Hello again,
I wanted to provide another update after the latest game update.
Last week, after rolling back my Radeon driver to WHQL 25.9.1, the game became mostly playable again. I was able to play for several hours at a time, complete my weekly challenges, and generally enjoy the game. I still experienced one isolated crash after roughly 4 hours of gameplay, but considering how severe the issue had been before, I was satisfied and considered it a major improvement.
For reference, Battlefield 6 had been running perfectly on this exact system since December. I completed two full seasons without a single crash, freeze, or stability issue. The problems only started after the Season 3 update.
In fact, as recently as yesterday, I was able to play for a little over 2.5 hours without a single freeze, crash, or stability issue. The game was not perfect, but it was stable enough to play normally and complete matches.
Unfortunately, after today's content update, the issue appears to have returned in full force. The problems came back immediately after the update and are now occurring before I can even consistently reach a match.
The game is now once again practically unplayable. I am no longer even reaching actual matches consistently. The freezes are occurring in the menus while selecting classes or preparing to join a game. Before the freeze happens, I often notice packet loss indicators appearing on screen, exactly like during the original Season 3 issues.
Previously, most of these crashes resulted in a complete system freeze that required a manual reset. This time, however, Windows automatically rebooted the PC, which allowed me to collect diagnostic information.
I checked Event Viewer and found that Windows registered a BugCheck event instead of a simple hard lock.
I then analyzed the generated minidump using WinDbg and obtained the following information:
BugCheck: 0x133 (DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION)
DPC_TIMEOUT_TYPE: DPC_QUEUE_EXECUTION_TIMEOUT_EXCEEDED
PROCESS_NAME: System
MODULE_NAME: nt
IMAGE_NAME: ntkrnlmp.exe
FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: 0x133_ISR_nt!KeAccumulateTicks
Windows also reported:
"The DPC watchdog detected a prolonged run time at an IRQL of DISPATCH_LEVEL or above."
The crash dump does not appear to point to a specific hardware fault. I found no indication of a WHEA error, CPU error, memory error, cache hierarchy error, or any other hardware-related failure. The system instead recorded a DPC Watchdog timeout occurring at kernel level.
Current system:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
GPU: Radeon RX 7800 XT 16GB
RAM: 32GB
Motherboard: Gigabyte B650 AORUS ELITE AX ICE
BIOS: F40
Operating System: Windows 10 Pro 22H2
Radeon Driver: WHQL 25.9.1
Troubleshooting already attempted:
-BIOS updated to F40
-AMD chipset drivers updated
-DDU clean driver reinstall
-Rollback to Radeon WHQL 25.9.1
-EA AntiCheat completely removed and reinstalled
-DISM /RestoreHealth
-SFC /Scannow
-Game file verification
-iGPU testing
-Multiple driver versions tested
At this point the timeline is difficult to ignore:
-Battlefield 6 worked perfectly from December until Season 3.
-Season 3 introduced the freezing issue.
-Rolling back to Radeon WHQL 25.9.1 significantly improved stability and allowed several hours of gameplay.
-Yesterday I was still able to play for over 2.5 hours without issues.
-Today's content update appears to have brought the problem back in full force.
If any developers, moderators, or affected users would like additional information about my system, logs, crash data, or testing process, feel free to ask. I will continue monitoring the issue and will report any new findings here.
Quick update:
After all the testing I've been doing, I decided to try something very simple: I completely reinstalled the game.
So far, this has been the only change I made recently.
Since reinstalling Battlefield 6, I have been able to play multiple matches yesterday and again today without any freezes, crashes, or system reboots.
It's still too early for me to declare the issue fully resolved, especially considering how inconsistent this problem has been, but the difference is significant enough that I wanted to report it here.
At the moment, the game is behaving normally again. I'll continue testing over the next few days and will update this thread if anything changes.
Current setup remains the same as previously reported, including Radeon Adrenalin 25.9.1 and BIOS F40.
Hopefully this information helps others and maybe provides another clue as to what is actually causing these freezes.
Community ManagerMurderOne1986 Thanks for the update. The reinstall help is interesting, since you had already gone through BIOS updates, driver rollbacks, Anti-Cheat reinstalls, system file checks, and other troubleshooting. The fact that the crashes were happening in menus and class selection before matches, then stopped after a full reinstall, is a useful data point for anyone else seeing similar behavior after the recent updates.
Since you've already covered most of the common troubleshooting, a couple of things worth checking if the issue returns are whether the EA App cache has been cleared recently, and whether the Battlefield 6 shader cache gets rebuilt after the reinstall. I am curious whether something like temp files is getting corrupted and stuck in the folders, not getting deleted.
We've also seen reports of players' stability improving after a clean reinstall, because corrupted or outdated game files survived previous patching but were removed during the full reinstall. If things remain stable over the next few days, do you happen to know roughly how many matches or hours you've played since reinstalling? Also, are you seeing the packet-loss indicators at all anymore, or have they disappeared along with the freezes?
Thanks for the follow-up EA_Shepard ! 😃
To answer your questions, according to AMD Adrenalin I accumulated roughly 24 hours of Battlefield 6 gameplay after the full reinstall. During that period, the game was dramatically more stable than before. I was able to complete multiple sessions, including several lasting multiple hours. Prior to the reinstall, I was often freezing within minutes, sometimes even in the menus before reaching a match.
Regarding the packet-loss indicators, they appeared to be gone together with the freezes. During the period after the reinstall, I do not recall seeing the packet-loss warnings that had become a common warning sign before a crash.
This is why the reinstall caught my attention. The system, drivers, BIOS, and hardware remained the same. The only significant change was the game reinstall itself.
However, I do have one additional observation that may be relevant.
Last Saturday, after several hours of normal gameplay with a friend, I exited the game as I normally would. I left the PC running, stepped out for about 20 minutes to buy cigarettes, came back, had a smoke, and then launched Battlefield 6 again. I had not rebooted the PC, changed any settings, installed anything, updated anything, or modified my setup in any way.
The very next launch resulted in the exact same freeze behavior that I had been experiencing before.
That is one of the reasons I am wondering whether some kind of temporary file, cache, shader cache, EA App cache, or other data generated while closing or reopening the game may be involved. From my perspective, nothing else changed during those 20 minutes.
For reference, Battlefield 6 worked perfectly on this system from December until Season 3. The issues only started after the Season 3 update.
I will continue monitoring the situation and reporting any additional findings
A quick update, because your comment about the EA App cache may have been onto something.
After reading your reply, I used the EA App recovery option and cleared the application's cache. I did not change anything else on the system. No driver changes, no BIOS changes, no Windows changes, and no Anti-Cheat reinstall.
Immediately after clearing the EA App cache, I launched Battlefield 6 and was able to complete two matches without any issues. The first was already in progress when I joined, and the second was a full match lasting approximately 17 minutes. During both matches, the game was completely stable.
Most importantly, I did not see the packet-loss indicators that had previously become a common warning sign before freezes and crashes.
This obviously does not prove that the issue is solved, and I need more testing before drawing conclusions. However, considering that I had already experienced the return of the freezing problem after a period of stability, the timing is interesting enough that I wanted to report it.
As a reminder, after the full game reinstall I accumulated roughly 24 hours of gameplay with greatly improved stability. The issue then returned after I exited the game normally, left my PC running for about 20 minutes, and launched the game again without changing anything on my system. That behavior made me suspect that some type of temporary data, cache, or generated files might be involved.
For now, I will continue testing and monitoring the situation. If the game remains stable after clearing the EA App cache, that may provide another useful clue toward identifying the root cause and helping other affected players.
Thanks again for taking the time to look into this.
Community ManagerSounds about right and something i considered. That is why we ask for the crash dump files and to check the WER, one may have something the other does not but if it is a temp file being created, that would be something we need to see in logs. It's good info though for sure and something we can certainly pass along.
I really appreciate you testing this out. It does help a lot and others can test it out if they like and see if they get the same or find something that was overlooked.
