How to fix the “Access Violation” crash for Payday 2

payday-2technical-issues

I've recently purchased the Payday 2 Ultimate Edition on Steam. While playing the game, it unexpectedly crashes (quite often). Looking at the crashlog.txt file found in my AppData folder, every crash seems to be caused by the "access violation" error. I've read around on the internet and found some articles, such as this one, that suggests some things to try. So far, I've tried the following:

  • Verify the integrity of the game files on Steam
  • Reinstall the game
  • Run the game as administrator
  • Run the game in compatibility mode for Windows 7 (my computer runs Windows 10)
  • Update my Graphics Driver to the latest version (nVidia 398.11)
  • A render file trick pointed out in this Steam Post
  • Turning on the "Use HQ Weapons" option in the video settings of the game
  • Added my Payday 2 Steam folder to the exception list for my antivirus
  • Adjusted various graphical settings across multiple sessions

I do not have any mods, nor did I ever have any, since I only just got the game for PC. The crashes occur mostly during game play, but it has crashed once while in the menu of the game as well.

What can been done to resolve this issue? The issue occurs enough times to make the game nearly unplayable.

Best Answer

A posting on the Steam Forums by a developer for Payday 2 states the following:

There are a few programs that have been reported as causing issues when installed alongside PAYDAY 2, if you are using any of them and you are experiencing performance issues or crashes you might want to consider any alternatives. We would like to point out that we have not confirmed these issues but we have seen reports about these or issues that no longer appeared once the program was no longer running.

  • Raptr
  • DisplayLink
  • Hamachi
  • Qualcomm Killer Network Manager
  • ASUS Gamer OSD
  • ASUS Smart Doctor
  • Evolve client
  • Avira Antivirus (Add Payday 2 and it's installation folder to the exceptions)
  • Overwolf
  • Razer's Synapse Statistics
  • Avast Home Network Protection (Add Payday 2 and it's installation folder to the exceptions)
  • EVGA PrecisionX (this program can auto start even if you think it's disabled)
  • RivaTuner
  • Kaspersky Antivirus (has been reported in cause FPS drops)
  • GeForce Experience (has been reported in some cases to increase loading times)

What interested me the most was the EVGA PrecisionX bullet. I do not have the PrecisionX software, but I do have MSI Afterburner, which is a similar program that I use and let run in the background most of the time.

So, I exited my MSI Afterburner software (thus killing all of its processes), and so far, I've been able to play the game for a much longer time now without any crashes (probably about 5 hours total without any crashing yet). With MSI Afterburner running, I could rarely make it past 30 minutes without a crash occuring. So it seems that MSI Afterburner was the cause of the crashes in my case.

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