{"rewrite":{"id":"r_c448fb92c6029433f8560b3d","clusterId":"c_e05407d718d59cff01bd38f5","slug":"path-of-exile-2-freeze-bug-finally-fixed-after-year-long-hunt","model":"deepseek-v4-flash:free","headline":"Path of Exile 2 Freeze Bug Finally Fixed After Year-Long Hunt","summary":"Path of Exile 2 director Jonathan Rogers reported on July 30 that two long-standing technical issues have been dramatically improved. The 'Device Removed' bug, which froze gameplay when the graphics driver crashed, has been traced to specific NVIDIA drivers. A new driver plus patch 0.5.4e resolves it, and shader compile times are also being reduced.","whyItMatters":"The fix ends a roughly year-and-a-half investigation that required the developers to build a dedicated replay system and ship a full test PC setup to NVIDIA before the driver vendor assigned an engineer.","webCardHtml":"\u003cp\u003eThe \u0026#39;Device Removed\u0026#39; bug had been reported since the early access launch on December 7, 2024, but was hard to reproduce. The team added debug info and found it only affected users on NVIDIA\u0026#39;s GeForce Game Ready driver 566.36 or later. NVIDIA would not respond without a reliable reproduction, so the developers made random engine changes, played for hours, and built a custom replay system to force crashes.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOnce they could reproduce it consistently, they sent the test PC, monitor, mouse, and keyboard to NVIDIA, which then assigned a driver engineer. The cause was an internal value called shader heap size. Increasing it stopped the crashes, and the new GeForce Game Ready driver 610.88 includes a setting for the game. Combined with patch 0.5.4e, the improvement is dramatic.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe same driver version had also removed a feature that auto-deleted old unused shaders, causing longer load times and missing objects. The team reduced shader sizes to lower the risk. Rogers said engine programmers can now return to normal optimization work, and the team opened champagne to celebrate.\u003c/p\u003e","blueskyPost":"Jonathan Rogers traced Path of Exile 2's Device Removed bug to specific NVIDIA drivers, and the fix is in patch 0.5.4e. The real work was the replay system, built to catch a crash that only reproduced intermittently.","twitterPost":"Path of Exile 2's freeze bug was a driver crash. Jonathan Rogers built a replay system to catch it, and the fix is now in patch 0.5.4e.","threadsPost":"Path of Exile 2's Device Removed bug turned out to be a graphics driver crash, traced to specific NVIDIA drivers. Jonathan Rogers built a dedicated replay system to catch it, and patch 0.5.4e plus a driver update resolves it. The replay system is the part that shows how much effort this took.","newsletterBlurb":"Path of Exile 2's 'Device Removed' freeze bug is finally fixed. The devs traced it to a shader heap size issue in specific NVIDIA drivers, built a replay system to reproduce it, and shipped a full PC to NVIDIA. Driver 610.88 plus patch 0.5.4e brings dramatic improvement.","attributionJson":"[{\"source\":\"Automaton\",\"url\":\"https://automaton-media.com/articles/newsjp/20260731-457615/\",\"title\":\"『Path of Exile 2』長らく原因不明だった「フリーズバグ」がついに解決。\\\"専用リプレイシステム\\\"まで作る執念の調査が実り、一斉祝福ムード\"}]","lintFlagsJson":null,"lintHits":0,"costUsd":0,"inputTokens":5452,"outputTokens":705,"status":"published","repairAttempts":0,"nextRepairAt":null,"factsAttemptedAt":1786121629,"createdAt":"2026-08-07T16:37:59.000Z","publishedAt":"2026-08-07T16:51:44.000Z","updatedAt":"2026-08-07T16:37:59.000Z"},"cluster":{"id":"c_e05407d718d59cff01bd38f5","canonicalTitle":"『Path of Exile 2』長らく原因不明だった「フリーズバグ」がついに解決。“専用リプレイシステム”まで作る執念の調査が実り、一斉祝福ムード","representativeArticleId":"a_68e8f25a8f2da6c2e1f797a0","sourceCount":1,"writtenSourceCount":1,"writeAttempts":0,"isSolo":true,"entitiesJson":"{\"anime_titles\":[],\"manga_titles\":[],\"work_titles\":[\"Path of Exile 2\"],\"studios\":[],\"people\":[\"Jonathan Rogers\"],\"type\":\"news\",\"domain\":\"games\",\"is_roundup\":false}","contentType":"news","status":"published","firstSeenAt":"2026-07-31T07:17:59.000Z","lastSeenAt":"2026-07-31T07:17:59.000Z","updatedAt":"2026-08-07T16:51:44.000Z"},"attribution":[{"source":"Automaton","url":"https://automaton-media.com/articles/newsjp/20260731-457615/","title":"『Path of Exile 2』長らく原因不明だった「フリーズバグ」がついに解決。“専用リプレイシステム”まで作る執念の調査が実り、一斉祝福ムード"}],"entities":{"anime_titles":[],"manga_titles":[],"work_titles":["Path of Exile 2"],"studios":[],"people":["Jonathan Rogers"],"type":"news","domain":"games","is_roundup":false},"keyFacts":null}