What the fuck is this bug?
Imagine you’re playing Payday 2, the music keeps playing, but the screen freezes, your mouse gets locked inside the game window, and you can’t click or do anything. The game doesn’t close or crash properly, and the usual fixes like Alt+Tab or Task Manager don’t work because the game window stays “on top” and locks your mouse. The only way before was to force a hard reboot of your PC — total nightmare.
(Ignore the Stock Images, didn´t think of a clever thumbnail, maybe i will change it later)
Why does this happen?
Payday 2 freezes in a weird state where the process is still running and playing audio but totally stuck visually. The mouse is trapped inside the window, and you can’t bring up Task Manager or switch apps normally because the game stays focused and on top.
How does this mod fix it?
This mod doesn’t try to patch the game or use complicated modding frameworks like SUPERBLT or BeardLib (because the mod would crash with the game if it froze). Instead, it gives you a super simple Windows .bat script that you can run even when your mouse is locked, to force-close the Payday 2 process safely — no reboot needed.
Reminder:
This isn’t a real fix, it doesn’t prevent the crash, but gives a faster, cleaner way to terminate the game when it does. Which basically makes the crash less annoying.
How to use:
- When the freeze bug happens, press the Windows key.
- Type the name of the
.batfile (for example:ClosePayday.bat). - Press Enter.
- The script will force close Payday 2 instantly, no need to reboot your PC.
Here’s the script (Paydayclose.bat):
taskkill /IM payday2_win32_release.exe /F
Important:
I couldn’t replicate this bug myself, so this should work in theory. Please download this mod, test it out when you get the freeze, and leave feedback if it actually fixes the issue. There’s even a VR version available!
Coming soon in V2:
-
Mac support
-
Linux support
-
A demo of the mod (if I run into the bug myself)
-
If you get the bug, please help out by recording it and dropping feedback, really appreciate it!
-
A simple visual to show how the bug works
Coming soon in V3:
- Payday: The Heist version
- Payday 3 version
- No clue if this bug even happens on these Paydays, but might as well add the fix just in case
sup, the issue is likely related to either epic games services (game works fine with -steamMM) or outdated engine (same stuttering and freezing on payday the heist but none on payday 3) i've got a couple of fixes that i found by myself over a couple of weeks that the freezing was happening, i've made a steam guide and hopefully you can make a full on fix whereas i found a temp one that only works while the game is running here's the link: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3478569931&tscn=1747717859
hopefully you'll succeed where i have failed best of luck to y'all
Oh, i will check that out later, thanks!
Ok i checked it out, uh, so the way you fix it sounds interesting, however one thing to consider.
This fix only works if you have a potato PC, so for example, if you have low FPS and crash a lot because of your low RAM, you could instead focus that ram into Payday 2, which looks great
However, it doesn´t exactly fixes coding issues of Payday 2 itself (Which causes these crashes, like acess violation or network packets crashes) or mods crashing like mod conflicts
At least tho, it works for one thing and that´s great, maybe i can somehow code so your Payday 2 automatically has performance mode enabled but a big maybe. Thanks for sharing tho