Darktide Crash: Resource Unload Error When Player Disconnects Mid-Mission (PackageManager refcount violation)

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Bugs
1

Issue Type (Required):

Other

Issue Description (Required):

Game Version: 1.10.0-b620009 (Patch 1.10.x)
Platform: PC (Steam) - Linux/Proton
Crash Type: Lua Error - Resource Management Failure

The game crashes to desktop when attempting to unload weapon particle effect resources after a player disconnects during an active mission. The crash occurs in the Package Manager when it tries to free a resource (content/fx/particles/weapons/rifles/lasgun/lasgun_chargefull) that is still actively referenced by the game engine (refcount: 38).

Error Message:
scripts/foundation/managers/package/package_manager.lua:502:
Trying to unload resource #ID[a0f12764d4f6b1ec].#ID[a8193123526fad64]
that’s used elsewhere by the engine, refcount: 38

Session Details:

  • Mission: Operation No Man’s Land (op_no_mans_land)
  • Difficulty: Auric Maelstrom (Challenge 5, Resistance 5)
  • Circumstance: Waves of Specials - More Resistance
  • Players: 4-player mission, crash occurred when 3rd player disconnected at timestamp 00:28:07
  • Mission Progress: Approximately 8 minutes into active combat phase

Modded Status: Yes

I’d also add that this happened twice in a row for me with the identical setup. Vet with lasgun, rage quits I crash.

Additional Technical Information

System Specs:

  • CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9700X
  • GPU: AMD Radeon Graphics (RADV GFX1200) RX 9600 XT
  • OS: Linux (Fedora 43) via latest cashyos Proton
  • RAM: 32GB

Relevant Log Entries:

  • Full console log: console-2026-01-12-00.19.23-e9473fb7-bd52-495e-bf84-2b33f443f760.log
  • Session ID: e9473fb7-bd52-495e-bf84-2b33f443f760

Resource in Question:

  • Package: content/fx/particles/weapons/rifles/lasgun/lasgun_chargefull
  • Resource ID: #ID[a0f12764d4f6b1ec]
  • Type ID: #ID[a8193123526fad64]
  • Refcount at crash: 38

Steps to Reproduce (Required):

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Mission Setup:
  • Start a multiplayer mission on Auric Maelstrom difficulty
  • Ensure 4 players are in the match
  • Progress into active combat (approximately 8+ minutes into mission)
  1. Trigger Condition:
  • Have one player equipped with a Lasgun variant
  • Engage in active combat with particle effects rendering (weapon firing, charging effects)
  • Player with Lasgun disconnects from the match (intentionally or network drop)
  1. Expected Result:
  • Bot should replace disconnected player seamlessly
  • Game should continue normally
  1. Actual Result:
  • Game crashes approximately 1-4 seconds after player disconnection
  • Lua error in PackageManager attempting to unload weapon particle resources
  • Crash dump generated with refcount violation error

Crash Timeline:
00:28:07.271 - Player disconnects
00:28:07.410 - Bot spawn initiated
00:28:07.740 - Player unit registration begins
00:28:11.413 - CRASH: PackageManager resource unload error

Mission Name (Optional):

No Man’s Land

[PC] Do You Use Mods? (Optional):

Yes, but I haven’t tried disabling them

Reproduction Rate (Required):

Rare (<10%)

Platform (Required):

PC - Steam

[PC] Upload Console Log & darktide_launcher.log (Optional):

console-2026-01-12-00.19.23-e9473fb7-bd52-495e-bf84-2b33f443f760.log (298 KB)

2

@dopz

3

I’d also like to add I’d love to try and reproduce it but sadly I don’t have much friends who I’d be willing to bother with this. But imo it’s doable in 2 people via reproduction steps and I’ll be happy to help out as well if anyone would like to pick this up

4

I have done testing on this package manager crash (when particles are involved anyways) with a few people on separate occasions. Tbh, I’m down for more testing lol, I’m on the darktide and darktide modding discord if you’re also willing (tdopz). But I digress…

I was able to reproduce it 100% of the time in those limited number of tests with a mod that has since been taken down. I used that as my control when making vfx_swapper to see if it would or wouldn’t crash (so far so good for vfx swapper from my testing). If we can’t sync up, I would try disabling veil shield and seeing if the crashes stop. As far as I can tell, using certain methods of swapping/removing particles causes the engine to create a reference that’s not part of the package which gets unloaded on player disconnect. So the engine nopes out and crash. Obviously it would be great if FS could implement some sort of safe guards against this, but I don’t know how reasonable it is to expect them to do so - it would be more of a “favor” to the modding community if so. I have “heard” of reports of this crash happening to people not running mods, but I have not seen a single console log of it.

Typical disclaimer: I’m not a programmer (a couple of VERY basic classes many years ago), just someone with a bunch of free time, a desire to learn to mod, and a personal vendetta against this crash :slight_smile:. This is just a theory of mine.

1 Like
5

oh, so it’s a mod thing? then mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! i wouldn’t bother FS for mods though even tho i see the qol improvements that could be made here.

i do indeed use veil shield. i am a SWE IRL thus i do like to help out though i don’t have much free time - since the inability to grab people to test. i’ll gladly help out with this though later today. feel free to add me on discord and we can sync: discord id: 519060804587225089