Crash that leads to full PC/Windows crash, when trying to click out to second monitor

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1

Summary:

Lets see how i can summarize this… Im playing the game while watching a stream or streaming myself - so i have the game (i think in fullscreen borderless, not sure tho, could be normal fullscreen) on one monitor, while theres a stream or my streaming programs (OBS, Google Chrome etc.) running on the other monitor. When i clicked out of the game, to get to my other monitor, both monitors started to kind of turn black a few times in an irregular fashion (between 0,2 seconds to a full second between the black flickers) while everything kind of freezes - this continues until i get to my monitor OR the game ultimately crashs. Now for the weird part - not only the game crashs, all other programs and windows 10 do aswell - because the next thing i see is my windows 10 login screen for 2 seconds and then i get thrown on my desktop like i freshly started the pc. I dont even get a crash report or anything.
This does not happen, when i use alt+Tab to get to my other monitor!

So this happened to me like 3 times by now, so i can be sure it has to do something with the game - because the crash itself is a little weird to be honest and i wasnt sure if its the games fault or if somethings wrong with my computer. But since i dont have these Problems anywhere else it has to be something in relation to the game.

Hope this helps, if theres any additional questions, feel free to ask me :slight_smile:

Stonehearth.log:

not sure if there is a stonehearth.log for this, because the crash itself is a little weird.

Attachments:

not sure if there is a crash.dmp for this, because the crash itself is a little weird.

Versions and Mods:

Alpha 18, no Mods at all

System Information:

Windows 10, gtx980 ti, i7 4770k, 16gb of ram, 2x 1080p external monitors, (1 displaying the game, the other to watch streams or run OBS when i stream myself.

Notes:

One thing i realized while having the black screen flickers, is that my pcs ram usage kind of went through the roof - at least the widget display told me so on the other monitor - so maybe its that what ultimately leads to the windows crash.

2

Normally, I would say “That doesn’t sound like a crash”.
then I saw “Windows 10”. oookaay… maybe even if it isn’t a crash, it is some other failure.

Just for comparison though, I am a “heavy” user of dual monitors as well.
I can play stoneheath on one, watch video on the other, watch streams in browsers. Have several videos in streams running on both monitors, or play flash/ based games. Minimize stonehearth while I play another resource intensive game, sometimes both at once (usually pausing one though). And I swap apps/games between monitors a lot. If I did not have limited deskspace, I would probably get a third and fourth monitors…

Saying that, other than Windows 10’s own problems, I have never had problems with stonehearth above a “normal” CTD (not even BS, but then again, I probably won’t recognize it if Windows 10 hides it or displays it “nicely”).

There is one guess why it may work for me: I only run stonehearth in windowed mode. (not even borderless full screen. just simple window, maximized usually though)

My ballpark guesses that the issue is probably not directly with stonehearth itself.

  • gfx hardware/driver. Especially if your streaming software uses hardware directly. Usually, this would simply lead to blue screen at most. But it’s Windows 10.

  • OS explorer. It may not explain the black flicker trigger on mouse, but the strange “retreat” to login screen and back to “clean” desktop etc may hint at something wrong with explorer and it decided to just restart without informing you (maybe if you weren’t looking, you won’t know it crashed). Definitely Windows 10 (I had a boatload of problems with explorer/desktop which is not related to this)

  • overheating. Hardware has long had inbuilt protection for this. Software, however, is not so prominent yet. But hey, it’s Windows 10. Maybe it is trying to be smart and “save” your machine.

ok… Windows 10 hate aside (sorry, had a long, horrible time fighting it (ongoing) on a new machine), maybe you can try this simply:

  • run “sfc /scannow”. This will prompt windows to try to repair itself. I have no confidence in it, but it seems better than nothing. And who knows, may be it will find and fix problems properly once in a while.
  • try runing stonehearth in windowed mode (simple) and see if it causes anything funny. If it can be isolated down to full-screen mode, it may narrow down the possibilities greatly.
3

Thats exactly what i’m saying - its not exactly a crash OF the game itsself, but (i guess) a crash of my OS caused BY the game (wich then ultimately leads to the game, and all other running applications to crash). Since i play a ton of other games, that are not causing any problems at all when clicking over to the other monitor and that crash only happens with hearthstone i thought it might be interesting for the devs to get a peak on it.

I dont have that problem running it in plain windowed mode either. Its just in the described scenario and even then its like a 50/50 if it leads to the described crash or lets me go to the desktop without any crashes after the flickering.

Well, its definitely playing its part in the crash, thats for sure.

All drivers are up to date, and it doesnt matter if i have a video stream running, just a plain website, just my normal desktop or if i stream - i had it crash in all situations.
Never had any problems with windows 10 either.

That would not explain why that happens in these specific situations. It never happens in other situations. Desktop isnt “clean” - its just simply like i freshly booted my pc, no programs running etc.

I highly doubt that. Im building my pcs myself, i know what im doing and i have temperatures monitored (yes im that geek). PC’s a beast, and my cooling is too, so i just doubt that.
I noted above, that i saw a spike in RAM usage once while it flickered - so thats the only thing that could “overheat” or a sudden overvoltage… but then thats definitely related to clicking from game to desktop - wich shouldnt happen.

Thanks for trying to help, maybe im the only one with this problem, so this isnt worth to take a peek at for a dev, but if it is, i wanted to be sure to have it posted.

And thanks for the suggested solutions - i can simply maneuver around this crash by using alt + Tab to go to my desktop, so it doesnt really affect anything, but my personal habit to just click over to the other desktop.

And personally i cant really understand the windows 10 rant, i never had any bigger problems with it, apart from searching for options and settings for some hours.

4

Update: Game was in fullscreen mode, but i was able to click over to my other monitor, if that helps…

5

This is definitely odd - clicking on another screen versus alt-tabbing shouldn’t produce any different results, and certainly shouldn’t crash your entire OS. The stonehearth.log may be useful, so it would be helpful if you could attach it. I doubt a crash.dmp was generated due to the type of crash, but if there is one please upload it as well.