Talk:Fallout 3 bugs

Strange, Help Me
Ok this is some strange shit I was going to get the Sneak Bobblehead and my game started doing the following. When I would open my pipboy and drop it back down I would fire a shot, and when I jumped I would fire a shot. I checked to make sure none of my﻿ keys where sticking, and make sure I had the controls the right way and none were stuck and the controls were right. I tried opening a old save that I have used since 08 and I just fired by itself. I also tried changing the controller I was using and it didn't help either, someone help me or I can never play Fallout 3 the same again. Also this is on 360. Send me a message on my Youtube "111111111576" or Kongregate Account "111111111576".

Never Mind

Common Bug
There's a pretty common error out there for PC which causes crashes when starting a new game. Apparently, it affects people with the mobile intel express chipset family graphics card (which is supposed to be able to play the game.) I had the problem until I downloaded a file fix I found on Youtube, and I figure it may be worth mentioning to help ease the pain of all those people who keep searching for some way to fix it :/ —Neo (T) 17:57, June 2, 2010 (UTC)

Date/Time
Somehow, the days have come out of sync for me. I'm playing on the xbox 360 and the day and date now change at 6pm, rather than 12am. Sir Jcd 16:34, June 1, 2010 (UTC)

I'm playing on PS3 with GOTY edition just came across this abnormality, The day changes at 4am though, I don't know when this occurred but I just worried the world will be messed up from this change. --Kmg90 14:19, December 1, 2010 (UTC)

Infinite XP Glitch
I didn't see it listed but it's really common and easy to use but the main page has temporarily been blocked from editing (Because basically it got out of hand and disorganised). Anyhow, kill someone in V.A.T.S, then after the finishing blow but before V.A.T.S has closed, quickly load up a previous save. The XP from the kill will be transferred to the character you just loaded up. No Karma loss or anything is continued over though, so if you're a few XP short of a level you could save the game just before you shoot, say Lucas Simms following the above technique and when you load up you'll have the XP but he'll be walking around casually as always!

The XP doesn't actually get carried over to the save you just loaded, the XP gained bar just appears on that page

Floating gun glitch
It has happened on multiple occasions, that when wielding a Fat Man and getting knocked down that the weapon will be invisible in FP mode but will be shown pointing up our down in TP mode will cause the Player to die if pointing down when fired and die if a roof is above the player if too close.

Level up bug
Does anyone know how to fix the level up bug?

Climbing Mountains
Dunno if it was already discovered, but it is possible to climb slopes wich are normally too steep to climp. Just tried it at the radio tower on Agatha house and was able to climb the cables that fixates it to the ground. The game, to prevent players from being able to climb such slopes, prevents the PC from jumping when over one, but if you press back (or wherever direction is opposite the slope) for a split second and then press jump, you can jump and climb it. This seems to happen in Oblivion too. 189.6.229.251 14:43, July 10, 2010 (UTC)

Project Purity Control room
I don't know if this is a bug or not, but I have gotten to the part where I have to go into the project purity control room and type in the code. Autumn and his 2 goons are dead and Sentinel Lyons, myself and Fawkes are left. We get the message from Dr. Li and when I go to talk to Lyons she says "Let's secure this area before we go any further". from there I cant get into the control room and the 2 doors leading into this room have locked behind me. It wont let me wait, to kill time.

Anybody have any ideas about this? If I reload the game before I go into the control room, I can keep playing but will never be able to finish the main quest. Scottytps1 05:21, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

Another Radio Bug
I have completed the main campaing of Fallout 3 on PC. I have the Game of the Year edition, so I have all the DLCs. I chose to activate Project Purity myself, so while playing on I got the known radio message on GNR saying: "It's been two weeks since the Brotherhood of Steel kicked those Enclave bastards out of Project Purity and started that baby chuggin'." or something like that. Later I decided to replay the game all over again. But now I heard that radio message about Project Purity, while I was still busy with the "Following in his Footsteps" quest, way before the Lone Wanderer even hears about the Purifier. Then I reainstalled the game, removing all savegames in the proces. And again I heard that radio message way too early. Oh, and I also hear radio messages which do fit the game progress, like the fighting still going on in Canterbury Commons, which I stopped in an earlier playthrough. I don't know which version I have, but I haven't applied any patches manually. Maybe this problem was fixed in a patch. If so, tell me. If not, please tell me what the problem could be. I also use the regular God Mode cheat and the codes to make all merchants and their guards and Brahmin essential.

Note: My PC well exceeds the system requirements and I use Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.

I7Grendel 10:14, August 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * This is not a new bug. Kris (talk) 13:16, August 4, 2010 (UTC)

Full repair bug
When using a maxed out character with all DLC's installed, and attempting to fully repair massive ammounts of weapons, some of the weapons (for instance the 10mm pistol) got separated and did not always fall into the same 'row' in my inventory slots. I had multiple 'rows' of fully repaired identical weapons. Although it does not affect gameplay or weapon functionallity, it is irritating and messy. Reloading and trying earlier saves does not help.

Does anyone know why this happens or how to fix this?

84.52.157.217 15:03, August 7, 2010 (UTC)Mabosaha

Follower with upside down gun
Followers sometimes have an upsidedown gun

As stated in the article you can change their inventory; the example given was to give them a stimpack (or take one away). This will fix the issue. If your followers gun in in a normal state, then if you holster your gun (thereby causing your follower to do the say) before entering a new cell (signified by the spining clock and splash screen), you should not run into this bug at all. I have tested this extensively (Fallout 1.7 - GOTY edition, with 96 active plugins).

Fix to level up bug
I've experienced the level up bug (the one that gives negative skill points). It's a proper pain in the ass, but if you're on a PC, reload and remove an amount of skill points equal to or greater than the amount of negative skill points you get, then it's gone, but watch out for it at the next time you level up.

85.82.249.149 22:04, August 28, 2010 (UTC)Random lurker.

Replay download content
I don't know exactly where this should go, or even if it counts as a bug, so I am leaving it in the forums, I found that with the Xbox 360 Goty edition you can delete download content, load the savegame, save the game with the completed dlc deleted than reload the content from the disk and reload the savegame, the game will start the sequence again as if you never played it, be forewarned, you will lose all dlc specific items to that dlc and have to do it again, I used this on operation anchorage and point lookout, this is good if you want to play it again, gain experience, or if you missed something you can only get once, I don't think it will work with broken steel.Superinsomniac 22:46, September 10, 2010 (UTC)

Major Fallout 3 Graphics Glitch (new?)
Sometimes when I ply F3 on my xbox I get this graphics glitch.

It's hard to explain but it looks like endlessly stretched-out multi-coloured beams starting someplace in the sky coming right toward you.

I noticed nothing is written about it so I thought I'd contribute with this comment and some pictures.

Looks very much like a hardware problem. I got the same kinds of issues in WoW when my old video card (the second one prior to the current one) started to fail. Try and blow the dust out of the Xbox and see if that helps, and if it's not still under warranty you might want to open it up and look for caked dust or swollen capacitors. -- 16:00, September 11, 2010 (UTC)

It's done that frequently for me. FULL ON DOUBLE RAINBOW! (Graphics glitch)! Nukey (talk) 16:09, September 11, 2010 (UTC)

I have a weird graphics glitch myself. Maybe someone can tell me what's going on? When I loaded up a new game, just before you take the G.O.A.T (where you spawn inside Dad's clinic), the Dad NPC had massive, Deathclaw-like hands. It had the normla textures of that character's model, but it was using the hand maodel of a Deathclaw. In 3rd=person view, the same thing happened to my character in Megaton. please tell me if this is a glitch, or if something's wrong with my game. User:Abacrius 10:05 AM EST, October 18, 2010

Two bugs
I got two bugs. One was when i ran into Mel. I had no ammo and 2 HP so ran into the power station near Old Olney. I came out and i was walking in the air. However whenever i tried to fly over a rock i couldn't. It was very strange. I then sat down on a sofa and i was on ground again. Why did this happen? Also, another one. I went to Megaton Ruins. There was broken terrain and you could see through it. There was green inside it. I ran over to the broken floor and i was stuck. I died of rads and fell into the hole and i was floating in the air and there was green walls and a blue square at the bottom. Why did this happen and what are the green walls and the blue square?

Tezzla Cannon 14:08, September 15, 2010 (UTC)

Date:Year bug
Its weird but I have not experienced this bug, my date WILL progress in years. im currently in 2279, and it reads that on the wait box. The specific date in my game is 7/13/79, making it my 21st birthday in-game. Maybe my game is unique?? 24.63.181.250 00:37, October 6, 2010 (UTC)

I'm playing on my xbox 360 and I'm currently at 01.04.78. I'm thinking either people reported the date screwup from either very early versions, or from platform specific versions. Chalzr 05:21, February 17, 2011 (UTC)

Reclining Groves Resort Homes bug
This is repeatable for me, happens every time I do it (Game of the Year Edition on PC). When in Reclining Groves Resort Homes, next to the wrecked houses is a barn, inside it is a trader person. There is a white table near the back of the barn with some various items nearby which belong to the trader (a wrench, coffee cups, other stuff). Well if you try to pick up one of the coffee mugs in particular -- its on the ground next to the table -- the game simply quits to desktop immediately. No Crash, just boom, you see desktop, game has closed. I tried doing this when loading a much much older save, traveling there, and picking it up again and boom quits. I tried rebooting, copying the game's folder and playing from that folder (in case it was a hard drive read issue at the spot the game files were exactly placed), but no in each case the same issue happens so it means somehow that particular coffee mug is linked to a permanent bug causing the game to quit. How ABSOLUTELY ridiculous of Bethesda to do that, to have certain items in the gameworld or anything in the game-world for that matter which simply causes the game to quit to desktop for no reason. If they had coded the game correctly, then there would be no way picking one particular cup up causing a quit error, or picking any of them up would do it too. This leads me to think their coding methods are a bit....strange, and unique to certain items, areas, or instances. That alone can lead to tons of errors happening and very hard to control them all. Someone could confirm this cup error and see if it happens in your game's copy too? Would be appreciated.

A game engine is one complicated piece of code. It's simply not reasonable to assume bethesda would be able to predict every possible bug in their codebase. Just out of curiosity, if you're still having this issue, does anything show up in the Event Viewer immediately after a crash? I've had problems with other applications that silently die because of the way DEP was handling buffer overruns. Either way, if you want to see something fixed, the developers need to be aware of the issue. They aren't mind readers :)

Items Hidden in Inventory
Placing multiple items in a container (or player inventory) will result in some of them being hidden from view. Usually though removing the visible items will result in the others reappearing. 65.175.224.90 21:11, November 8, 2010 (UTC)

The Blob
Okay, this is a fairly rare one and if I remember correctly my buddy might have taken a video of it, in any case, I have a save I made to fulfill my sadistic ragdoll impulses located at Evergreen Mills. What I did was kill all the Raiders around the exterior, and dragged them all near the fenced area by the building. Naturally, the only logical next step was to start dropping my entire inventory of frag mines in a circle and then deposit the bodies in one big heap atop the mine pile. Usually I'd use a fat man or frag grenade to ignite them, and it would usually obliterate the corpses completely, however, one time when I did this (with the grenade), perhaps the way the mines were laid or how the detonating explosive landed -- I'm not quite sure, but instead of all the bodies flying out, well, they kind of all glitched together into an amorphous blob of raider ragdolls. When I say amorphous, I mean that limbs on one side of the pile that were still attached were stretched over to the other side and attached to limbs on other ragdolls. Heads, arms, legs, hands and feet, every where the physical model had a bone, all these limbs were rotating and stretching. Of particular humor were the gibbed parts that stayed in tow as they also rotated. However, even more fascinating was that this mass actually MOVED cohesively in a well defined direction (towards the train cars) at a snail's pace, but nonetheless they moved indefinitely. I set aside a special savegame for that one, but when I reloaded it later, the corpse mass just kind of seemed to explode apart (not gib, but just fly apart as though an explosion had occured) again. This would appear to be directly attributable to the game's physics engine and I would love to see if anyone else could replicate it!

Need solution to follower bug
I play f3 on an Xbox 360. I have completed the main quest line, and am waiting to complete the last quest in the Broken steel quest line. At level 5, I hired dogmeat. He then died on the way to the outcast outpost. During the 'finding the garden of eden' quest, I was able have fawkes as a follower. I could ak fawkes to be my follower after escaping raven rock, but did not have good karma. I played through until level 22 without any followers, but then took the 'Puppies!' perk, therefore gaining the equivalent of a new dogmeat. However, I can no longer get any followers, with all replying that they do not like my current companion, even when dogmeat has been sent to vault 101. I would like to know of any solutions to the problem. If not, I will try the multiple followers glitch, killing dogmeat, then hiring to fill the companion slot.

Open container search corpse, looting slowdown
A common bug is a slowdown when opening containers or loading new areas, looting or searching corpses. The cause of this slowdown is due to third party graphic software. Uninstalling software such as ASUS SmartDoctor and ASUS Gamer OSD will resolve this issue. 217.208.223.20 12:20, April 17, 2011 (UTC)

high level random encounters early on GOTY for PC
I'm not sure if this is the place for this but i couldn't find any other place, the Enclave as well as a few other high level random encounters are happening almost as soon as I leave the vault such as Sam Warrick appearing out of nowhere and gunning me down (its happened a few times)--General Darkstar 20:53, July 23, 2011 (UTC)

Possible cite-able source for bugs
I originally posted this at Wikia, but the tip would probably be infinitely more useful and used here...

The changelist for the Fallout 3 Unofficial Patch is a fairly large list of bugs that have been patched by fans -- and that, consequently, do (or have at some point) still exist in official copies of the game, including console versions. Though the source is unofficial, it seems quite reliable, and hypothetically, anyone should be able to crack open the mod's contents to verify that it changes what it claims to.

This all means that the mod's changelist, which can be downloaded on its own via the provided link, could be an excellent way to add formal, verifiable citations to glitches mentioned in Fallout 3 articles all over this wiki. Rather useful, especially since the game has many random or occasional glitches that can be difficult to reproduce, but easy for a modder to fix once identified. User:DavidJCobb