[Update: Freezing after Season 15 update] Apex Legends crashing to desktop after Season 12 update acknowledged, fix in the works

New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….

Original story (published on February 22, 2022) follows:

Developed by Respawn Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts, Apex Legends is a free-to-play Battle Royale title that was released back in 2019. But even after three years, the game has millions who still play it regularly.

The developers recently updated the game with tons of new content marking the start of Season 12. But users have complained about several issues such as FPS drops on the Olympus map and Bloodhound kill tracker getting reset.

And as if these weren’t enough, Apex Legends players are now saying (1,2,3,4,5) that the game is crashing to desktop without any error message. It looks like the issue surfaced after the recent Season 12 update.

Below are some reports shared by Apex Legends players experiencing frequent crashes to desktop.

I’ve see people post in the mega thread about this issue but it doesn’t seem to be getting a lot of attention nor did I see any dev responses tied to those comments so I figured I’d try to bring some light to the issue. Since season 12 start (I started to notice it really during the anniversary even launch) I have been getting frequent hard crashes to desktop, some with no error and some with a directX hang error. It seems to be more frequent with the anniversary skins but that could just be coincidence. I’ve updated video drivers and repaired apex none seem to help. I usually can go a few games but then some control matches I’ll crash over and over, 3-4 times. Never had a single client side issue before this.
(Source)

Okay so, I’m surprised that there’s no highly scoring threads talking about this when I keep seeing people have the same issue. Basically, Apex just crashes to desktop with no error message whatsoever. It’s affecting myself and a lot of people as I’ve seen many other smaller threads on the same issue, and is very unpredictable as to when it’s going to happen. It’s cost games, starts to matches, clutch moments, and quite frankly I’m tired of this issue. No one has been able to figure out what possible cause it might be, and solutions have been tried such as updating drivers alongside all the typical troubleshooting issues.
(Source)

Thankfully, EA Help has acknowledged the Apex Legends crashing to desktop issues and said they are working on a fix. However, there is no ETA on when it will be fixed.

Hi there, thanks for reaching out about Apex Legends. The Apex team are aware of the issues being reported, and we’re working on a fix. Please let us know which platform you’re on, which map, and game mode it happens on by posting here: https://bit.ly/3I9j0WH. Thanks. -Bob
(Source)

As always, we will be updating this space as and when we come across new information so stay tuned for updates.

04:10 pm (IST): Some players are reporting (1, 2, 3, 4) crashing issues with the game after the next-gen update. Gamers say that it does not end up in a crashing screen or an error message, instead, it throws them directly to the desktop window.

Luckily, it did not take too long for EA to acknowledge this issue and support said that they are working to resolve this issue.

04:50 pm (IST): Apex Legends players are now reporting a crashing issue in Ranked mode when they grab crafting materials from containers (1, 2, 3).

Respawn team is already aware of the issue and working on a fix.

04:52 pm (IST): Many Apex Legends players are reporting (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) freezing or crashing issues with the game after Season 15 update.

Luckily, Respawn support has acknowledged the crashing issue and said that they are working to fix it. However, there’s no ETA for the same.

Heads up, legends: A couple of bugs popped up today regarding audio devices 🔊 Please make sure you have them plugged in before launching Apex and avoid unplugging them while the game is running, which may cause a crash. Appreciate your patience while we work through this one! (Source)

03:32 pm (IST): Many Apex Legends players are reportedly still facing this issue and the fix is nowhere in sight.

Fortunately, we have come across potential workarounds that might fix this issue. The first one involves turning shadows off:

Turning Spot Shadow Detail to “Off” in the Video settings In the videoconfig.txt, change “setting.csm_enabled” to “0”. That file can be found here %userprofile%/Saved Games/Respawn/Apex/local/
Source

Secondly, Add ‘+watchdog_time_milliseconds 30000’ to ‘Launch Options’. Follow these steps to do so.

Note: We have more such stories in our dedicated Electronic Arts (EA) Section so be sure to follow them as well.

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