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Enshrouded VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST Vulkan crash (fix)

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IsThisGameDown

Last checked

October 16, 2026

r/Enshrouded — RTX 3070 repeated Enshrouded Vulkan device lost crashes ↗

Enshrouded crashes to desktop, sometimes after minutes and sometimes after an hour, with VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST or "Vulkan device lost" in the crash log. On some PCs the display also goes black and the GPU needs a reboot.

Also appears as: VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST, vkWaitForFences failed, vkWaitForFences() failed with error VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST, Vulkan device lost, enshrouded vulkan crash, enshrouded crashes after an hour, enshrouded black screen gpu crash

This is a graphics-driver or GPU crash on your PC, not a Keen Games server problem. Vulkan reports that the graphics card stopped responding, and the log lines players quote are vkWaitForFences() failed with error 'VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST' and "Failed to allocate 177 bytes… Out of Memory."

Two player threads describe it, one on Steam from February 2024 and one on r/Enshrouded from September 2026. Players there point to graphics drivers, a stale shader cache and overlay software, and one says a faulty GPU was the cause. No fix is confirmed, and Keen hasn't said anything about this error.

Keen's Hotfix 1.0.0.1 (October 15) says it fixed "several issues that could cause random crashes", so update the game first. The post doesn't mention this error.

Fix it, step by step

  1. Let Steam update Enshrouded to Hotfix 1.0.0.1 before anything else

    Let Steam finish updating Enshrouded to Hotfix 1.0.0.1 (version number 1267041). Keen's changelog lists fixes for "several issues that could cause random crashes" and "crashes caused by specific peripherals attached to the PC". It doesn't name this error, so treat it as a first check, not a fix.

  2. Update your graphics driver, then let the shaders recompile

    Update your graphics driver to the latest version and let the game recompile shaders on the next launch. This is the most repeated advice: replies in the r/Enshrouded thread give it, and in the 2024 Steam thread one player says updating drivers and clearing the shader cache gave them two crash-free days.

  3. Delete the game's shader cache folder in Steam

    Close the game and delete the folder steamapps\shadercache\1203620 in your Steam library folder, then relaunch so the shaders rebuild. This is from the 2024 Steam thread, where it was one of the changes that player made together with a driver update. The first launch will compile shaders again, which can take a while (see the compiling shaders page).

  4. Roll back to an older stable graphics driver (RTX 5080 report)

    If crashes started after a driver update, roll back to an earlier stable driver. In a separate r/Enshrouded thread about an RTX 5080 crashing to desktop with no error, a player says "rolling back drivers. Worked after", and another says changing to a stable driver let the game run beyond 20 minutes.

  5. Turn off overlays and clip recorders such as Medal (unconfirmed)

    Close or disable overlay and recording software. In the RTX 3070 thread one player says disabling Medal (a clip recorder) "worked for me", but the original poster hadn't confirmed it. The RTX 5080 thread also mentions disabling overlays.

  6. Reinstall the graphics driver cleanly with DDU (different error)

    A player in the r/Enshrouded "Can't launch game" thread, whose error was VK_ERROR_OUT_OF_DEVICE_MEMORY rather than device lost, says "Doing a gpu driver reinstall with DDU fixed it". That is a related Vulkan error, so this is worth trying only if the steps above fail.

  7. Note

    One player in the RTX 3070 thread says an RMA of a faulty GPU resolved their Enshrouded crashes. It's a single report, so don't assume hardware failure unless other games also crash or the display goes black.

    Unconfirmed

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What people are saying

Notes from players who've hit this one — no time limit, an answer from months ago is still an answer.

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