Unpredictable Vulkan crashes with vk::Device::waitForFences: ErrorDeviceLost

In my experience, it's usually the waitForFences error that I crash with. It's completely unpredictable and I don't know if it's tied to a specific effect trying to render, but going back into the same area after restarting the game is fine. I can easily go days without seeing it, but then there are times like this weekend where I encounter it multiple times.

I'm not sure if this has become worse in 3.18, but I recall encountering issues when Vulkan was released from beta in 3.17.4, which prompted me to try updating my drivers. Vulkan ran great for me before 3.17.4.

CPU: Ryzen 5900x
GPU: 3080 Ti 12 GB
Geforce driver version: 512.59 (April 26)
Windows 10

Both my current and previous driver version (from some point in 2021) had the same issue. I haven't installed the May 12 driver yet but I don't expect it to fix a problem spanning months of driver releases.

I manually cleared my Vulkan shader cache at the start of the league but that didn't seem to have an effect.

Hey there,

i have the exact same problem.
Playing on GBT Notebook with GTX980M.

"Waitforfences" error with vulcan crashes my game 3-6x per hour. If i switch to D11 the game just crashes to desktop without an error message, but even more frequently.

This startet with the prepatch for 3.18. Never had crashes before and can play pretty much all other games without problems. Since the prepatch i might crash in medium juiced maps or while idling in my HO, while on desktop for trade search. not rly predicable as you mentioned.

Iam sure its not Hardware-related. Sad thing is i cant fix it. I tried every NVIDIA driver you can imagine. Cleared old drivers with DDU, checked the registry etc. I even changed mousecursor.

I even stared to think it might not be the VGA but an sound problem. Cleared all sound drivers and tested a bunch of different ones.

Cleared all cache folders. Did PACKCHECK, and verify with steam, for both clients the problem persists.

Complete fresh Win install with just POE and the problem is still there.

It would be great if someone at GGG could have a look at this and help us to find the root of the problem. I think someone in Emphys group had the same problem, at least sometimes - maybe they fixed it or did he just start to use GeForceNOW or something?!

Same issue with crashes on all rendering options, both old and new video drivers, all varieties of graphics settings (I even tried disabling multithreading out of desperation, thankfully that wasn't the solution), etc etc etc.

Ryzen 7 2700X
RTX 2070
Windows 10
GeForce driver version 512.77

Zero issues before 3.18, now experiencing irregular but frequent crashes, same as you. Some variation of error code for Vulkan (DeviceLostError I think?), crash straight to desktop without error for DX11/12.

Not unusual to go hours of play with few to no issues, and then suddenly start crashing every five minutes (or more). Have even crashed a few times while in hideout with nothing relevant actively rendering.

Tried fresh reinstalls, clearing caches, the whole 9 yards. Hopefully this issue gets the attention it deserves.

New day, more crashes.

Please can someone at GGG look into this? I dont think its user-related as it started with 3.18 prepatch - maybe there is chance to fix it?!

I have the same problem on daily bases, I crash usually once an hour, can't do lab, extremely annoying, would be nice to have this fixed. I have a gtx 1080 and i7-6700 dunno if that matters.

Having the same issue with 980 ti. Would love a fix for this bug.

Adding mine to this. I seem to crash at the start of a map, specifically juiced delirium map. I zone in, can stand there and run around fine. Touch the mirror and stuff starts spawning and a few seconds later I'll sometimes (often) crash. I can log back in and complete the map normally.

PC i7-7700k
Nvidia 3080
Using Vulcan, but from this post I haven't bothered to try changing renderer.

I've performed a fresh install of the game last night. No change.

Same problem. Acer predator triton 500 rtx 2080.

Exact same problem.


Current Specs:

Windows 10 Home - Build 19044.1706
32 Gb Ram
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core Processor 3.70 GHz
ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 3070 8GB

Multiple times a day, same error as described on the original post.

Changing renderer to DX12 Beta gets rid of the error, b ut i crash to desktop instead

Changing renderer to DX11 is stable.

This seems to be an issue with the 3.18 patch and the Vulkan renderer.

Little update:

i did the following and was able to reduce crashes to 2-3x per hour.


Download DDU: https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html

download NvCleaninstall: https://www.techpowerup.com/download/techpowerup-nvcleanstall/

Start Windows in Save-Mode and use DDU to remove the installed driver.

Reboot Computer and user NvCleaninstall to install Nvidia driver 512.95

Delete all GGG related folders in appdata/roaming (might have to show hidden folders to see them)

Delete all GGG related folders in "user folder/documents" (i have to check the path when iam home - but i think you guys might figure this out - the folder with you lootfilter files)

DX11 still crashes to desktop without any error message 4-6x per hour.

Vulcan now is more "stable" with about 2 crashes per hour of mapping.

Let me know if this helps

p.s. any reply by GGG would be great....