Screen Freezes

By chance are you using Comcast xFi new 600 mbps router. It boots my internet all the time which freeze my shadow and forces me to use refresh option. 

Does this happen all the time or some of the time? Also what is the result of our speed test? 

Might be a little slow. Try using lower bandwidth settings. Make sure your WiFi isn’t reconnecting whenever it freezes. I would try to improve your speed as well. 

Generally I go between 5-20 mbps on 50 mbps connection. But 30 mbps is ideal for pvp, since image is crisp enough. 

I think it has nothing to do with my internet because once it freezes audio is perfect and it still does recognise my key presses its just that the stream just randomly freezes 

Same here. The freeze usually happens after a burst of packet loss, but there's no problem in that.

The problematic part is that even after packet loss have subsided, the video is still frozen. This is something Shadow needs to fix.

I used GFN in the past and when there was  packet loss during GFN streaming the video quality became potato but video itself never froze.

This sounds like the issue I’m having as well. The video freezes but the audio continues. I can still move and see the mouse moving. The screen seems to stay frozen no matter how long I wait until I press Windows+Alt+R to restart the streaming. This has happened anywhere from fast moving moments in an intensive game to browsing the web and not even scrolling the browser, so it’s not dependent on how much information is changing on screen. I’d say it happens 2-3 times an hour, on average and it seems to happen no matter how long my Shadow has been running.

My internet is 100 down and 10 up and I’m wired to the device running Shadow. I’m also not having internet issues with any other devices in my home when this happens. Since the stream doesn’t come back unless I hit the hotkeys to restart streaming it seems pretty clear that this is a Shadow issue and not an issue with my internet (or at the very least, if the hiccup is caused by my internet then it’s still a Shadow issue because it has to be resolved manually).

Thankfully I’m almost always playing single player games so I’m able to hit the pause button the second I notice the issue and restart the stream. I’d still love to find a fix for this since I would like to play multiplayer games or do things that can’t be easily paused.

I have the same problem. It started a few months or weeks ago and didn't happen for over a year before. Image freezes but sound etc continues. I found out that when I press CTRL + ALT + DEL and then choose task manager it will work again - I just have to go back to the game window. Still annoying of course.

Same issue. Tested Shadow on my friends Boost/account on this same exact system, never saw an issue. Ordered my own Boost, got it, and this exact issue has been non-stop since. Video locks up but audio and input works after a burst of ping spike/packet loss. Been through multiple forums and fixes, found nothing that works yet. Glad to hear I’m not alone.

This is how it goes - windows pc connected via ethernet (also happens on android via wifi).

It’s like fine, fine, fine, hits a wall, fine fine fine.

This is only running at 15mb, so it’s not exactly pushing it. Again, I’ve been with Shadow over 2 years and this has only started recently. I’ve exhausted all options from my end to resolve this.

But everyone will have to get connected with ethernet, try their bandwidth setting at 5 and see if their computer meets the minimum spec requirements. 

Mod edit - removed recommendation to have everyone post a separate post.  Please try to consolidate conversations into threads as appropriate, there’s no need for a new thread for every user. - Astro

Please make a separate post about your issue as I'm 90% sure all of these issues are caused by different things. 

Really? Well, I’m 90% sure the underlying cause is the same.

Seriously though, what makes you think these are different issues? I see a pattern, but if you don’t it would be helpful to know why as it might help us debug this.

As for your suggestions, my computer meets the minimum requirements (otherwise, I wouldn’t be paying £15 per month), connecting with ethernet is unfortunately not an option for me right now, and I am connected to the 5GHz band (and the signal is strong).

Same issue here. I’ve only just gotten Shadow boost yesterday and the screen freezes started last night and continues today.

Video is frozen but audio continues just fine. Also, when I press certain keys I can hear the appropriate responses in the game. So the game itself hasn’t crashed but the videostream has frozen.

The only way I’ve found to workaround this is to hit CTRL-ALT-DEL. I then first get my local screen with options - I cancel that - then I get the same screen with options in Shadow desktop. I then click Task Manager, it appears as a small window in the game and then suddenly the videostream runs again. It’s a temporary workaround though as it WILL happen again sooner or later in the same gamiing session!

Very annoying in the online game I play I must say. I happens randomly btw. Sometimes a few seconds after I login to the game, sometimes a few minutes afterwards.

I’ve tried lowering my allocated bandwith from 70 to 50 to 30 and even 10. Didn’t do anything. And I’m on a 250MB down Ethernet connection so that’s not exactly “pushing it” :)

Also updated the graphics driver as Geforce Experience said there was an update. Didn’t do anything either.

Judging by the forum posts this is a fairly recent issue for many many customers that they didn’t have before. Thus the problems seems to me at Shadow’s end, not on ours. Hoping for a fix from Shadow as I can’t relialibly play my games...

OK, so I think I’ve found a solution for this - at least if you’re playing on Android mobile which I do the majority of my gaming on. YMMV but I’d be interested to see if this helps for anyone else.

It appears to me that the issue is in the routing to Shadow’s servers, not necessarily something wrong with your network, or at Shadow’s server end, but in the routes taken to get there by your ISP.

I’ve run all sorts of diagnostics, and changed absolutely every setting I can, with no great effect. I’ve been suffering with the freezing all the way through this lockdown. I love Shadow, and am in my 3rd year of service, but even I was thinking how can I justify using it at the moment. The only ‘solution’ up until now that had helped would be to drop the quality down to 5mb, which is not great but actually ends up being quite playable on the phone in a pinch.

I use 1.1.1.1 for my DNS settings on my router as it purports to be the fastest one out there and it’s owned by Cloudflare so no slouches. Turns out they do an app called WARP, which is a VPN that runs on your local device. They do a free tier and a paid tier @ £3.99/m. The paid tier has access to WARP+, which uses Cloudflare’s enhanced routing. Ordinarily I would expect a VPN to reduce the bandwidth of the device, which going by my tests it does a bit, but it seems this enhanced routing prevents the freezing. I played a couple of hours last night without so much as a single dropped frame, compared to freezes and lags and restarts every 5 or 10 minutes as usual.

I got up this morning and checked some numbers. Here’s my desktop pc connecting to gravelines, notice the ping is 34.

I’m pointing the server at gravelines as I’m on infinite.

Here it is on my mobile device, notice the ping is down by 4ms.

When I tried it last night, the mobile device ping was down to 28ms. I have to say that I have seen the max bandwidth drop down, but on my device at least 15mbs is more than serviceable on the small screen in any case.

I’m not hawking, and I’m no network expert. My experiments are not scientific. I might have a look at pingplotter on the pc, vs a tracert app on the phone to check if the routing could be different.

WARP is not a VPN in the usual sense, it doesn’t do much ie you can’t mask your ip for netflix or whatever, but it gives you access to cloudflare’s routing is my understanding.

As I say, YMMV, but I had the best results I’ve had for a good couple of months. I’d be interested if anyone else has the same success.

Good luck!