cache and temp folder (inside Applications/some/long/path/transgaming/something/else/users/etc/etc). Erased the stuff in ~/Lybrary/Applicacions Support/… Repaired the client following the steps posted on help.guildwars2.com; yesterday just gave up and fully reinstalled the game.

Also, booted on my Ubuntu partition, installed Wine Staging 1.9.16. Copied the game and ran the 64bit .exe, everything good until the blank screen appears… So it is not the 32bit client in the Cider wrapper and may not be my operative system either.

So far still happening.

For me, this problem started somewhere after the June 28 patch, due to busy life couldn’t play that much until past week so fixing it wasn’t my priority until now.

However! I wont discard yet the problem being my network because in that time my ISP gave me a brand new modem. And even when I have no problems with any other internet service or application (Dota, dowloads, Netflix, TS, Skype, etc.), it may be something that only affects a port or protocol ANet uses?

So, did anything changed with your internet or network lately Nefertaris.2346? If no, then I would be inclined to think that is something in the client or the server that affects only some specific hardware that your PC and my Mac share.

Any ideas on how to pinpoint or better yet, fix this problem anyone?

Black screen at random times

in Account & Technical Support

Posted by: jokobet.6081

jokobet.6081

Unfortunately I am experiencing the same problems since a few days. Also AMD graphics card but no temperature problems, able to run other games at way higher settings. As the others, I have tried:

- reinstalling GW2
- reinstalling driver of GPU
- checked for temperature problems of hardware
- checked internet connection
- allowed GW2 to auto-detect video settings

Still, I get random black screens every now and then, while the music still plays in the background. Alt+F4 just closes the game, so it’s not really a crash of the video card.

Has anyone of the previous posters managed to solve the problem?

Black screen at random times

in Account & Technical Support

Posted by: Bloodshooter.5210

Bloodshooter.5210

I´m having the same problem for months now, I´m in touch with the support, so far it hasn´t been of any help, sadly (basically just working off their list of possible fixes).
They wanna redirect me to another agent for “deeper investigation”, I hope there´s something that can be done about it.

Black screen at random times

in Account & Technical Support

Posted by: FBlazen.6059

FBlazen.6059

I’ve been having this issue for months now, and what I’ve found is that it’s an issue with my home network. Every other place I go to play (a friend’s house or at my university) I can play with no problems, but as soon as I try to play at home, I get this random black screens. I don’t know what is causing it, and it’s so frustrating because I’ve really gotten into raids, but I can’t even kill a boss before I get the black screen.

Black screen at random times

in Account & Technical Support

Posted by: Muffinpopski.5140

Muffinpopski.5140

Yeah I have the same issue, thought I fixed it but it was actually just the internet. At one of the places I live its fine, at the other I get the black screen issues. I’ve tried port forwarding but that doesn’t seem to help.

Black screen at random times

in Account & Technical Support

Posted by: Helvalith.2170

Helvalith.2170

I have the same problem, i’m trying to get help form ArenaNet support, they told me to reinstall game, reinstall graphic drivers, clean the PC from dust, open ports on router, update drivers of all internet cards on my PC(all this with premade emails) but nothing changed… now they dont reply to my email anymore….i think they still dunno how to fix this problem….
I’ve a NVIDIA GTX 750

Black screen at random times

in Account & Technical Support

Posted by: Muffinpopski.5140

Muffinpopski.5140

I seem to have fixed it ! By opening up port 80 on my modem, then running the game with the command line -clientport 80. Didn’t have a single black screen crash in about 3 hours that I played today.