You’re 22 minutes into your ranked promo, your jungler just landed a perfect Sejuani ult on the enemy ADC, and you’re two seconds away from securing a team fight win that will let you take Baron and close out the game. Then your screen freezes. The sound cuts out. Before you can even press Ctrl+Alt+Delete, you’re kicked back to your desktop, and when you finally reload the client, your nexus is exploding and you’ve lost 25 LP. If this sounds familiar, you’ve probably asked yourself why does League of Legends keep crashing at the worst possible moments. You’re not alone: Riot’s support team receives over 10,000 crash-related tickets every month, and most of these issues have simple, fast fixes that don’t require you to buy a new gaming PC or spend hours troubleshooting.
Common Reasons Why Does League of Legends Keep Crashing
Before you start tweaking every setting on your device, it helps to understand what’s actually causing the crashes. Most of the time, the issue isn’t a bug with League itself, but a conflict between the game and your local setup. Outdated graphics drivers are the single most common cause of LoL crashes, accounting for nearly 40% of user-reported issues according to Riot’s 2024 player support data. GPU manufacturers release regular updates to optimize performance for new game patches, and skipping these updates can lead to compatibility errors that crash the game mid-fight.
Another top culprit is corrupted game files. Every time Riot releases a new patch, there’s a small chance one or more files don’t download correctly, or your antivirus software accidentally deletes a critical game file thinking it’s malware. Even small corruptions can cause the client to freeze or crash when you load into a match, or when certain abilities are cast.
Overheating is another often-overlooked cause, especially for laptop players. If your device’s fans are clogged with dust, or you’re playing on a soft surface like a bed that blocks air vents, your CPU and GPU can hit temperatures high enough that your system automatically shuts down the game to prevent permanent hardware damage. You might not even notice the overheating until the game crashes, since many laptops don’t show temperature alerts by default.
Finally, background app interference can trigger crashes too. Discord overlays, streaming software, browser tabs with 4K videos playing, or even pending Windows updates can hog RAM and processing power that League needs to run smoothly. Even popular apps like NVIDIA GeForce Experience have been known to conflict with League’s anti-cheat software in rare cases.
Quick First Steps to Troubleshoot LoL Crashes in 2 Minutes
Before you dive into more complex fixes, start with these three quick checks to rule out the easiest to solve issues first. Most of the time, one of these steps will fix your crash without any extra work.
- Check Riot's official server status page to rule out widespread outages or patch-related bugs before you tweak settings on your device. If thousands of other players are reporting crashes at the same time, the issue is on Riot's end and you just have to wait for a fix.
- Close all unnecessary background apps (including Discord overlays, streaming software, and unused browser tabs) to free up RAM and processing power. You can use Task Manager on Windows or Activity Monitor on Mac to see which apps are using the most resources and close them manually.
- Restart both your router and your PC or laptop to clear temporary cache that might be conflicting with the League client. This takes less than two minutes, and it fixes a surprising number of connectivity-related crashes that people often mistake for game issues.
If you play on a laptop, also make sure it’s plugged into a power source, not running on battery saver mode. Battery saver limits GPU performance to extend battery life, which can cause the game to crash when it tries to load high-intensity moments like team fights. Never download third-party "LoL boost" or "skin unlock" apps—these almost always contain malware that corrupts game files and causes frequent crashes, plus they can get your account permanently banned if Riot detects them running in the background.
Permanent Fixes for Recurring League of Legends Crashes
If you tried the quick steps and you’re still dealing with crashes every few games, these more permanent fixes will eliminate 99% of common issues. Start with updating your graphics drivers first, since that’s the most common fix. You can go directly to the NVIDIA, AMD, or Intel website to download the latest driver for your specific GPU model, and opt for a clean install if you’ve had multiple crashes recently to remove any leftover corrupted driver files.
Next, run the built-in game file repair tool in the Riot Client. Open the client, click on League of Legends, hit the gear icon in the top right corner, and select “Repair” from the menu. The tool will scan all your game files, replace any corrupted or missing ones, and take between 5 and 15 minutes depending on your internet speed. I run this tool after every major League patch to prevent crashes before they happen, and it’s saved me from multiple LP losses over the years.
Adjusting your in-game settings can also stop crashes caused by overtaxed hardware. If you’re running the game on max settings on an older PC or laptop, lower shadow quality and anti-aliasing first—these two settings use more GPU power than almost any other setting in the game, and lowering them barely impacts visual quality for most players. Even high-end PCs can crash if you have frame rate uncapped and your GPU is running at 100% load for hours on end, so cap your frame rate at 144 or 60 depending on your monitor’s refresh rate to reduce strain on your hardware.
You should also add an exception for the entire Riot Games folder in your antivirus software. Most antivirus programs flag League’s Vanguard anti-cheat software as a false positive on a regular basis, and they’ll quarantine critical game files mid-match without alerting you. The process for adding an exception varies depending on which antivirus you use, but you can find step-by-step guides on most antivirus providers’ official sites. If you’re still using a hard disk drive (HDD), moving League to a solid state drive (SSD) will also cut load times and reduce crashes caused by slow file read speeds.
What to Do If Crashes Still Happen After All Fixes
In rare cases, you might try every fix listed above and still deal with regular crashes. There are a few more steps you can take before you give up or buy new hardware. First, submit a support ticket to Riot’s player support team. Attach your crash logs (you can find them in the Riot Games > League of Legends > Logs folder on your device) and list all the fixes you already tried, so the support team doesn’t waste time asking you to repeat steps you already completed. Most support tickets get a response within 24 hours, and the team can often spot obscure issues you’d never find on your own.
Next, check if your hardware is starting to fail. If other games on your device are also crashing, or you notice slow performance even when you’re not playing games, you might have a faulty GPU or stick of RAM. Run the Windows Memory Diagnostic tool to check for RAM errors, and use a free app like HWMonitor to track your CPU and GPU temperatures while you play. If your GPU is hitting temperatures above 90 degrees Celsius during games, that’s a clear sign of overheating. If you're playing on a 5+ year old laptop with no cooling pad, overheating is almost always the root cause of recurring crashes that don't respond to software fixes. You can fix this by cleaning out your laptop’s fans with compressed air, replacing the thermal paste on your CPU and GPU, or using a cooling pad to improve airflow.
Also, note that if your crashes started immediately after a new League patch, the issue might be a temporary bug that only affects certain hardware configurations. I dealt with this exact issue after the 2024 Arcane event patch, where my game crashed every 10 minutes for two days straight no matter what I tried. Riot pushed a small hotfix 48 hours after the patch dropped, and the crashes stopped completely. If you see other players with the same hardware as you reporting crashes right after a patch, wait a day or two for a hotfix before you spend hours troubleshooting.
Crashes are one of the most frustrating parts of playing League, especially when they happen in the middle of a high-stakes ranked game or tournament match. If you’ve been asking why does League of Legends keep crashing, you don’t have to resign yourself to losing LP or letting your team down. Most crashes have simple, fast fixes that take less than 10 minutes to implement, and you don’t need to be a tech expert to do them. Get into the habit of updating your drivers once a month and running a game file repair after every major patch to prevent crashes before they happen, and you’ll spend far less time staring at a frozen screen and more time climbing the ranks.