Severe Mouse Lockup Causing Windows Explorer Freeze

[Sepho]

Hello,


I have already submitted a ticket regarding this issue, but after reading about the long support response times, I decided to ask for advice from fellow players here as well.

Below is part of the text from my ticket:
"I am experiencing a serious problem while playing Dungeons and Dragons Online (DDO) on Windows 11.

During gameplay, after some time (whether I alt-tab or not), the mouse becomes locked in the center of the screen (similar to aiming mode). After this happens, I have to press Alt+Enter or Alt+Tab and return to the game to regain mouse control. The game then continues to run normally, but this technical issue causes Windows Explorer (taskbar, Start menu, File Explorer) and all other applications (such as Chrome and Notepad) to become nonresponsive. Only rebooting the PC restores normal functionality.

I have tried the following troubleshooting steps:

• Disabled all overlays (Discord, Steam, NVIDIA).
• Fully exited Razer Synapse.
• Disabled Xbox Game Bar, Game Mode, and Captures.
• Ran the game in both Fullscreen and Fullscreen Windowed modes at native resolution.
• Disabled fullscreen optimizations.
• Ran the game as Administrator.
• Attempted to reset Windows Explorer manually via script (did not help; system remained frozen).
• Monitored for background programs that could interfere — none found.

None of these steps have resolved the issue."

 

[rabidfox]

Windows 11 has issues at times; you might also want to scour windows 11 issues that align with what you're seeing on reddit and elsewhere. You can also try this from https://forums.ddo.com/index.php?th...-as-crowdsourced-by-many-players-advice.1666/ They're not you're exact issue, but might help with some of the wonk win11 can bring to table (and shouldn't hurt to try).

For anyone who's noticed drops in frame rates recently (may be the result of Windows updates or could be DDO itself). Here's a couple things that may or may not help with that from what myself and others have noticed:

Consider turning off MPO. https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-amd-nvidia-are-all-sleeping-on-windows-11-mpo-display-issues/ There's a bunch of youtube and reddit posts about this and various games/performance stuff out there for those interested in more details about it.

If running windows 11, try turning off these 2 settings.

Be sure to reboot the computer after these changes and see if your game runs better. If they don't help, you can just revert the settings back.

 

[Sepho]

Looks like this is it. I tried everything that seemed like it might help, including suggestions from the community thread linked by Rabidfox.


I updated all PC drivers and BIOS, repaired and reinstalled the game, but the result is the same. In the middle of a quest run, the game cursor locks in the center—almost like it switches to an FPS-style key mapping profile. I can still control the camera and move my character, but to regain full mouse control, I have to alt-tab out and back into the game.

Worse, once this happens, the mouse functionality outside the game breaks. I can move the cursor and drag or close tabs, but clicks aren’t responsive. I can only interact with Windows Explorer using the keyboard. And only pc restart fixes it.

I came back tired of chasing every new shiny game and was ready to settle into my favorite MMORPG, but it looks like that’s not going to happen.
On the bright side, at least I only bought one expansion's ultimate fan bundle. I was actually planning to buy the ultimate fan bundles for all four of the latest expansions at once. Good thing I decided to wait until my character reached that content and buy them one by one—otherwise, that would’ve stung. Still waiting for a response to my support ticket, but my hopes are low.