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GunZ: The Duel crashing? The complete fix guide (BugTrap)

Level: Beginner

If your GunZ is closing by itself — out of nowhere, mid-match, or with that grey window reading “A crash has been detected by BugTrap” — this guide is for you.

The point here is not to guess. It is to teach you how to find the cause before you start changing things at random.

Before anything else: do NOT reopen the game yet

This is the step almost everyone skips, and it is the most important one.

GunZ writes a log file called mlog.txt in the game folder. It records startup — which graphics card was picked, how audio was initialised — and that is usually where the clue lives.

The catch: that log is rewritten every time the game launches. If you crash and immediately hit “play” again, the crash record disappears and becomes the new startup record.

So: you crashed, take a breath. Go read the log first.

Step 1: open mlog.txt

To find the game folder without hunting for it:

  1. Open Steam and go to your library.
  2. Right-click on GunZ: The Duel.
  3. Properties → Installed Files tab → Browse button.

Windows opens the game folder. The default path is usually:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\GUNZ THE DUEL

Look for mlog.txt in there and open it with Notepad (a double click will do).

If it is not in the root folder, use the search box in the top-right corner of File Explorer and type mlog. Depending on the version it may sit in a subfolder.

Step 2: what to look for in the log

You do not need to understand all of it. Just look for three things:

1. Which graphics card the game picked. Search for lines containing Device, Adapter, NVIDIA, AMD, Intel or Radeon. If you see the name of the integrated chip (Intel UHD, Intel Iris, AMD Radeon Graphics with no model number) and you do have a dedicated card, you found a strong candidate. Skip to cause 1.

2. How audio started. Search for sound, audio, device in the startup section. An error or warning here points at cause 2.

3. The last line of the file. That is the last thing the game managed to record before dying. If it always stops at the same place, that is a pattern — note it down and include it in your report.

Keep that file: if you are going to ask for help on Discord, pasting the last lines of mlog.txt is worth more than any description.

Now the causes, from most likely and easiest to most laborious.

Cause 1: the game is using the wrong graphics card

Symptom: the log shows the integrated chip; or the game runs at strangely low FPS before closing; or you are on a laptop.

Laptops with two GPUs are where this happens most. Windows decides which one to hand to each program, and sometimes it decides wrong.

If you have NVIDIA

Through the NVIDIA Control Panel (right-click the desktop to open it):

  1. Manage 3D settings
  2. Program Settings tab
  3. Under “Select a program to customize”, click Add and pick the GunZ executable (the .exe in the game folder)
  4. Under Preferred graphics processor, choose High-performance NVIDIA processor
  5. Apply

If you use the newer NVIDIA app, the same option lives under the Graphics tab, selecting GunZ from the program list.

If you have AMD

In AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition, go to Gaming, pick GunZ and set the graphics profile to use the dedicated GPU.

Through Windows (works with any card)

  1. Settings → System → Display
  2. Scroll to Graphics
  3. Pick GunZ from the list (or Browse and point to the .exe)
  4. Options → High performance → Save

After that, launch the game and check mlog.txt again to see whether the card changed. That is the payoff of knowing how to read the log: you can confirm the change took effect.

Cause 2: too many audio devices

Symptom: you use VoiceMeeter, VB-Audio Virtual Cable, a capture card, wireless headsets, a monitor with built-in speakers, HDMI output — and Windows shows a huge device list.

GunZ carries an old audio engine and has a history of not handling this well. When the game tries to initialise audio and hits a virtual device, or one that has gone away, it can simply die.

The test is fast and fully reversible:

  1. Right-click the sound icon next to the clock → Sound settings
  2. Scroll to More sound settings (this opens the classic panel)
  3. On the Playback tab you can see everything connected
  4. Right-click the ones you do not use → Disable
  5. Leave one as the Default Device — your headset or speakers
  6. Do the same on the Recording tab if you have a pile of virtual microphones there

Launch the game and test. If that fixes it, you found the cause — and you can re-enable devices one at a time until you identify the culprit.

Also worth testing: audio quality. On the Playback tab, right-click your device → Properties → Advanced tab → under Default Format, try 16 bit, 48000 Hz (DVD Quality). Exotic sample rates (96 kHz, 192 kHz) have broken plenty of older games.

VoiceMeeter users: try closing VoiceMeeter completely before launching GunZ. That alone is a valid test.

Cause 3: antivirus or another anti-cheat fighting for space

GunZ: The Duel uses Easy Anti-Cheat, which runs at kernel level — deep inside Windows. Two programs at that level competing is a recipe for crashes.

What to check:

  • Another kernel-level anti-cheat running alongside. If you have Valorant (Vanguard), FACEIT AC or ESEA installed, they can be active even with their game closed. Vanguard in particular starts with Windows. Try disabling it, or reboot without opening the other game.
  • Third-party antivirus. An aggressive antivirus can block Easy Anti-Cheat for looking like suspicious behaviour — which, technically, it does.

How to add an exclusion in Windows (Microsoft Defender):

  1. Windows Security → Virus & threat protection
  2. Under “Virus & threat protection settings”, click Manage settings
  3. Scroll to Exclusions → Add or remove exclusions
  4. Add an exclusion → Folder → point to the GunZ folder

If you use another antivirus, look for “exclusion” or “exception” in its settings and add the same folder.

Do not disable your antivirus. A folder exclusion solves the same problem without leaving your PC exposed.

Cause 4: overlays

An overlay is anything that draws on top of the game: Steam, Discord, NVIDIA app / GeForce Experience, MSI Afterburner, RivaTuner, Xbox Game Bar, RGB software. They all work by injecting code into the game — a classic crash cause in older titles.

Test by turning them off one at a time:

  • Steam: right-click the game → Properties → uncheck Enable the Steam Overlay while in-game
  • Discord: Settings → Game Overlay → off
  • Xbox Game Bar: Windows Settings → Gaming → Xbox Game Bar → off
  • Afterburner/RivaTuner: close them completely, including from the system tray

Cause 5: game files or driver

Left for last because it fixes things least often — but when it does, it does.

  • Verify files: Steam → right-click GunZ → Properties → Installed Files → Verify integrity of game files.
  • Graphics driver: if yours is very old, update it. If the crashing started right after you updated the driver, go the other way — roll back to the previous version.
  • After server maintenance: Masangsoft asks, in every notice, that you close the Steam client and relaunch the game. An outdated client behaves strangely.

What is a waste of time

So you do not burn hours on what the community has already tried without success:

  • Reinstalling the game. Several players redownloaded everything and ended up in exactly the same place.
  • Forwarding router ports (7700–7800) and enabling UPnP. That is for connection problems, not crashes — and even for connection, players reported it did not help.
  • VPN. Also a connection topic. Nothing to do with the game closing by itself.
  • “Optimisers” and registry cleaners. They do not fix game crashes and can break other things.

Do not confuse a crash with a connection problem

They are different things and people mix them up constantly:

  • The game CLOSES and disappears (with or without BugTrap) → that is a crash. This guide.
  • The game stays open, but you join a room and nobody shows up, or everyone sits at 0 ping → that is a connection problem. We explained it here.
  • Stuck on “Logging in…” and dropping with “Disconnected from the server” → that is a login problem, and changing your exit IP has evidence of working there.

Still crashing?

  1. Click “Submit Bug” when BugTrap appears. That report goes to the channel Masangsoft wired into the game itself — the most direct way for the problem to reach someone who can fix it.
  2. Log it on our status page, using the “Game crashing” button. The more people log it, the clearer the real scale of the problem and the hours when it bites hardest.
  3. Ask for help on Discord, pasting the last lines of mlog.txt, plus: your graphics card model, whether you are on a laptop, and whether you use a virtual audio cable. With those three pieces of information, the odds of someone nailing the diagnosis go up a lot.

And one thing worth recording: the August 24 patch shipped, on paper, “improved stability to reduce occasional unexpected game crashes”. The reports kept coming after it. In other words — not everything is on your PC. Run the tests in this guide, but if nothing works, it may well not be you.

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