I'm playing GOTY 1.31 and every time I go to the estate to try and prevent the next killing, my game crashes to the desktop as soon as the guard starts letting me in after the cut scene. I've even tried to find another way into the estate and as soon as I've climbed the wall I still get the crash to desktop. I've gone back and replayed all the previous steps in the quest to make sure I did them in the 'right order' and yet still I can't progress past this point. Anyone else have this problem and found a way to get past it? I have not completed Now or Never, does that make any difference? I didn't want to complete that quest until I was ready to say goodbye to Triss and do a lot of quests on Skellige. I have also not completed the racing quest at the Estate, does that make a difference? I hate to think of leaving the quest unfinished and letting lots of people die because I can't find the killer lol, I know who it is and I just want to play out the quest. Any help appreciated;)

You tried verify/repair? Do you have any mods?

I haven't tried verify/repair because I don't want to install the latest update, I have over 130 hours played on 1.31 and updates almost always cause problems lol. I have mods installed, mostly graphical and HUD related and not gameplay changes, none have caused any problems in the 130 hours so far. Oh well.

Patch 1.32 is only a Chinese localisation patch. Nothing more.

It seems to have caused some issues with mods I know I installed, so I'm avoiding it. I'm also just now noticing that Galaxy doesn't even show my game as installed, weird since I installed it several years ago and have been playing it since lol. I definitely don't want to reinstall it again over the game I've been playing. I almost never open Galaxy so I'm not used to it, I just bought Frostpunk so that is the first time I've opened it in a very long time. I thought the point of getting a GOG game is not to have to constantly deal with updates etc like on Steam. Honestly I'm not even sure what the verify/repair thing is, the instructions are very basic and seem to come back to 'replay the game from an earlier save before the problem appeared', which I have tried already twice.

Re-install your mods after verify/repair. Here's what CDPR’s Łukasz Babiel said:

“We’ve added support for Simplified Chinese. We had to add Simplified Chinese strings file, update the executable and one of patch .bundle files for that. If you had mods installed it may happen that this update resulted in game not starting. It’s due to the fact that if Steam sees an update, it compares the files you have with the files on servers and overrides them if there’s a difference. So your mod scripts could be overridden. If you install your mods once more the game should work, as we didn’t change scripts and their relation to code.”

Yeah it makes sense, its just that as I'm sure you know, installing and configuring mods and graphics is a huge project lol, I spent so many hours on it and I would have to relearn how to do it all again, the merging etc, which I did well over a year ago. Too daunting, especially as I really love how the game looks and works for me now. Until this problem with the quest haha, I think I may just be out of luck and will have to continue the game without completing it. Hopefully it doesn't create more problems down the road. I totally love the game, but it is hard to face having to restart after 130 hours just to reinstall the game.

I hear you, but if mods are the root cause of your issue, who's to say that it won't happen again in another area? I've never had TW3 crash because of entering an area, nor have I ever seen any evidence of other people (without mods) having area crashes.

Its definitely a worry, and I guess I'll know further down the line. I know there have been some well documented issues with this quest, so I guess I was hoping the problem was more about the quest rather than the area and other players had figured out what was causing it. And since none of my mods have caused any problems during the previous many hours, that also made me think it was the quest. Since I do interact with the guard at the gate, before the crash, I know it wasn't because I missed the guard at a previous step of the quest.

I also am able to fast travel to the Estate and can participate in the horse races, even now, so I don't think it is an area glitch. I was able to enter the Estate for the Matter of Life and Death quest, which I did about halfway through Carnal Sins once, and finished before starting Carnal Sins on another restart trying to get around the problem. Things seem to go wrong after I've visited the coroner to get the clue needed to go to the Estate. I feel like I've been replaying these two quests for many hours over the multiple tries lol.

The estate is changed after the celebration party affair with Triss, it's not the same place. Maybe that's a clue.

Yeah, that is why I thought perhaps the two quests were linked in a way that was causing the bug. Since I am playing the game long after it came out, I'm totally okay with using guides to try and navigate my way through the quests, in order not to close any quests off as they intersect. I love the way that works in the game, the stories and consequences, but I also see how it might cause problems. I've been thinking that my bug is somehow related to intersecting quests, despite thinking I was careful in how I do them in order to avoid problems. I just can't figure out which quests are causing the issue lol.

I suppose maybe I should ask what other players have found as consequences later in the game by not completing Carnal Sins? Does the singer die? I think I've read that other characters die later in the game for failing to stop the killer. Are there other opportunities to kill the true murderer even without completing the quest? How negative for further events is it if I simply can't complete the quest? Are there other quests involving the Estate that I should worry about if it ends up that I can't enter it? No need to avoid spoilers with me, I enjoy playing the game and knowing most of the outcomes already, not a problem.

1. Priscilla doesn't (can't?) die, because she's taken to the hospital at the very outset of this quest.
2. No. He's a scripted appearance NPC.
3. I've never gone that route, but it's only a (Dandelion personal favour) side quest. Probably skippable.
4. That's the last time you are able to enter the estate.

Thanks so much for all the replies, I guess I shouldn't worry too much about not being able to complete the quest and just enjoy the rest of the game;)

Did you ever find a way past this? I'm dealing with the same issue right now.
Love this quest and it'd be great if I could complete it

So I've fixed it on my end. For me what was causing it was a RAM crash due to a particle mod I was using. There is a big bonfire in this scene and the mod spawned so many particles that my RAM got overloaded and tada, ctd.

Even if you're not using a mod like that (for whoever is reading this) it is likely it is still a RAM overload due to that bonfire that is causing the crashes. It might be worthwile to try tuning your settings all the way down to low just for this scene.