Game freezes on first launch after boot and crashes after ~5–6 minutes (Access Violation)

[ladnoyanehotel]

Every first launch of the game after turning on the computer results in a freeze after 5–6 minutes of gameplay. The issue occurs at random moments. The sound continues playing, but the screen freezes completely. During the freeze, the Steam overlay cannot be opened. The game remains unresponsive for up to 1 minute and then closes itself.

The issue occurs only on the first launch after system boot. Subsequent launches work normally without any problems.

Repro Rate:
Always (on first launch after PC boot)

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Turn on the PC
2. Launch the game via Steam
3. Start a match
4. Play for 5–6 minutes
5. Observe freeze → game closes

Expected Result:
The game runs normally without freezing or crashing.

Actual Result:
The game freezes (image stuck, sound continues), then closes after ~1 minute.

System Information:
- OS: Windows 10/11
- CPU: Intel i5-12500H
- GPU: NVIDIA RTX 3060 Laptop
- RAM: 16 GB
- Graphics API: DX11
- GPU Driver: 32.0.15.9597
- Windows Game DVR: Enabled
- Windows Game Mode: Active

Additional Information:
- Windows Event Viewer logs Event ID 1002 (Application Hang) for deadlock.exe
- No Event ID 1000 (Application Error) is recorded

Crash dump analysis shows:
- Exception: 0xc0000005 (Access Violation)
- Type: INVALID_POINTER_READ (null pointer dereference)
- Faulting module: client.dll

The crash is caused by an attempt to read from a null address (0x0000000000000000).

This behavior suggests a possible initialization issue or race condition in the client code, potentially triggered during early runtime.

Attachments:
- Video demonstrating the issue
- Crash dump file (.mdmp) [Google Drive link]
- Crash analysis output (.txt)

 

[Motorrecon]

Seconding. This happens to me too, I made another post about it just now before I saw yours.

 

[basiloswin]

yes this happens to me as well. no steam crash logs generated .

 

[arsh.waseem1]

you might want to try clearing the shadercache

Steam > Settings > Downloads >Uncheck (Enable Pre Shader Caching)

fixed it for me

 

[banilla]

you might want to try clearing the shadercache

Steam > Settings > Downloads >Uncheck (Enable Pre Shader Caching)

fixed it for me

Gonna try this out tomorrow hopefully

 

[arsh.waseem1]

Gonna try this out tomorrow hopefully

Hope it helps

 

[banilla]

you might want to try clearing the shadercache

Steam > Settings > Downloads >Uncheck (Enable Pre Shader Caching)

fixed it for me

I hesitate to say for certain, but I had the issue pop up after a couple games, for a couple games. Same as before too.

Tried clearing the shader cache like you said, and I think it fixed it? next 2 games were zero hitches whatsoever.

You may well have found a solution to this problem that's been plaguing myself & others on and off for months.

 

[arsh.waseem1]

I hesitate to say for certain, but I had the issue pop up after a couple games, for a couple games. Same as before too. View attachment 101882

Tried clearing the shader cache like you said, and I think it fixed it? next 2 games were zero hitches whatsoever.

You may well have found a solution to this problem that's been plaguing myself & others on and off for months.

let's hope that is the case we can only see

 

[banilla]

nope lmao

 

[arsh.waseem1]

nope lmao

unfortunate, for me it was at the point where the game wouldn't even launch so there's that, can you tell me if you're using dx11 or vulkan?

 

[banilla]

unfortunate, for me it was at the point where the game wouldn't even launch so there's that, can you tell me if you're using dx11 or vulkan?

Vulkan, but dx11 is the same.

 

[arsh.waseem1]

Vulkan, but dx11 is the same.

I see, you could try one last thing because I still feel like this is caused by shader compilation issues, wherever deadlock is installed in the steamapps folder there will be a shadercache folder. In that try deleting the 1422450 folder. just want to see if that can do anything

 

[aime_e]

Vulkan, but dx11 is the same.

Hiya. I've seen a possible solution for Access Violation errors in another thread:

Link to post

this has been happening to my friend with a similar cpu, what he did was throttle the cpu to under 5ghz and the game hasn't crashed in a couple days. it seems to be something with source 2, if you can run cs2 and cant run deadlock then this isnt a fix, but if cs2 crashes as well it will be a source 2 issue. if you try and put low power mode on through power management settings and the game opens and wont crash then your cpu being over 5.0 ghz causes a "accessviolation" crash dump.

So you may want to try limiting CPU power or using Low Power Mode.

Personally, I had crashing but no Access Violation errors. What fixed it for me was updating my BIOS and forcing DirectX11 by using "-dx11" in Deadlock's launch options. (I also frame limited to 90FPS, but I'm not sure that did anything). I assume my issue was completely different, as I was crashing multiple times every single game, but it doesn't hurt to throw that out there just in case.

I hope one of these solutions works for you!

(For reference, I have an i9 and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Super. The Intel CPU/NVIDIA RTX GPU combo seems to have some issues with Deadlock, because multiple people are posting issues with the same lineup. Or maybe it's just that common of a PC build combo, idk.)