How to Fix Kodi Crashing on Windows 7, 8 or 10
Kodi is one of the most popular platforms currently out there to watch movies or TV on various platforms. It basically an open-source media player software application. You can easily add numerous add-ons from third-party developers to enhance your experience as a whole.
With Kodi being used over numerous platforms and being open source, there are numerous problems that it comes across. One of these issues is where it keeps crashing on Windows OS. This is a very common problem and doesn’t usually have much to do with your computer’s internal modules. Here in this article, we will go through all the different reasons as to why the issue occurs and what the possible workarounds are to fix it.
What causes Kodi to Crash on Windows?
After noticing a drastic increase in the issue, we started investigating and found out that the issue occurred due to several different reasons. All of them might not be applicable in your case as each computer’s configuration is different. Here are some of the causes:
- Firewall: Since Kodi is a streaming application, it directly interacts with the internet and has to go through the Firewall. If access is not granted, it might not be able to establish the connection and instead, crash.
- Outdated software: Another leading cause of why you might experience the crashes is where the version of Kodi is outdated. Each update brings bug fixes and new improvements so it is vital that you keep it updated at all times.
- Corrupt add-ons: Since add-ons are developed by third-party developers, there are numerous instances where the add-on isn’t compatible with your Kodi. Disabling these might solve the crashing problem.
- Hardware acceleration: Kodi has a feature of hardware acceleration where it uses this feature to improve video quality. However, this can sometimes malfunction and crash. When it crashes, the game crashes as well.
- Graphics driver: Last but not the least, if your graphics driver is outdated or corrupt, the computer will not be able to display everything properly. Hence, the graphics drivers must be updated at all times.
Before we move on with the solutions, make sure that you are logged in as an administrator. Also, you have an active internet connection as will be downloading Kodi.
Solution 1: Disabling Add-ons
This is perhaps the most common reason why Kodi crashes in your computer. Kodi allows third-party developers to create add-ons for the platform which the users can install anytime. The very fact that these add-ons are not created by Kodi, they have compatibility problems.
Hence, the first step to take in the troubleshooting process is disabling the add-ons themselves. Disable each one of them, restart your computer and then check if the crashing still occurs.
Solution 2: Disabling VPN and Firewalls
Another reason why you might experience the crashing is because of VPNs and Firewalls installed on your network. This also includes the case where you are using a VPN on your console. VPN’s redirect the internet traffic through a proxy and imitate that you are from another location as compared to your actual physical one. However, this process has many flaws and sometimes doesn’t let Kodi connect successfully.
If you have any VPN’s or Firewalls connected to your console or network, disable them properly. Make sure that you have an open internet connection without any complexities. If you are using an institutional network, make sure that you switch to a private one. Institutes have settings that don’t allow several requests to move forward.
Solution 3: Disabling HQ Upscalers and Hardware Acceleration
HQ Upscalers are mechanisms which are used to scale lower resolution videos up so they appear better than what they are in reality. This feature greatly improves the quality of videos streaming on your Kodi device. However, despite the useful features, they are known to cause issues sometimes if the connection is low or the system in which Kodi is running is of the low specification. We can lower the HQ Upscaler option and then try buffering the video. Hopefully, the issue will be resolved without any issues.
Another thing which we will be disabling is hardware acceleration. Hardware acceleration makes use of hardware components to boost the software rendering of videos and other graphical intensive activities. As with the case of HQ Upscalers, this is also known to cause issues. In this solution, we will be disabling/lowering both the options.
- Open your Settings > Player and then click on Expert present at the bottom of the left navigation pane and make sure that Expert mode is enabled.
- Now, click on the Videos tab and navigate down to Processing Here, search for the following entry:
Enable HQ scalers for scaling above.
Click the down arrow and bring it down to 10%.
- Now, right underneath the option we just changed, you will find the option of Allow hardware Acceleration – DXVA2. Click it once to Disable
- Restart your device completely and reset your network as well. Now check if the buffering issue is resolved.
Solution 4: Reinstalling Kodi
KodiYou should check is if Kodi is updated to the latest release available. The team releases build every once in a while targeting various bug fixes and new features. You should head over to the official website and download the newest version. You can choose any of the options (Installer or Windows Store). As to this date, v17.6 “Krypton” is the newest one.
If your Kodi is updated to the latest version already, you should reinstall it after uninstalling the entire software module.
- Press Windows + R, type “appwiz.cpl” in the dialogue box, and press Enter.
Type appwiz.cpl and Press Enter To Open Installed Programs Page - Here all the different applications installed on your computer will be listed. Navigate through all of them until you find Kodi. Right-click it and uninstall.
Uninstalling Kodi - Now download the latest version available from the official website and install it on your computer.
Solution 5: Updating Graphics Drivers
If none of the above solutions work and the game still outputs the Video card error, we attempt at updating your graphics drivers to the latest build available. Graphics drivers communicate information between the game and the hardware. Using these drivers, the graphics hardware displays graphics on your screen. If these are somehow corrupt or incomplete, you will experience the crashing.
Here in this solution, we will install DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) and then use it to remove the current drivers. Then we will check if the default drivers work. If they don’t, we will update them to the latest build.
- Install the utility Display Driver Uninstaller. As mentioned earlier, this ensures that all the remnants are removed from the computer. If you still don’t want to use this, you can continue with the Device Manager. After the installation is done, you need to start your computer in safe mode. You can learn how to boot your computer into safe mode by reading our article on it.
- Once you are in Safe Mode, launch Display Driver Uninstaller using the executable which was just created.
- Once in the application, click on Clean and Restart. DDU will now remove all the existing driver files and restart your computer after the action is done.
- Boot your computer into normal mode, press Windows + R, type “devmgmt.msc” in the dialogue box, and press Enter. Most probably the default drivers will be installed. If not, right-click on any empty space and select “Scan for hardware changes”. Now try launching the game and see if the default drivers fix the crashing issue.
Scan For Hardware Changes - Now there are two methods to update the graphics drivers; either you can update them automatically using Windows update or manually by browsing to the file where your graphics drivers are located. If automatic updating fails, you have to navigate to your manufacturer’s website and download the drivers first.
To update, right-click on your hardware and select Update driver. Now select any one of the two options according to your case.
