[Awakening] Cannot progress in Blackmarsh Fade, crash on path to the village

Help!! I have had no crashes whatsoever in Awakening (but used to crash a lot in Denerim) up until this point, and this crash stops me from being able to progress in Awakening. I've opened the game 10-15 times and tried again and again, even restarted my computer and tried again, but the game crashes at the exact same spot on this path, right as you try to walk past the crazy, crying woman sitting by a boat (the first apparent human you see in the Fade). Since there is no other path to get to this village area, containing the next main part of this storyline to get the hell out of the fade, I am so frustrated that I'm about ready to just look up the ending to Awakening and start to play Dragon Age 2.

I had a LOT of mods installed for Origins that didn't even transfer into Awakening, but I went in and turned them all of anyways to see if that might divert the crash. Nope. I googled and searched on forums for someone who may have had a similar crash at the same place as me, but I could find no one.

Also of note: I tried to go to "Configure" on the initial menu and see if I could search for a solution in there, but that also crashes each and every time I attempt to open it. I'm at a loss.

Please! Some kind soul help me! I beat Inquisition twice but never played the first two games of the series so I am playing through and loving them so much now! Except for this crash! Not loving this, as I would much prefer to be able to play to the ending of Awakening, not have to skip it and start DA 2!

Anonymous
10 years ago
I've found the solution to this problem.
What you need to do is click 'H' to make your party wait somewhere before that woman on the ground, and then run straight past all the enemies to the next cut-scene. After the cut-scene there will be a fight and all those enemies you ran past will join in. Once you have killed them all save your game immediately.
Then if you want you can quickly run back and grab that +1 cunning on the docks, but don't linger or it will crash. Grab it and get back to the area of the cut-scene and save again. Then go through the door into the next area and immediately save your game again.
That should be it. That's exactly what i did and i haven't had a crash since.

23 Replies

Fred_vdp
Hero+
11 years ago
@miss_khaleesie wrote:

the game crashes at the exact same spot on this path

If it's 100% reproducable, it means data corruption. (Edit: Often, not always.)

Do you have Awakening on Origin, Steam, or just the disk?

If it's on Origin, right click the game and repair the installation.
If it's on Steam, go to the game's properties and verify integrity of the game cache.
If it's the disk version, reinstall. If that fails, register your copy on Origin and get the digital download.
mbusby993
Rising Rookie
11 years ago
Are you getting this on the part of the path, right after the woman sat by the shore muttering to herself? Right before you get to the mansion.
Because if so, I'm getting a crash in the exact same place and can't work out if it's being caused by one of the mods I have active. It's irritating as I've played through this game so many times and never experienced this.
Verifying game cache now.
EDIT; Verifying game cache did not work. Allowed to progress past the bit of path where it was crashing, but then crashes 20 seconds later while fighting the enemies immediately after the path.
Anonymous
11 years ago
Did you ever get this figured out?
I'm crashing repeatedly at literally the same place. Right after several fountains of stat+, there's a lady next to a boat leading into a village that talks as you approach and pass her. I reliably crash to desktop with the "windows has encountered an error" thing either RIGHT as I start fighting in the village, or several seconds afterwards.
I'm trying to play through everything to build up a save I want for Inquisition, and according to the Dragon's Keep, there's quite a lot of decisions to make iN Awakening. I would love to actually play them rather than force the choices and watch some walkthrough.
You and I seem to be crashing at the EXACT same place. Do you remember what mods you had installed for DA:Origins? I'm trying to figure out of it is mods, if disabling them is enough, and if they need to be uninstalled and DA:origin needs to be fresh-installed, how to keep my save and info.
Anonymous
11 years ago
Another unfortunate soul to have this problem.
I also had the same problem in Origins where it would crash a lot in Denerim. I'm pretty sure it's due to a mod named ''Improved Atmosphere''. I'm gonna go uninstall it now and see if it helps and I'll report back.
Edit: Yup. After removing Improved Atmosphere, I was able to go past the woman sitting by the boat. The only problem is that now Oghren and Nathaniel are naked with no armour and Anders doesn't have a staff since the mod added items I was using. I'll probably try and keep a few of the files in Improved Atmoshere and delete the ones that affect the Awakening expansion and see if the problem persists.
Anonymous
10 years ago
I've found the solution to this problem.
What you need to do is click 'H' to make your party wait somewhere before that woman on the ground, and then run straight past all the enemies to the next cut-scene. After the cut-scene there will be a fight and all those enemies you ran past will join in. Once you have killed them all save your game immediately.
Then if you want you can quickly run back and grab that +1 cunning on the docks, but don't linger or it will crash. Grab it and get back to the area of the cut-scene and save again. Then go through the door into the next area and immediately save your game again.
That should be it. That's exactly what i did and i haven't had a crash since.
Anonymous
10 years ago
I was also having this problem today as I would get a few seconds past the crying woman, crashed and used all of the techniques here but to no avail. However I found that the mod Improved Atmosphere was the root of my problem. After I moved the whole file to another area and out of my Overide folder, My game flowed fine past that point without crashing. I'm not sure if it is the whole mod or just a few files that were causing the problem, but removing the whole thing did the trick for me. Hope this can help anyone else in the furture who has this problem and the other ways don't work.
pnutbuttajellee
10 years ago
For those that still run into this issue and are running the Improved Atmosphere mod that is causing the crash, there is a "fixpack" on the Nexus site that fixed it for me. Just copy and paste over the mod folders with the extracted fix pack folders.
Elayer45
10 years ago
Not Working ! I got the same problem when I enter further in the village of the swamp, when in the fade, My game crash. I tried a few fixes but Did not worked !
EA_David
Community Admin
10 years ago
@Elayer45 Hey, are you using the Improved Atmostphere mod that N1ttYmann mentions?

If so can you try the fix he recommends?
Elayer45
10 years ago
I managed to pass that part of the game by put the graphics lower as possible, and playing screen mod. (Sorry for my english I am not Américan so my english is bad)