Games load, but then freeze the machine, hard reset required

[martinvlk]

Tried with Proton 9.0-4 or Hotfix.
With 9.0-4 games load, but then freeze when I start gameplay.
With Hotfix the freeze happens after load, but even before starting gameplay.

Tried with Subnautica, BeamNG Drive - those do freeze.
Simpler games, such as Creaks from Amanita Design, seem to work fine.
One Man's Sky seem to work fine though, at least it didn't freeze 5-10min into gameplay.

Machine has Intel and NVidia graphics. I have tried running in both nvidia and on-demand mode, freezes happen in both.

Computer Information:

Manufacturer: LENOVO
Model: 20FL000DMC
Form Factor: Laptop
No Touch Input Detected

Processor Information:
CPU Vendor: GenuineIntel
CPU Brand: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6500U CPU @ 2.50GHz
CPU Family: 0x6
CPU Model: 0x4e
CPU Stepping: 0x3
CPU Type: 0x0
Speed: 3100 MHz
4 logical processors
2 physical processors
Hyper-threading: Supported
FCMOV: Supported
SSE2: Supported
SSE3: Supported
SSSE3: Supported
SSE4a: Unsupported
SSE41: Supported
SSE42: Supported
AES: Supported
AVX: Supported
AVX2: Supported
AVX512F: Unsupported
AVX512PF: Unsupported
AVX512ER: Unsupported
AVX512CD: Unsupported
AVX512VNNI: Unsupported
SHA: Unsupported
CMPXCHG16B: Supported
LAHF/SAHF: Supported
PrefetchW: Unsupported
BMI1: Supported
BMI2: Supported
F16C: Supported
FMA: Supported

Operating System Version:
Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS (64 bit)
Kernel Name: Linux
Kernel Version: 6.8.0-50-lowlatency
X Server Vendor: The X.Org Foundation
X Server Release: 12101011
X Window Manager: KWin
Steam Runtime Version: steam-runtime_0.20241024.105847

Client Information:
Version: 1733265492
Browser GPU Acceleration Status: Disabled
Browser Canvas: Unavailable
Browser Canvas out-of-process rasterization: Disabled
Browser Direct Rendering Display Compositor: Disabled
Browser Compositing: Disabled
Browser Multiple Raster Threads: Enabled
Browser OpenGL: Disabled
Browser Rasterization: Disabled
Browser Raw Draw: Disabled
Browser Skia Graphite: Disabled
Browser Video Decode: Disabled
Browser Video Encode: Disabled
Browser Vulkan: Disabled
Browser WebGL: Unavailable
Browser WebGL2: Unavailable
Browser WebGPU: Disabled
Browser WebNN: Disabled

Video Card:
Driver: NVIDIA Corporation Quadro M500M/PCIe/SSE2
Driver Version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 535.183.01
Desktop Color Depth: 24 bits per pixel
Monitor Refresh Rate: 60 Hz
VendorID: 0x8086
DeviceID: 0x1916
Revision Not Detected
Number of Monitors: 1
Number of Logical Video Cards: 1
Primary Display Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Desktop Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Primary Display Size: 13.54" x 7.64" (15.51" diag), 34.4cm x 19.4cm (39.4cm diag)
Primary VRAM: 2048 MB

Sound card:
Audio device: Realtek ALC293

Memory:
RAM: 31952 Mb
VR Hardware:
VR Headset: None detected

Miscellaneous:
UI Language: English
LANG: cs_CZ.UTF-8
Total Hard Disk Space Available: 933665 MB
Largest Free Hard Disk Block: 320803 MB

Storage:
Number of SSDs: 1
SSD sizes: 1000G
Number of HDDs: 0
Number of removable drives: 0

[martinvlk]

Is there a way for me to diagnose at which point specifically the freeze happens? Some debug logging or so?

[martinvlk]

After updating the NVidia driver to 4.6.0 NVIDIA 550.120, Subnautica worked fine on one test, then froze again on another test.
BeamNG.drive gets further and I am able to actually start the game, but before everything renders, it frezes again.

[SeemsToHaveLotsOfProblems]

Edit: Quick edit to mention that I was playing Palworld. This also happened to my on TCG Card shop simulator. So it's not just happening on one game.

---

I experience the same bug, however I've found that alt-tabing out will run the game in the background, and alt-tabing back will freeze the game again.

I believe proton has a bug where whatever variable they use to track if the game is the active window is accidentally reversed somehow during gameplay.

Here's my own system specs.

Computer Information:
Manufacturer: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd.
Model: MS-1584
Form Factor: Laptop
No Touch Input Detected
Processor Information:
CPU Vendor: GenuineIntel
CPU Brand: 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-12650H
CPU Family: 0x6
CPU Model: 0x9a
CPU Stepping: 0x3
CPU Type: 0x0
Speed: 4600 MHz
16 logical processors
10 physical processors
Hyper-threading: Supported
FCMOV: Supported
SSE2: Supported
SSE3: Supported
SSSE3: Supported
SSE4a: Unsupported
SSE41: Supported
SSE42: Supported
AES: Supported
AVX: Supported
AVX2: Supported
AVX512F: Unsupported
AVX512PF: Unsupported
AVX512ER: Unsupported
AVX512CD: Unsupported
AVX512VNNI: Unsupported
SHA: Supported
CMPXCHG16B: Supported
LAHF/SAHF: Supported
PrefetchW: Unsupported
BMI1: Supported
BMI2: Supported
F16C: Supported
FMA: Supported
Operating System Version:
"Arch Linux" (64 bit)
Kernel Name: Linux
Kernel Version: 6.12.4-arch1-1
X Server Vendor: The X.Org Foundation
X Server Release: 12101015
X Window Manager: Mutter (Muffin)
Steam Runtime Version: steam-runtime_0.20241024.105847
Client Information:
Version: 1733265492
Browser GPU Acceleration Status: Enabled
Browser Canvas: Enabled
Browser Canvas out-of-process rasterization: Enabled
Browser Direct Rendering Display Compositor: Disabled
Browser Compositing: Enabled
Browser Multiple Raster Threads: Enabled
Browser OpenGL: Enabled
Browser Rasterization: Enabled
Browser Raw Draw: Disabled
Browser Skia Graphite: Disabled
Browser Video Decode: Enabled
Browser Video Encode: Disabled
Browser Vulkan: Disabled
Browser WebGL: Enabled
Browser WebGL2: Enabled
Browser WebGPU: Disabled
Browser WebNN: Disabled
Video Card:
Driver: Intel Mesa Intel(R) Graphics (ADL GT2)
Driver Version: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 24.3.1-arch1.3
Desktop Color Depth: 24 bits per pixel
Monitor Refresh Rate: 144 Hz
VendorID: 0x8086
DeviceID: 0x46a3
Revision Not Detected
Number of Monitors: 1
Number of Logical Video Cards: 1
Primary Display Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Desktop Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Primary Display Size: 13.54" x 7.60" (15.51" diag), 34.4cm x 19.3cm (39.4cm diag)
Primary VRAM Not Detected
Sound card:
Audio device: Realtek ALC256
Memory:
RAM: 15691 Mb
VR Hardware:
VR Headset: None detected
Miscellaneous:
UI Language: English
LANG: en_US.UTF-8
Total Hard Disk Space Available: 487873 MB
Largest Free Hard Disk Block: 143319 MB
Storage:
Number of SSDs: 1
SSD sizes: 0B
Number of HDDs: 0
Number of removable drives: 0

[martinvlk]

Let me just point out that in my case Alt+Tab won't work, neither will Ctrl+Alt+F* to switch virtual terminal - the machine is completely frozen.

[machinedgod]

Experiencing same issue with most resource-intensive games.

To save you a tldr if you're looking for solution - I have none, I just tried a lot of things that I documented below.

I've managed to get the system into "frozen-but-not-quite-frozen" state by re-niceing the process to 19 and then running until it froze (Cyberpunk 2077, btw).
When it froze, it took over 29 cores (out of 32) and pushed them to 100%, leaving 3 of them running so I was able to open the console and investigate a bit.

Turns out, process is stuck inside kernel, on a syscall: kill -9 does nothing. It would execute and return the prompt but after checking the top and htop, process was still there. After a bit of research, turns out that kill -9 will always kill the process, just not right away if you don't own the process or, as said, process is stuck on a syscall. I tried to sudo the kill - which blocked the terminal (it allowed me to open the second one).
I tried systemctl reboot, which also got stuck doing nothing, still allowing me to open another terminal.

Finally, a suspicion arose when I tried to run btop, which is patched to also show GPU data - it drew the frames, but not any of the stats. Since top and htop ran, I started to wonder whether the error had to do with the GPU. I also noticed that anything involving network (eg. discord) was stuck on no connection, and I think btop simply queries /dev or /sys or /proc for information, so I am pretty sure the syscall has to do with filesystem IO.

I've tried sudo strace but that got stuck doing nothing.
Attaching the gdb also got stuck doing nothing.
Switching to a different TTY also doesn't work - I haven't tried it this time around because I know it freezes my machine up for good.

Finally - no sysrq give any response - except reboot.

I've checked /proc/<pid>/fd,it had about 40 files opened, but I don't know how to investigate this more closely so I didn't at the time.

Other things I tried to get some more info:

1. previous Proton versions - 7.06, 8.05, 9.04, and also 6.21-GE, all exhibiting same behaviour.
2. Since I'm running Arch, I've also tried running steam-native rather than steam-runtime (forcing it to use my system libraries) - same behaviour.
3. I tested Steam Beta client, and I tested disabling HW acceleration in Steam Client and closing every other piece of software which may need GPU accel. Same behaviour.
4. Tried PROTON_NO_ESYNC and PROTON_NO_FSYNC flags (might not have anything to do with it, but quickly reading this mentions eventfd and file IO right there in the first paragraph)
5. Finally, I tested freshest kernel my distro gives me (6.12) and LTS (6.6). Same behaviour.

What I personally find curious, is that I expected to tie the malfunction to a standard game engine (ie. "All UE games" or "All Unity games"), but turns out that a homebrewed beast such as REDEngine causes the same issue. I've tested some heavier Unity titles and some UE titles - and they all do this, so... yeah... tldr - I got no clue what is going on.

P.S. @SeemsToHaveLotsOfProblems Hey, do you legit run your games on Intel GPU, or you're using Primus or something to offload to Nvidia? I'm asking because I studied both of your hardware specs and I thought I can write it off to nvidia driver issue (since both me and @martinvlk use nvidia), but if you're using Intel/Mesa - then that's yet another dead end.

Hardware:

Computer Information:
Manufacturer: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
Model: ROG STRIX Z790-E GAMING WIFI
Form Factor: Desktop
No Touch Input Detected
Processor Information:
CPU Vendor: GenuineIntel
CPU Brand: Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-14900K
CPU Family: 0x6
CPU Model: 0xb7
CPU Stepping: 0x1
CPU Type: 0x0
Speed: 5700 MHz
32 logical processors
24 physical processors
Hyper-threading: Supported
FCMOV: Supported
SSE2: Supported
SSE3: Supported
SSSE3: Supported
SSE4a: Unsupported
SSE41: Supported
SSE42: Supported
AES: Supported
AVX: Supported
AVX2: Supported
AVX512F: Unsupported
AVX512PF: Unsupported
AVX512ER: Unsupported
AVX512CD: Unsupported
AVX512VNNI: Unsupported
SHA: Supported
CMPXCHG16B: Supported
LAHF/SAHF: Supported
PrefetchW: Unsupported
BMI1: Supported
BMI2: Supported
F16C: Supported
FMA: Supported
Operating System Version:
"Arch Linux" (64 bit)
Kernel Name: Linux
Kernel Version: 6.6.68-1-lts
X Server Vendor: The X.Org Foundation
X Server Release: 12101015
X Window Manager: LG3D   (this is a lie told by  my WM to fool some other apps, its actually XMonad)
Steam Runtime Version: steam-runtime_0.20241024.105847
Client Information:
Version: 1733265492
Browser GPU Acceleration Status: Disabled
Browser Canvas: Unavailable
Browser Canvas out-of-process rasterization: Disabled
Browser Direct Rendering Display Compositor: Disabled
Browser Compositing: Disabled
Browser Multiple Raster Threads: Enabled
Browser OpenGL: Disabled
Browser Rasterization: Disabled
Browser Raw Draw: Disabled
Browser Skia Graphite: Disabled
Browser Video Decode: Disabled
Browser Video Encode: Disabled
Browser Vulkan: Disabled
Browser WebGL: Unavailable
Browser WebGL2: Unavailable
Browser WebGPU: Disabled
Browser WebNN: Disabled
Video Card:
Driver: NVIDIA Corporation NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070/PCIe/SSE2
Driver Version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 565.77
Desktop Color Depth: 24 bits per pixel
Monitor Refresh Rate: 60 Hz
VendorID: 0x10de
DeviceID: 0x2786
Revision Not Detected
Number of Monitors: 2
Number of Logical Video Cards: 1
Primary Display Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Desktop Resolution: 3840 x 1080
Primary Display Size: 23.54" x 13.23" (26.97" diag), 59.8cm x 33.6cm (68.5cm diag)
Primary Bus: PCI Express 16x
Primary VRAM: 12282 MB
Supported MSAA Modes: 2x 4x 8x 16x
Sound card:
Audio device: %1$s
Memory:
RAM: 64038 Mb
VR Hardware:
VR Headset: None detected  (that's wrong, I got Valve Index connected, just powered off)
Miscellaneous:
UI Language: English
LANG: en_US.UTF-8
Total Hard Disk Space Available: 704454 MB
Largest Free Hard Disk Block: 111921 MB
Storage:
Number of SSDs: 3
SSD sizes: 1024G,0B,0B
Number of HDDs: 0
Number of removable drives: 0