@a63nt-5m1th lol

My system crashed hard yesterday and I thought I would share what caused it and how I fixed it - although the solution might not be the same for everyone with this message.

1. How it Happened
I have a rare problem with debris floating in game and to get to the point I simply went into my "in game" settings, Graphics, and changed particle quality from Very High to Normal. In a vain attempt to see if that might help. The game told me it would need to restart, which I did. Instead of loading, I got the error message above.

2. Fix attempt One
Strange that the game would crash from a simple in game setting change. I don't believe in reinstalling, ever, so I went into Steam and did a verify integrity. Integrity check came back clean.

3. Fix attempt Two
Since surprisingly that didn't work, maybe it's a corrupt savegame file. The folder contains a backup but I used my own backup. Restart, same error message.

4. Fix attempt Three
At this point I'm very tempted to do a reinstall but too lazy to do so given what it will entail - lots of changes to put back in place. So, I take my own advice, and even though I don't understand what I'm doing it for, I rename dinput8 to restart in vanilla mode. Shouldn't work, right? It does, game starts perfectly and is stable.

** Disable Mods**
So I rename dinput8.dll back to normal, but this time I disable Mods folder (leaving Menyoo and Scripts). System starts perfectly and Menyoo works. So issue is with Mods folder. I'm very lucky to have backed up my Update folder (the one from Mods, not the one from the game) so i copy over the "corrupt one". Restarts perfectly.

**** Settings****
Ok, game works. Only one problem now. All my critical setting changes in dlclist etc are gone. Well here's the good news and the most important take home to share - I have this file backed up. Launch OpenIV, copy over dlclist, start the game, all mods except for 6 new addon cars missing. Go back into dlclist, add the lines back, end of problem.

Still don't understand how changing particle quality to normal corrupted my Update.rpf file (and system was fine, no other changes to speak of) but was able to fix this without reinstalling for one reason: I had backups, not only of my Mods folder but also of individual files such as ped.meta, dlclist, visual settings, gameconfig etc.

So good idea to keep backups of those files. Of course the files above are included in update.rpf, but the idea was to backup files as you edit them - but if you prefer, just backup the entire Mods folder regularly.

This is my last post and I want to thank everyone here who helped me - wishing everyone the best in the future. Please stay safe and healthy, get vaccinated when your turn comes. Cheers. John.

This comment is for Jitnaught, lets please consider this matter closed afterwards.

A few weeks ago, I was called a F****** Troll on these forums because I pointed out that the instructions for a mod, both in the description and in the downloaded package, stated the following in very clear English:

7) Once you've extracted the "update" folder to your "mods" folder you want to use OpenIV and navigate to GTA V > mods > update > x64 > dlcpacks and delete everything in there.

That is the most absurd instruction I've ever seen on any forum. Being called names normally doesn't bother me, but given the context it did - so I reported it. The mods did nothing. I reported it a second time. The mods did nothing. I posted about this on this forum. The mods did nothing.

Finally the insulting comment was removed. Why? Because Jitnaught intervened on my behalf, calling the person who made the public insult out.

What do I think of Jitnaught overall? This was my last interaction with him:
@Jitnaught P.S. If it wasn't for your help, I would have given up scripting pretty quickly.

Jitnaught is the one person here who helped me progress from total noob to at least being able to create my own UI menus, more importantly the person who kept me from giving up totally on scripting and I think it's important, out of respect, to ensure he clearly understands the nature and intent of my remark that was removed. By removing it, although you did requote it, it could have been sadly left up to the imagination on how hurtful and insulting it might have been - which in no way it was, quite on the contrary.

The OP in this thread, thankfully solved so no hijack, made the usual "Please help me with my very very vague request". Reacon wasn't clear on the request, I sure as hell didn't know what the OP was trying to do, but Jitnaught figured it out right - the OP was trying to merge two video files - what this has to do with mods I really don't know but that's not relevant.

So when I wrote "you're mind reader too", it was indeed a sincere compliment. The part that was missing, the reference to "too" is that I also consider Jitnaught the resident expert on scripting here - and one of the few, along with IAmJFry, who has taken the time to help me personally. I'm leaving out AgentSmith because his invaluable help has been related to meta data etc rather than scripts.

One last word, I refuse to walk on eggshells here or in any other forum. I was here to learn and help if I could as well, not to insult people.

@a63nt-5m1th Thanks so much for all your help. I will try this as well, although I'm struggling to understand why I'm the lucky one who has this problem. In passing, and I'll post this separately, I went into game graphic settings and did one very minor change, I set particle quality to normal. I got a message I would need to restart, and on reboot my game was toast. Took me 30 minutes to figure out what was wrong and fix it - without reinstalling. Actually I while i fixed it, still no idea why that simple change did what it did.

@Reyser Is that a threat? You're going to ban me like you ban everyone else. Go for it.

@Reyser Seriously? I was complimenting Jitnaught who figured out what the OP was asking which in passing has nothing to do with this forum.

@a63nt-5m1th Lots of excellent suggestions. Thank you.
I'm going to keep an open mind and experiment based on what you wrote.

A few comments and observations.

1. I deleted core.ypt and you provided a very plausible explanation as to why the particles remained. I even replaced them with a different and much larger texture but they still appeared. Given they are so small it's hard to zoom in on them even with the higher resolution texture replacement (likely forced back by the engine to 256x256). I'm assuming also, these are the textures with "debris" in their name.

I was thinking perhaps the game file version was kicking in when the mods version failed, but that is unlikely because deleting all ptfx files from the mods folder did not allow the game to load.

2. Yes, I turned off AA and lowered all graphic settings, also tried default graphic settings.

3. I've been through 3 driver updates (I do this regularly) so very hesitant to rollback so will keep this if all end fails. If I had an AMD card with AMD drivers I would not hesitate - their drivers are a nightmare.

4. Interesting to see I'm not the only one, some posters found the same issue in other games, but particularly interesting was that this happened with a console, the PS4, which has different architecture, hardware, and software. However I have never experienced this with any other game myself.

5. We can rule out particles quality from visual settings as that results in a corrupt file error, no loading of game. I mean changing the values, not deleting the file.

6. I already took a look at procedural meta but not the ymt file, there was no mention of dirt, debris - I'll take another look.

7. As you surmised correctly, this is not a bug, it's how my system is handling particles blown about by the wind - which thankfully I can turn off by disabling the wind.

8. I have a second computer on which I can install GTA 5 (steam family mode) but that would just confirm the problem is with my rig and we know this is an uncommon problem.

Edit: Given most of the files referenced above are all vanilla, it's likely the problem is elsewhere, but I will go thru the list. This implies that the problem is with my hardware - so I will need to investigate the 3D settings for my Nvidia card as well. I ruled out resolution and monitor issues with some quick nothing to lose tests.

Ok, this is going from bad to worse. Just when I thought it was an issue with my graphics configuration I stumbled upon this:

PS4! So nothing in common with my setup.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/805601-grand-theft-auto-v/74368668

I also found a thread I had replied in. There were others but hard to search this site, even with google site: search.

https://forums.gta5-mods.com/topic/33065/gta-5-little-black-object-fly-everywhere

So not a PC issue, not a graphics card issue, not a settings issue....WTF?

@a63nt-5m1th And i thought you were in the Matrix?
There is another thread here too, can't find it, where the poster found particle quality in visual settings but that wasn't the solution.
When I first started, I watched a youtube video on Machinima where the author used simple trainer to disable the wind before filming.
So I thought it was normal to see that crap.
Now I realize it's not - I'm going to assume now it's my graphics card (GeForce RTX 2070 Super 8GB) and/or my in game graphics settings.
Very interesting!
Cheers

Update: I reset graphic settings to default, did not help. Tried playing with various graphics and advanced graphic settings, no luck.
This problem was there from day one, so not related to any mod and I don't have any visual mods installed.

Went into settings.xml and changed particle quality to 0 - gave corrupt file message, no load.
Went back, changed it to 1 - same corrupt file message.
Restored back to 2 to get game to run.
Would love to know what settings people are using with a similar card - unlikely to be my video drivers as I have updated them twice since buying the game on Steam.