Playing as the host in a local co-op server (with or without other players) for more than a few hours and then attempting to exit still breaks the operating system to the point where a hard reset is often required. This is only a problem after attempting to exit.
The memory leak the game seems to have slowly causes it to run worse and worse until eventually needing to be restarted. At this point simply exiting will close the window but the Palworld-Win64-Shipping.exe binary remains open, often consuming a tremendous amount of resources. Windows explorer and task manager become unusable and eventually the entire system just freezes, if left running. Process Explorer still works when Task Manager is broken but attempting to force close it (or the thread it's stuck on) throws an "Access Denied" error, I assume because the thread is just locked at that point.
Attempting to exit via Steam or by manually killing the process is not a solution. Occasionally I've been able to force close it using powershell or task manager while it's still running but this rarely works. I've tried disabling Steam cloud and various other suggestions thrown around online but haven't found anything reliable. At a certain point there doesn't seem to be any way to keep it from crashing Windows.
This has been discussed since day one and frankly, it's a bit ridiculous that it's still a repeatable problem:
Reddit: Palworld does not close, then freezes my entire PC
Reddit: Palworld not closing on Steam
Steam: Game wont close. PC frozen.
I realize this is early access and many the game's issues are understandable but not being able to close it without resetting the entire system just shouldn't be happening 8+ months after initial release and I haven't seen any indication this is a priority.
If anyone has found an actual solution other than restarting the world every few hours I'd appreciate it.
I've already submitted a bug report and am happy to include more details but I assume you already know why this is happening.
Side Note: I have a suspicion the ice 'smoke' particle effect from cooling pals inside bases may be contributing to some of the issues over time. When the server starts to get choppy, going near an active cooling pal often causes the framerate to plummet to single digits, regardless of the effects quality. Resetting them with the Palbox temporarily fixes this every time. The longer the server has been running the less this helps but it's always a short-term improvement. This also seems to temporarily help the stuttering when transitioning from day to night (another common complaint).
There have even been times I've looked across the entire world map to a base in the distance and can see what appears to be the ice cloud effect accumulating where the pal would be which should obviously not be happening.
The memory leak the game seems to have slowly causes it to run worse and worse until eventually needing to be restarted. At this point simply exiting will close the window but the Palworld-Win64-Shipping.exe binary remains open, often consuming a tremendous amount of resources. Windows explorer and task manager become unusable and eventually the entire system just freezes, if left running. Process Explorer still works when Task Manager is broken but attempting to force close it (or the thread it's stuck on) throws an "Access Denied" error, I assume because the thread is just locked at that point.
Attempting to exit via Steam or by manually killing the process is not a solution. Occasionally I've been able to force close it using powershell or task manager while it's still running but this rarely works. I've tried disabling Steam cloud and various other suggestions thrown around online but haven't found anything reliable. At a certain point there doesn't seem to be any way to keep it from crashing Windows.
This has been discussed since day one and frankly, it's a bit ridiculous that it's still a repeatable problem:
Reddit: Palworld does not close, then freezes my entire PC
Reddit: Palworld not closing on Steam
Steam: Game wont close. PC frozen.
I realize this is early access and many the game's issues are understandable but not being able to close it without resetting the entire system just shouldn't be happening 8+ months after initial release and I haven't seen any indication this is a priority.
If anyone has found an actual solution other than restarting the world every few hours I'd appreciate it.
I've already submitted a bug report and am happy to include more details but I assume you already know why this is happening.
Side Note: I have a suspicion the ice 'smoke' particle effect from cooling pals inside bases may be contributing to some of the issues over time. When the server starts to get choppy, going near an active cooling pal often causes the framerate to plummet to single digits, regardless of the effects quality. Resetting them with the Palbox temporarily fixes this every time. The longer the server has been running the less this helps but it's always a short-term improvement. This also seems to temporarily help the stuttering when transitioning from day to night (another common complaint).
There have even been times I've looked across the entire world map to a base in the distance and can see what appears to be the ice cloud effect accumulating where the pal would be which should obviously not be happening.