Most Garry's Mod crashes come from three things: running out of memory, a broken addon, or damaged game files. Switching to 64-bit, testing without addons and verifying your files fixes the large majority.
Find the section that matches when your game crashes, then work down it.
Quick Fixes to Try First
Verify Your Game Files
In Steam, right-click Garry's Mod, choose Properties, go to Installed Files and click Verify integrity of game files. Do the same for any game you've mounted, such as Counter-Strike: Source or Team Fortress 2.
Switch to 64-bit
The normal version of Garry's Mod is 32-bit, so it can only use 4GB of memory however much your PC has. The 64-bit branch removes that ceiling. Follow the 64-bit guide.
Update Your Graphics Driver
A crash on startup with no error message is very often a driver problem. Update your graphics driver from your card maker's website. If a new driver started the crashes, roll back to an older one.
Close Overlays
Overlays hook into the game and can crash it. Turn off the Discord overlay and close RivaTuner Statistics Server or MSI Afterburner while you test.
Test Without Addons
A broken or outdated addon is the most common cause of crashes in the menu, in singleplayer and on load. You can switch every addon off without deleting anything.
Add the Launch Options
In Steam, right-click Garry's Mod, choose Properties, and go to General. In Launch Options, add:
-noaddons -noworkshop-noworkshop turns off your Workshop addons. -noaddons turns off addons in your garrysmod/addons folder.
Play Until It Would Have Crashed
Do the same thing that crashed it before. If it no longer crashes, an addon is the cause.
Find the Bad Addon
Remove both launch options. Turn addons back on in small groups from the Addons menu until the crash returns. The last group you turned on holds the culprit.
Sometimes there's no single bad addon, and you simply have too many. Unsubscribe from everything you don't use. The performance guide shows how to clear them all at once.
Crash When Joining a Server
Crashes while loading into a server usually happen while the game is downloading and mounting that server's content.
- Let all Workshop downloads finish on the main menu, then restart the game and join again.
- Subscribe to the server's content pack or collection before you join, so nothing downloads mid-load.
- Lower Texture Detail in Options, Video, Advanced. Big roleplay servers use a lot of video memory, and Very High texture detail can run out of it.
- Switch to 64-bit if you haven't. Heavy servers are the usual place 32-bit runs out of memory.
If you only ever crash on one server, tell that server's staff. The crash may come from their addons, not your PC.
Out of Memory Errors
These errors mean the game ran out of space, not that your PC is broken.
The game filled its memory loading models. On the 32-bit version this happens at 4GB, even on a PC with 16GB or more. Switch to 64-bit, untick games you don't need in the main menu's games list, and cut down your addons.
The game's Lua scripting ran out of room. This comes from the number of addons loaded, by you or by the server. Unsubscribe from addons you don't use and switch to 64-bit. If it only happens on one server, report it to that server.
One of the engine's internal lists filled up. Facepunch traced past cases to code creating huge numbers of fonts or materials, and to more than 255 turrets shooting at once. Restart the game to clear it. If it keeps coming back on one server, the cause is that server's addons, so tell its staff. In singleplayer, test without addons.
Crash Mid-Game
A crash after you've been playing for a while is usually memory again.
- Switch to 64-bit and lower Texture Detail.
- Untick games you don't need in the main menu's games list.
- Restart Garry's Mod when you move between very different servers.
Does it crash doing one thing, like spawning a certain prop? Then the addon behind that thing is almost always the cause.
hl2.exe or gmod.exe Has Stopped Working
Some versions of Windows show a "has stopped working" box when the game crashes. Others just close the game. Depending on your version, the game's process is called hl2.exe or gmod.exe.
Either way, it's a crash, and the fixes above apply. If it happens before the main menu appears, go to Garry's Mod Won't Launch.
32-bit or 64-bit?
| 32-bit (default) | 64-bit (x86-64 branch) | |
|---|---|---|
| Memory the game can use | Up to 4GB | Far more than 4GB |
| Out of memory crashes on big servers | Common | Rare |
| Stability | Mature | Can crash more for some people |
Most players should try 64-bit first. If you crash more on it, switch back by setting Betas to None. The 64-bit guide covers both.
Where to Find Crash Logs and Dumps
A crash dump is a file the game writes when it crashes. Developers need it to work out what went wrong.
To open your game folder, right-click Garry's Mod in Steam and choose Manage, then Browse local files.
Crash dumps are in the main GarrysMod folder and end in .mdmp. Pick the one with the date and time of your crash.
To keep a record of the console, add -condebug to your launch options. The game then writes everything in the console to GarrysMod/garrysmod/console.log. The last lines before a crash often name the addon or file involved.
To report a crash Facepunch can fix, open an issue on the Garry's Mod issue tracker. Attach the dump, say what you were doing, and say whether it still crashes without addons. Read the tracker's front page first.
Want a server to try it on? Justified is a Garry's Mod DarkRP server: justified.gg.
