#Game crashes frequently with lua errors (no mods installed)

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

wind orchid
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The game crashes randomly and displays "Oops! Something went wrong" error messages.

The crashes happen at various points - in the shop, during antes, in booster packs, in the menu - with no discernible pattern. They are happening more and more frequently after 300+ hours of gameplay, to the point where the game is unplayable now.

The line of code mentioned in the errors is always different, but it's almost always an indexing issue or null/missing variable.

I'm playing via Steam on a Lenovo laptop with Windows 11. I do not have any mods of the game installed and I never have.

I have verified the game files, uninstalled and reinstalled the game, deleted files in App_Data, and updated all my drivers. I even did a factory reset of my machine. Still no luck.

Here are some examples of errors I've seen:

card.lua:4430: attempt to index field 'config' (a nil value)
engine/sprite.lua:96 attempt to index a nil value
engine/text.lua:309: attempt to index local 'self' (a number value)
engine/text.lua:235: attempt to index local 'self' (a number value)
engine/node.lua:168: attempt to index local 'self' (a number value)
functions/misc_functions.lua:796: attempt to index local 'moveable' (a number value)
engine/sprite.lua:133: bad argument #1 to 'setColor' (number expected, got nil)
engine/ui.lua:695: attempt to index local 'self' (a number value)
engine/ui.lua:935: bad argument #1 to 'polygon' (string expected, got no value)
engine/controller.lua:974: attempt to call method 'collides_with_point' (a nil value)
functions/misc_functions.lua:796: attempt to index local 'movable' (a number value)
engine/text.lua:281: attempt to index local 'self' (a number value)

olive prism
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Did you ever find a fix for this? A few others and myself are seeing this @wind orchid

patent aurora
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@wet stump @olive prism @wind orchid I've been having the exact same issue. Ive only tried to play balatro multiplayer and it keeps crashing like that. When yall uninstall balatro, delete all your game files, and then go to reinstall the game, is it launching as vanilla or is it launching WITH lovely newly installed? I cant seem to get vanilla balatro installed from scratch anymore. Lovely is permantly stuck in the game files somewhere. I've got all steam cloud settings disabled and have searched my pc relentlessly to delete every balatro relevant file and still no change. I am getting the same crash every time i play the game, even without smods or multiplayer mods installed 🙁 any idea how to permanetly remove balatro? crt77 are you 100% certain you've never played with mods or downloaded anything?

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@calm quest adding u, way too many of us are having this same issue 🙁 anyone found a fix?

wet stump
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@patent aurora I've had zero luck getting it figured out. If I'm being honest, I'm done attempting to fix it. I'll wait until an update comes out for the game and try again.

olive prism
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@patent aurora @wet stump I've done literally everything to fix this and no I have never played with mods. Im by no means a computer expert but I was trouble shooting with chat GPT for 12 hours in total for solutions.

Yesterday, I was able to play the game for hours, but today it is crashing again. To fix it yesterday, I went to the game files, deleted ONLY lua51.dll. and then verified my game files in steam so it brought in a new lua file. The game worked for 5 hours and I thought I fixed it

Now today, it's just crashing again even if I try that same fix.

I've done the following:

Confirmed I have most recent drivers
Reinstalled VC++ redistributables (both x86 and x64)
Reinstalled windows
Disabled overlays
Reinstalled entire game (wiped all save files and turned cloud save off)

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Using event viewer to check the error it's coming back with this

Faulting application name: Balatro.exe, version: 11.5.0.1, time stamp: 0x6575127a
Faulting module name: lua51.dll, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x663005fc
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x000000000003e542
Faulting process id: 0x6D4C
Faulting application start time: 0x1DC13930AF92148
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Balatro\Balatro.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Balatro\lua51.dll
Report Id: 0b358466-190c-4e89-9f26-40650f71b4a7
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

patent aurora
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@olive prism what size monitor are you using?

olive prism
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Based on everything i've asked chat GPT (not super reliable I know) it's saying it's almost definetely an issue the devs would need to fix

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@patent aurora Display res? 2560x1600

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18 inch display

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Here is a more detailed response from chat GPT after I showed it the event viewer data when the game crashed when I clicked new run and also just sitting in the menu (takes about a minute to crash)

Crash now happens on the start menu instead of run start.

Fault offset changed again (0x3ec14) → same DLL, different point in memory.

Exception is still 0xc0000005 in lua51.dll.

This behavior is classic game-side Lua memory corruption:

The DLL itself isn’t broken — Steam keeps giving you a valid copy.

The crash timing and offset vary slightly depending on memory layout and system state.

That’s why it sometimes worked for 5 hours yesterday and now crashes in under a minute.

Nothing on your side (saves, configs, drivers, overlays, VC++ runtimes) changes the root cause.

Bottom line: this is a Balatro bug, and there’s nothing you can permanently do to fix it.

The only “fix” you can do locally is the temporary delete lua51.dll + verify trick — it can sometimes let you get a session, but it’s unreliable because the crash depends on runtime memory layout

calm quest
calm quest
patent aurora
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its crazy how even despite deleting the game and reinstalling we are getting this memory corruption from the game 🙁

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@true spruce adding you as you've got the same bug issues

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I even went as far as buying balatro on a different steam account and the crashes are still occuring. The issue seems to be isolated to this hardware / this device only. It works just fine on my other 2 mac books but not on my windows desktop.

calm quest
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the only thing ive found 'extends' my sessions is a fresh install, no cloud, starting a new game, i can get about 40 min before the crash, and then once it does i have to start over or else it keeps crashing, ive resorted to playing on my phone and restarting lol

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its been like 3 weeks and my phone save is no where close to my steam save lmao

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lol and as we speak

image.png
patent aurora
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i cant even play through a hand w/o constant crashing anymore

calm quest
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why is it always the games im playing most that suffer the most gamebreaking bugs 😢

patent aurora
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Oops! The game crashed:
main.lua:1305: attempt to index a nil value

Additional Context:
Balatro Version: 1.0.1o-FULL
Modded Version: 1.0.0~BETA-0506a-STEAMODDED
LÖVE Version: 11.5.0
Lovely Version: 0.8.0
Platform: Windows

Stack Traceback

(3) Lua upvalue 'find_self' at file 'main.lua:1305'
Local variables:
directory = string: "C:\Users\Devon Durbin\AppData\Roaming\Balatro\Mods/smods/lovely"
target_filename = string: "core.lua"
target_line = string: "--- STEAMODDED CORE"
depth = number: 3
(for generator) = C function: builtin#6
(for state) = table: 0x0a266b40 {1:achievements.toml, 2:atlas.toml, 3:back.toml, 4:better_calc.toml, 5:better_calc_fixes.toml, 6:blind.toml, 7:blind_ui.toml, 8:booster.toml, 9:calculate_card_added.toml (more...)}
(for control) = number: 29
_ = number: 29
filename = string: "menu.toml"
file_path = string: "C:\Users\Devon Durbin\AppData\Roaming\Balatro\Mods/smods/lovely/menu.toml"
(*temporary) = nil
(*temporary) = table: 0x0a26eb30 {type:file, size:2179, modtime:1755818288}
(*temporary) = nil
(*temporary) = string: "C:\Users\Devon Durbin\AppData\Roaming\Balatro\Mods/smods/lovely/"
(*temporary) = string: "menu.toml"
(*temporary) = table: 0x0a26eb30 {type:file, size:2179, modtime:1755818288}
(*temporary) = string: "attempt to index a nil value"
(4) Lua upvalue 'find_self' at file 'main.lua:1307'
Local variables:
directory = string: "C:\Users\Devon Durbin\AppData\Roaming\Balatro\Mods/smods"
target_filename = string: "core.lua"
target_line = string: "--- STEAMODDED CORE"
depth = number: 2
(for generator) = C function: builtin#6
(for state) = table: 0x0a25fd38 {1:.gitattributes, 2:.github, 3:.gitignore, 4:LICENSE, 5:README.md, 6:assets, 7:config.lua, 8:icon.png, 9:libs, 10:localization, 11:lovely, 12:lsp_def (more...)}
(for control) = number: 11
_ = number: 11
filename = string: "lovely"
file_path = string: "C:\Users\Devon Durbin\AppData\Roaming\Balatro\Mods/smods/lovely"
file_type = string: "directory"
(5) Lua local 'find_self' at file 'main.lua:1307'
Local variables:
directory = string: "C:\Users\Devon Durbin\AppData\Roaming\Balatro\Mods"
target_filename = string: "core.lua"
target_line = string: "--- STEAMODDED CORE"
depth = number: 1
(for generator) = C function: builtin#6
(for state) = table: 0x0a22eae0 {1:lovely, 2:multiplayer-0.2.13c~smallworld, 3:smods}
(for control) = number: 3
_ = number: 3
filename = string: "smods"
file_path = string: "C:\Users\Devon Durbin\AppData\Roaming\Balatro\Mods/smods"
file_type = string: "directory"
(6) main chunk of file 'main.lua' at line 1319
(7) global C function 'require'
(8) LÖVE function at file 'boot.lua:323' (best guess)
Local variables:
c = table: 0x09e38470 {identity:false, version:11.5, accelerometerjoystick:true, modules:table: 0x09e384c0, gammacorrect:false, title:Balatro, externalstorage:false (more...)}
openedconsole = boolean: false
confok = boolean: true
conferr = nil
(9) global C function 'xpcall'
(10) LÖVE function at file 'boot.lua:362' (best guess)
Local variables:
result = boolean: true
(11) global C function 'xpcall'
(12) LÖVE function at file 'boot.lua:377' (best guess)
Local variables:
func = Lua function '(LÖVE Function)' (defined at line 355 of chunk [love "boot.lua"])
inerror = boolean: true
deferErrhand = Lua function '(LÖVE Function)' (defined at line 348 of chunk [love "boot.lua"])
earlyinit = Lua function '(LÖVE Function)' (defined at line 355 of chunk [love "boot.lua"])

olive prism
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I've exhausted every option I can think of. Chat GPT seems convinced its an issue with the game itself and nothing we can do on our end to fix it. I ran a 10 run test and checked the event viewer logs. All 10 of my "runs" lasted less than 15 seconds before the game crashed

3 of the crashes I got the "tried to index nil value" error in game. The other 7 I had to go to the event viewer and it was saying there was an issue with lua.dll

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Truth be told other games are crashing for me now that worked fine two days ago and I have a feeling I messed something up while attempting to fix this. So might have to do a factory reset...

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I posted this in my other thread, but I got 5 hours of run time with no issues by deleting the lua.dll file and verifying the game files in steam. However that only worked a single time and the next day the game continued crashing as usual. Chat gpt seemed to think I got 1 "lucky run" where the config didn't get messed up

calm quest
calm quest
calm quest
true spruce
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Thanks for adding me. Has it ever wiped your save? It did for me, you might want to make a copy of your savefiles just in case

wind orchid
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Yeah @patent aurora I have never installed any mods for Balatro, I've always played vanila. Haven't found a fix yet. I just play the Switch version now.

patent aurora
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@summer copper @next ravine @shadow eagle @feral magnet @coarse parcel @severe fern @karmic vortex @midnight surge Good day mods. Can we get some help with this bug? A dozen of us are getting the exact same crash, all on windows, and none of us can find out a fix but we've got hundreds of crash reports we can upload. There are several bug reports in the last 2-3 weeks all highlighting the same issue.

coarse parcel
patent aurora
coarse parcel
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This bug report forum is the place to log bugs, as you have done, But the developer is 1 person, they may not be able to squash this bug now, specially while working on other things.
Make your reports as clear/helpful as possible, and they will hopefully be addressed in due course.

patent aurora
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Unfortunate to hear. The constant lua engine crashing while attempting to index unsuccessfully is THE ONLY PC bug being reported by more than one user. 3 weeks, hundreds of bug reports, hundreds of comments, and no recognition. Game is unplayable.

rare nacelle
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random suggestion: have you tried DELETING your save file and seeing if the problem persists?

wind orchid
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@patent aurora do you have an nvidia graphics card by any chance?

patent aurora
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@rare nacelle yes we’ve tried everything under the sun including resetting the entire OS.

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@wind orchid yes I have a nvidia 4090

rare nacelle
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do you have another computer you can reproduce this on?

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are you using an Intel Raptor Lake processor?

wind orchid
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I have Nvidia 4070. Technically I have Raptor Lake but it's i9-14900HX which I believe is supposed to be one of the stable ones.

patent aurora
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I have the intel i9-14900k , I cannot reproduce this issue on another system.. This is my only microsoft / windows pc. I have 2 macbooks, an xbox, and my iphone. Balatro works perfect on all of those. Only my main windows computer is suffering from the issue

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@rare nacelle

rare nacelle
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both of you have Raptor Lake processors and are experiencing the problem. can you reproduce this issue on a non-Raptor Lake processor?

wind orchid
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I don't have an answer to that because I don't have any other machines to test it on. I can confirm that Balatro is the only game/app that crashes on me, though.

rare nacelle
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if you can reproduce the problem on a non-Raptor Lake processor, then it'd be actionable

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until that happens, the only plausible explanation is... exactly that - it's Raptor Lake and unstable

wind orchid
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the Raptor Lake issues affect the K series, not HX

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and Balatro is the only app I have this issue with

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it coiuld be the combination of Balatro + Raptor Lake, but there is definitely something unique to Balatro that is not handling the error correctly

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I can't find any evidence that the HX / laptop processors have these issues so it's incorrect to brush it off as "it's Raptor Lake and unstable"

true spruce
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I have an AMD processor so not Razor Lake

rare nacelle
rare nacelle
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additionally, what generation is your AMD processor?