Path of Exile 2 crashes when changing areas: causes and fixes
Written by
Last checked
September 23, 2026
The client freezes or the whole PC hard-locks a moment after entering a new zone or portaling to town, sometimes with CPU usage spiking and audio cutting out or looping right before the freeze.
Also appears as: poe2 crashes when changing areas, path of exile 2 crash zone transition, poe2 freezes entering new area, game freezes when changing locations poe2, poe2 crash on zone change
This is a separate, longer-running issue from the specific "Deadlock Detected" crash covered on its own page — the official bug-report thread for this one predates that popup and describes a silent freeze or full-system lockup rather than a named error dialog. GGG has not published a confirmed cause; the thread stayed open with no staff reply across multiple patches, affecting both PC and PS5 players. Reports correlate loosely with controller input for some players and not at all for others, so that isn't a confirmed trigger either. If what you're seeing does show a "Deadlock Detected" popup specifically rather than a silent freeze, see [that page](/path-of-exile-2/errors/deadlock-detected/) instead — it has a partial, GGG-confirmed fix for one trigger.
What to try
- 01Try switching renderer under Options > Graphics between DX12, DX11 and Vulkan. Players in the official bug thread and elsewhere report one of the alternates stopping the crash, though which one works varies by system.Reported
- 02Cap your framerate instead of running uncapped, particularly during loading — some reports tie the hard-locks to uncapped FPS during the zone-load transition specifically.Unconfirmed
- 03Adjust the game process's CPU core affinity in Task Manager (uncheck a couple of cores, apply). One reporting player says this stopped full PC freezes, though crashes still occurred in a milder form afterward.Reported
- 04Verify your game files through Steam's properties menu to rule out a corrupted install before assuming this is the same unresolved issue.Unconfirmed
Did this fix it for you?
Your answer helps the next player know whether these steps are worth trying first.
What people are saying
Notes from players who've hit this one — no time limit, an answer from months ago is still an answer. Say where you are and what you see on screen.
No links. Anonymous, no account. Keep it about the game.
- Nothing reported here yet.