Lag spikes after Apex update
I'm experiencing intermittent freezing every few minutes or so.
Physics movement pauses, keyboard and mouse are unresponsive, but animations like grass moving or windmills spinning keep playing during the freeze.
This started happening on a modded local singleplayer survival save, which I started after the Apex update/DLC came out. I don't recall having this issue before the update, and my hardware hasn't changed recently either.
I tried verifying game files via Steam, updating graphics drivers and starting a fresh world with default settings and without any mods. The problem persists.
I managed to take a screenshot as the spike was happening:
And two more, once the game resumed normal operation:
Windows Task Manager performance graphs doesn't show any spikes when the game freezes. Doesn't happen in other games.
System specs:
OS: Windows 11 x64 24H2
CPU: i5-10600K, 64GB RAM
GPU: RTX 4060 Ti, 16GB
Storage: SSD with 120GB of space left
I have the same bug
Hello Anne,
Thank you for reaching out to us on the forum.
Could you kindly share some additional details about the issue?
Do you have any plugins or custom launch options active for the game? To check launch options, in your Steam Library, right-click Space Engineers → select Properties → under the General tab, look at the Launch Options field. If you have any set there, please remove them and Plugins as well.
After that, please try starting the game and creating a fresh, unmodded/vanilla world to see if the issue still occurs.
If it does, are there any specific steps after which the lag always happens consistently? If so, please share those steps with us.
Additionally, please provide the log files from the time the issue occurred. And a screen recording/video showing the issue (please press Shift+F11 to enable Performance Statistics while recording). This will help us investigate further.
Kind regards,
Keen Software House: QA Department
Hello Anne,
Thank you for reaching out to us on the forum.
Could you kindly share some additional details about the issue?
Do you have any plugins or custom launch options active for the game? To check launch options, in your Steam Library, right-click Space Engineers → select Properties → under the General tab, look at the Launch Options field. If you have any set there, please remove them and Plugins as well.
After that, please try starting the game and creating a fresh, unmodded/vanilla world to see if the issue still occurs.
If it does, are there any specific steps after which the lag always happens consistently? If so, please share those steps with us.
Additionally, please provide the log files from the time the issue occurred. And a screen recording/video showing the issue (please press Shift+F11 to enable Performance Statistics while recording). This will help us investigate further.
Kind regards,
Keen Software House: QA Department
Hi!
I'm not using any launch options or plugins.
I still have the log files associated with the screenshots I posted previously. You'll find them attached.
Made an interesting observation comparing the log timestamps to the screenshot timestamps;
The first screenshot (timestamp: 2025-09-14 20:09:09) was taken right after SE became frozen. Here are the surrounding log lines:
The last log item *before* the game froze seems to indicate that the game is making an analytics API request. The game resumes at the same moment as the request fails.
Coincidence, or are you making network requests in the main thread? 😅
Hi!
I'm not using any launch options or plugins.
I still have the log files associated with the screenshots I posted previously. You'll find them attached.
Made an interesting observation comparing the log timestamps to the screenshot timestamps;
The first screenshot (timestamp: 2025-09-14 20:09:09) was taken right after SE became frozen. Here are the surrounding log lines:
The last log item *before* the game froze seems to indicate that the game is making an analytics API request. The game resumes at the same moment as the request fails.
Coincidence, or are you making network requests in the main thread? 😅
Here's a screen recording of the issue, along with the related log files. This time the freeze was relatively short.
As for the ElasticSearch log line.. Whenever there's a freeze, it always happens the same time as the "Sending event to ElasticSearch: Heartbeat" appears in the logs. Even if it's not the cause, I'd be surprised if it didn't have any relation.
My Internet connection can be a bit flakey at times. The DSL modem usually has some uncorrectables, due to bad cabling in an old apartment. Perhaps it could be a factor in this issue?
Here's a screen recording of the issue, along with the related log files. This time the freeze was relatively short.
As for the ElasticSearch log line.. Whenever there's a freeze, it always happens the same time as the "Sending event to ElasticSearch: Heartbeat" appears in the logs. Even if it's not the cause, I'd be surprised if it didn't have any relation.
My Internet connection can be a bit flakey at times. The DSL modem usually has some uncorrectables, due to bad cabling in an old apartment. Perhaps it could be a factor in this issue?
Looks like I'm not the only one with this issue. Found several threads describing a very similar issue:
- https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/pc/topic/47287
- https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/pc/topic/24756-space-engineers-freezes
- https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/pc/topic/49640-regular-physic-freeze
Looks like I'm not the only one with this issue. Found several threads describing a very similar issue:
- https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/pc/topic/47287
- https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/pc/topic/24756-space-engineers-freezes
- https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/pc/topic/49640-regular-physic-freeze
I tried blocking all outbound connections which could relate to analytics. It was a game of whack-a-mole, but I eventually found all the different IPs the game would try to connect to...
Blocked hosts (using Acrylic DNS):
127.0.0.1 *.compute-1.amazonaws.com
127.0.0.1 *.eu-central-1.compute.amazonaws.com
127.0.0.1 exchange.test2.goodai.com
127.0.0.1 api.epicgames.dev
Blocked outbound connection IPs (via Windows Defender firewall):
45.138.107.47
54.92.195.103
45.138.107.48
3.123.161.150
54.92.195.103
44.198.46.159
3.127.228.159
34.237.25.229
23.21.154.91
18.233.239.27
52.206.224.114
54.162.40.122
3.209.145.65
35.174.96.40
98.88.2.107
52.3.10.205
3.125.130.49
54.211.222.65
44.198.46.159
54.92.134.240
54.167.199.230
52.54.145.109
44.220.122.245
98.83.87.114
3.229.236.8
3.218.43.149
44.206.80.145
With all of these blocked, it appears that the game cannot send any analytics requests - and because of this, it doesn't freeze when a request takes long to finish. Yesterday, with this blocking enabled, I played for a good 6 hours without experiencing the freezing issue.
Of course, blocking isn't a viable long-term solution. The list of IPs may change, and I can't be sure whether all these blocked hostnames/IPs relate to analytics. It's possible that blocking them has other consequences - although I personally didn't experience any new gameplay issues.
With analytics blocked, the game will cache unsent analytics event to disk. These event files seem to contain quite a lot of PII (including geographical coordinates), which is a bit disturbing, considering I have answered "No" to the game's GDPR consent popup. But that's a whole different issue...
Bottom line is: No analytics blocking → game freezes every ~4 minutes even in an offline single player game. But with analytics blocking → game doesn't freeze at all.
Keen's developers may want to use network throttling to recreate the issue. With a fast internet connection, the freezing might not be as evident.
I tried blocking all outbound connections which could relate to analytics. It was a game of whack-a-mole, but I eventually found all the different IPs the game would try to connect to...
Blocked hosts (using Acrylic DNS):
127.0.0.1 *.compute-1.amazonaws.com
127.0.0.1 *.eu-central-1.compute.amazonaws.com
127.0.0.1 exchange.test2.goodai.com
127.0.0.1 api.epicgames.dev
Blocked outbound connection IPs (via Windows Defender firewall):
45.138.107.47
54.92.195.103
45.138.107.48
3.123.161.150
54.92.195.103
44.198.46.159
3.127.228.159
34.237.25.229
23.21.154.91
18.233.239.27
52.206.224.114
54.162.40.122
3.209.145.65
35.174.96.40
98.88.2.107
52.3.10.205
3.125.130.49
54.211.222.65
44.198.46.159
54.92.134.240
54.167.199.230
52.54.145.109
44.220.122.245
98.83.87.114
3.229.236.8
3.218.43.149
44.206.80.145
With all of these blocked, it appears that the game cannot send any analytics requests - and because of this, it doesn't freeze when a request takes long to finish. Yesterday, with this blocking enabled, I played for a good 6 hours without experiencing the freezing issue.
Of course, blocking isn't a viable long-term solution. The list of IPs may change, and I can't be sure whether all these blocked hostnames/IPs relate to analytics. It's possible that blocking them has other consequences - although I personally didn't experience any new gameplay issues.
With analytics blocked, the game will cache unsent analytics event to disk. These event files seem to contain quite a lot of PII (including geographical coordinates), which is a bit disturbing, considering I have answered "No" to the game's GDPR consent popup. But that's a whole different issue...
Bottom line is: No analytics blocking → game freezes every ~4 minutes even in an offline single player game. But with analytics blocking → game doesn't freeze at all.
Keen's developers may want to use network throttling to recreate the issue. With a fast internet connection, the freezing might not be as evident.
Hey,
I made another topic with a similar issue. I tried to block the IPs you gave in the firewall and blocked the domains in my host file.
I can confirm that I have a new file in my ElasticAnalyticsEvents folder 4 time per minute. I can also confirm that there is in those files a concerning amount of data that can be used as fingerprint (system info, system language, game language, game settings, resolution), as well as some personal data, such as region, language and gender, even tho I disabled my GDPR consent.
However, I still had freezes when playing. Maybe I don't send my analytics to the same IP's as Anne, maybe I messed up when I created my blocking rules...
Hey,
I made another topic with a similar issue. I tried to block the IPs you gave in the firewall and blocked the domains in my host file.
I can confirm that I have a new file in my ElasticAnalyticsEvents folder 4 time per minute. I can also confirm that there is in those files a concerning amount of data that can be used as fingerprint (system info, system language, game language, game settings, resolution), as well as some personal data, such as region, language and gender, even tho I disabled my GDPR consent.
However, I still had freezes when playing. Maybe I don't send my analytics to the same IP's as Anne, maybe I messed up when I created my blocking rules...
Another video of the problem of the game's physics freezing or crashing.
https://youtu.be/UqiDksp-2Qc
It also randomly occurs when pressing Escape, accessing the inventory, or in the main menu right at the start, as in the following video.
https://youtu.be/3hzJe048WJ8
Another video of the problem of the game's physics freezing or crashing.
https://youtu.be/UqiDksp-2Qc
It also randomly occurs when pressing Escape, accessing the inventory, or in the main menu right at the start, as in the following video.
https://youtu.be/3hzJe048WJ8
I disconnected the network cable after the game was ready to play and NOT freeze all.
After an hour, I reconnect the cable and the freeze comeback on the same inervals.
I disconnected the network cable after the game was ready to play and NOT freeze all.
After an hour, I reconnect the cable and the freeze comeback on the same inervals.
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