#Disabling BT headphones crash/lock COTW (Win10/Steam)

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distant spoke
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BT audio is crashing the game for me if it's turned off in game.

I'm posting here if you have an issue with game suddenly crash at startup or crash in gameplay, it may be that BT headphones have to be connected for COTW to start again. Try starting game normally with last used BT headphones and if it starts OK then exit normally and then disconnect the BT audio. Now COTW should start normally again and you can use any other audio output.

You can also test this by turning off the BT headset in game (after you have saved the current progress by traveling to a tent or outpost) to see if COTW/Win handles switching audio output safely. Before you start testing crashes, do make a copy of your local Avalanche game save folder just to be safe.

If the game crashes you can (most of the times, not always) press ALT+TAB to switch windows and close the COTW crash sender and the game exits. If the monitor is just black and you can't close the crash sender window then press CTRL+ALT+DEL and select Task Manager, now you use ALT+TAB there should be "x" on the windows and you can close the crash sender and COTW window. If that doesn't work select Log Out instead of Task Manager.

I'm not certain if it is COTW or Windows or BT drivers that crashes the game and if it's COTW or the crash sender client that locks the system. All I know is that after every update of COTW this issue is removed or back again so I suspect COTW and reinstalling COTW (Steam version) does not help.

If you have the same issue please send error report in Zendesk together with your PC and BT-audio setup. This is an old issue and I have reported technical details in Zendesk last year and the year before and verified this issue with at least one other user on Windows 10 and Windows 11.

fiery nebula
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I had this issue when I first bought the game.
If the bluetooth was not connected when the game started, it would often lock up with a black screen if I tried to connect bt after the game was loading.

I was using a bluetooth 4.0 USB dongle with my headset. If the headset was not connected when I started the game and I tried to connect I would get black screen & lockup. Another player told me how to bypass the issue - make sure your bt headset is connected before you start your game and don't try to connect /reconnect in game.

Since installing a pcie card for wireless / Bluetooth, it has not been an issue.

PCIE is not expenaive, but most are powered by plugging into the USB 2.0 interface on the MOBO, so if you only have one, you will (usually) have to disconnect any front panel USB 2 ports. There are other workarounds, but you'll have to research it yourself, I'm not going to try to explain it all here.

distant spoke
fiery nebula
# distant spoke That's interesting! Then it could be something with how a BT dongle over USB beh...

Perhaps so, but unless the devs put together a rig that duplicates the issue, they may not be able to track it down. As a general rule, software devs will only put time into problems that are widespread and / or universal. They can't realistically be expected to root out every single peccadillo of every machine on the market. PC's are like any other machine. Even two essentially identical ones can have individual idiosyncrasies. Like two identical models of Automobiles coming iff the same assembly line - one can be great, the other a lemon.

distant spoke
# fiery nebula Perhaps so, but unless the devs put together a rig that duplicates the issue, th...

I liked you analogy with a lemon car. True, no dev would spend valuable time on fixing an obscure issue with too little information, unless more users experience the same issue and there is some common root to the problem that can be fixed. That's what I'm hoping with this post. New bugs and crashes happens anyway in this game after every update, you live with it but quite frankly I ragequitted several times from severe bugs but always come back when the Wild is calling us back with a new update. The game is beautiful.

fiery nebula
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I can honestly say I rarely have any bugs of a serious nature. I hit the occasional mission bug or issues with things like population resets ruining my favorite hunting spots, but nothing game-breaking. Most updates have been pretty seamless for me. I used quality parts, so my PC is very stable.