Bugs (Origins)

Before you start
This page is for general bugs only.
 * Bugs relating to specific quests, characters, items, locations, or codex entries should be described on their respective pages. See Category:Dragon Age: Origins bugs for a more thorough list of affected content in the game.
 * For bugs that can be exploited to gain advantages in the game, see Exploits (Origins).

It should be noted that a good number of these bugs may have been fixed in later versions or by official patches, and that all of these bugs represent contributors' subjective experiences with a particular playthrough, version, platform, and game machine. During a given playthrough, it may not be obvious whether an issue is a genuine bug, a hardware problem, or even the unexpected result of choices within the game.

Ranged attack speed bug

 * Haste and Swift Salve slow down aim speed, increasing animation length by and, respectively. Sadly, this bug is not patched as of v. 1.03. This is a relevant script, to whomever it may concern:
 * // spell_constants_h
 * const float HASTE_AIM_SPEED_MODIFIER = 0.8f;
 * // spell_modal
 * eEffects[3] = EffectModifyProperty(PROPERTY_ATTRIBUTE_RANGED_AIM_SPEED, HASTE_AIM_SPEED_MODIFIER, PROPERTY_ATTRIBUTE_ATTACK, -5.0f); 


 * A workaround of sorts exists, effectively allowing your party melee attackers to benefit from Haste without making archers useless. Shale's Rock Mastery aura, especially in a duplicated form, overrides any aim speed penalties ( aim speed modifier will offset almost any combination of penalties). Some testing was conducted during this scenario: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFkR2qF7zs0


 * Another viable option is equipping Repeater Gloves that grant aim speed as  bonus.
 * Both Haste and Swift Salve bugs can be fixed on PC using a mod available here.

Steam
These bugs have been reported when installing and playing the game via Steam.

No graphics configuration
Problem: The Steam installer defaults to launch the game the first time without configuring graphics setup. This has been known to cause the game to crash (tested: Windows Vista 64 and Windows 7 64).

Solution: Choose option 2 from the Steam launcher and bring up the splash screen, then choose Options. Create and save a graphics profile. Subsequent launches should work.

Registration codes
Problem: The Steam installer says you need to enter a registration key to play the game and get bonus items. No key is required to play the game but they are required to unlock special items in both the Standard and Deluxe editions of the game.

Solution: Right-click on the Dragon Age Origins game in your Steam Games list, and select the CD-Keys option from the context menu. In this window you will see two or more codes (depending on whether you purchased the Standard or the Deluxe edition of the game, and whether you pre-purchased the game). One of them registers the game, and the other one or more are promo codes to unlock bonus items.


 * Go to the BioWare registration page to register the game using the Dragon Age: Origins Standard Game CD Key
 * Go to the "Redeem Promo Code" page to redeem the other codes.

Note that you need to create an account on the BioWare social site to be able to access these pages and redeem these codes, and you will need to be logged in when running the game (click the button in the lower-left corner of the game's main menu screen).

DLC and Dragon Age Updater service
The Steam, Impulse, and Origin versions of the game (and possibly any other digital download versions) may fail to display DLCs in the Downloadable Content menu, or the DLCs may be listed as "unauthorized" and the in-game items will be lost.

Solution: If Steam is not running as admin, it will not be able to install the Dragon Age Updater service when it installs the game. The first symptom of this is that the DLCs that should be available with your version of the game will not be in the list of Downloadable Content (the list will be empty).

To install the service, run cmd.exe as administrator (press windowskey + r, type cmd and run), change to the bin_ship directory under the Dragon Age install directory (for Steam this will be ...\Steam\steamapps\common\dragon age origins\bin_ship) and run this command:

(Note: if you don't have .NET 2.0.50727 installed, you might have installutil.exe somewhere else on your system, search for it)

The next problem you will probably have is that after downloading the content and playing for a while, your downloadable content will disappear. Do not save whenever you see this happen, just exit. In the Downloadable Content window, Installed Content tab, you will probably see that most or all of the DLCs will be marked "Unauthorized". This is because the service you installed above needs to be running anytime the game runs, but the game is supposed to start it and stop it automatically when the game starts up and when you quit, respectively. This will happen even if you set the service to Automatic. The problem is that because of broken permissions, the game can stop the service but cannot start it. So you would have to start it manually every time you want to play the game. To fix the permissions, once again run cmd.exe as administrator, and run this command:

From then on, the game will be able to start and stop the service correctly and you can leave it in Manual mode so it only runs when needed. Note however that it may happen, if you start the game and skip the intro screens too quickly, that the service will not have had time to start when you load your game, and it will say "This game relies on premium content and cannot be loaded". Just wait a second and try again, this will give the service time to start and confirm that you have the right to use the "premium content" your savegame was referring to.

No text displayed
When started, the game may display no text, neither in the start menu nor in the game itself. Reinstalling the game may help. If you run the game on an older graphics card, a shader incompatibility may be the origin of the bug. You can download SwiftShader and follow the included instructions to correct this problem.

Multiprocessing system bug
The game may run too quickly on multiprocessing systems, causing characters to jitter around violently. This can be fixed by opening the Task Manager (Control-Alt-Delete), opening the Processes tab, right-clicking on daorigins.exe, selecting "Affinity," and making sure that only one CPU is selected (e.g. CPU0.) This must be done each time you run the game (including after crashes.)

Miscellaneous graphics bugs

 * Switching between ranged and melee weapons can sometimes leave you with the wrong visual models; although the game still acts as if you're fighting with a bow, it may show the character performing bow attack animations with a melee weapon. This doesn't affect gameplay, and can be corrected by reloading the area- the quickest way is to quicksave and then immediately load the quicksave.
 * Melee weapons may sometimes be "sheathed" upside down; this may be linked to the visual model issue above, and can be fixed in the same way.
 * A shaded box may appear surrounding characters. This bug is unconfirmed, and its causes and fixes are unknown.
 * Using the console command zz_pre_debug during Tower of Ishal may result in a persistent rain effect for the rest of the game.
 * (Approval needed) While fighting the Broodmother, the Warden fell. After using Revival by Wynne (at the time with Vessel of the Spirit active), the Warden turned into a "spirit" like Wynne, but the effect have not worn out along with Wynne's. This does not effect the gameplay, but seems as a permanent graphic change (PC ver 1.05).

Oghren missing
If you have used the console command runscript selectparty before meeting Oghren for the first time in the Orzammar Diamond Quarter, he will not spawn at Tapster's Tavern and will be missing for the rest of the game.

To fix the bug, go to Tapster's (preferably after acquiring the quest A Paragon of Her Kind), leave, and then enter runscript selectparty into the console again. Oghren should appear on the screen and remain there from that point on.

+X% to healing effects received bug
The modifier is bugged as of patch 1.04: the first 99% of the effect is ignored. While it is possible to stack this effect to 100% (thus getting a 1% effect) and beyond, for all practical purposes this property is ineffective in-game. This raises some questions concerning the true value of some extremely expensive (Lifegiver) or otherwise hard-to-get (Fade Wall) gear.

A list of affected equipment, in alphabetical order:

This bug can be fixed via the toolset, or by installing this mod.

Quest board reward bug
This bug is known to affect the following quest boards: If the player completes multiple quests for one of the above organizations and turns them all in at once, the player may only receive the reward for the last one listed in the journal. The only known workaround is to use the console to grant the missing XP and gold.
 * the Chanter's Board
 * the Blackstone Irregulars
 * The Mages' Collective

Miscellaneous bugs

 * If Morrigan leaves the party after you give her the Black Grimoire, an invisible Morrigan will ask you to find the real Grimoire on a subsequent visit to camp.
 * If you are a City Elf and in a relationship with Leliana, Shianni will mention your wedding when you return to the Alienage, prompting Leliana to ask "You are married?" At this point, the video will freeze and the dialogue will not be audible, but the conversation can still be continued via text. After the conversation ends, the game functions normally.
 * Certain NPCs will occasionally refer to the Warden by an incorrect gender; for example, King Cailan may refer to a male Dalish Elf as female, and Herren may refer to a female Warden as male. This seems to be a writing error that cannot be fixed.
 * If Wynne leaves the party while you're at the party camp, and the Hillside Path encounter has already occurred (but the Low Road encounter has not), an invisible Wynne will explain what happened on your next visit to camp.

Camp merchant stuck
After you save the merchant Bodahn Feddic from a darkspawn attack outside Lothering, he and his son Sandal are supposed to show up at your party camp. However, after you defeat the darkspawn, he may be stuck in combat, or the game may freeze when you speak to him. There is currently no way to fix this except to start again.

Rogue: strength vs. dexterity issue
When playing as a rogue, or with rogue characters such as Zevran and Leliana, dexterity is meant to represent the rogue's attack power, and a high dexterity is required to equip the best daggers. However, before patch 1.04, rogues' attack power was based on strength alone, meaning that increasing dexterity to use higher-quality daggers would not increase attack power as it is supposed to.

As of patch 1.04, the attribute-based bonus damage from the weapon is now properly 50% strength and 50% dexterity. In addition, if the rogue's cunning attribute is higher than their strength attribute, they can learn Lethality to use their cunning score in place of their strength.

Zevran/Male Warden romance: epilogue error
If you complete the romance subplot with Zevran as a male Warden and choose to travel with him in the epilogue, the epilogue slideshow will refer to your male character as "her" and "woman." It's not known whether this will be fixed by any patches or if this is just a developer oversight.

Stuck romancing Alistair
If you are romancing Alistair and choose to recruit the Secret Companion, Alistair will leave the party, but because the two of you never officially ended your relationship, you will be prevented from romancing anyone else in your party. Even with high approval ratings (up to and including Love,) you will not have an option to invite anyone to your tent or partake in flirtatious banter with them once this has happened, because you are still "officially" seeing Alistair.

Alistair: continuity errors
EVERY ENDING WHERE ALISTAIR DOES NOT BECOME KING IS BUGGED. He always refers to himself as king from after the Landsmeet on, no matter which choice you made. If you are a human noble who marries Anora and has Alistair kill Loghain, the ending is impossible to complete. Anora goes invisible and Alistair will be standing there in king's armor. He also does the king's speech for leading the charge to the battle of Denerim instead of Anora.

The only way to avoid this is to recruit Secret Companion (causing you to lose Alistair) or to make Alistair king.

There is also a bug on Xbox 360 at the end of the final battle, if Alistair is king and has not married Anora. When you tell Alistair that you will take the final blow to spare his life (only if you refused Morrigan's offer), the game freezes and there is no possible way to end the game. Even if you restart the final battle, it will freeze. This glitch has the potential to induce the Red Ring of Death on your Xbox if you are not careful!

The Elven Ritual glitch
While performing The Elven Ritual in the Brecilian Ruins, it is possible for the player character to be teleported into the Elven Burial Chamber prematurely and trapped behind the locked door. There is no known solution other than reloading a previous save.

Xbox 360: Corrupted save files
Prior to patch 1.04, selling too many items to the same merchant could cause some or all of the player's save files to become corrupted. A detailed explanation of how to trigger this bug can be found here. In some cases, the only solution would be to start a new game; however, some players were unable to save their game at all after experiencing this glitch, rendering the game basically unplayable.

On August 5th, 2010, patch 1.04 was released for the Xbox 360, fixing the bug.

Graphics bugs
Reported graphics bugs:
 * Disappearing characters
 * Vibrating head movements
 * Places where the background switches between normal and solid black or white shapes repeatedly
 * Failure to show changed shape after shapeshifting
 * Player character becoming stuck in a pose that will not change, even when drawing a weapon, entering battle, changing armor, or entering/leaving an area. This can sometimes be fixed by saving and reloading.

Sound bugs

 * When speaking with some NPCs, such as the bartender at the Gnawed Noble Tavern, certain lines of audio may be missing or repeated. This often occurs when skipping through conversations. When the camera angle changes or the conversation moves to a new topic, the audio usually returns.
 * A female cook at the Arl of Redcliffe's Estate seems to speak with a male voice.

Delayed quest triggers

 * After completing a battle or task, the conversation and quest update that comes after said task may be difficult to trigger. This often occurs during The Fade: Lost in Dreams, when visiting the companions' nightmares. This bug usually resolves itself if you wait for the trigger, or save and reload.
 * When passing through a previously blocked area (such as the doorway blocked by Wynne's forcefield at the beginning of Broken Circle,) the rest of your party may fail to follow your character through. This can be fixed by selecting each companion individually and sending them through.

Tower of Ishal: bridge glitch
During Tower of Ishal, when crossing to the base of the tower, the flaming rocks that strike the bridge may blow holes in it. You may fall through these holes and land in the middle of the battle below. You'll have to save and reload to return to where you were.

Achievement Glitch
For anyone who purchased and played the game in the first 4 days may not have properly received their DLC achievements. It would show that the Achievements were unlocked and when they looked at their achievements it may or may not have shown them. If it did show them they were not reflecting points wise in your Gamerscore. MS said try recovering your Gamertag and if you did this they disappeared. They would show through your Dragon Age Community Website but not on your Xbox 360 or Xbox.com. All attempts to redo the achievements have also failed. Testing included, deleting the DLC, recovering your gamertag, clearing the cache, downloading the DLC again, disconnecting from live (also ea servers), and replaying. This still didn't unlock the achievements which means something is being stored in the gamertag itself. There is still no official word other than they are aware of the problem and an EA forum admin said if and when they know if you can receive your achievements they will post about it. Here is a link to the EA forum post: EA Forum
 * This has been fixed as of the January 29th title update along will all other known Achievement bugs.

As of April 20, a number of Achievement glitches still exist: many players have complained that the Master Warden achievement (for killing 500 Darkspawn, multiple playthroughs possible) and the Blight Queller (for killing 1,000 Darkspawn) are not working. Some players report having well over 1,000 Darkspawn deaths but no achievement.

There is also another glitch for the recent DLC, The Darkspawn Chronicles, the achievement Ogre's Keeper will not unlock if the first ogre dies, at all, no replays or difficulty changes allows the achievement to "pop". If you miss it on your first playthrough, you miss out on it entirely.

Action Circle
If you bring up the action circle (Left Trigger) when entering a new area but prior to your view fully loading then the game will not pause while you have it up. After you select an action or close the circle the game will pause. This is the inverse of what SHOULD be happening. To fix this pause the game using the start button and then unpause it.

Pathfinding Glitches
During the Attack at Nightfall in Redcliffe it is possible that the corpses attacking the city will become stuck on the docks or refuse to come down the hill at the windmill. The only way to correct this is to have the Warden and group find the trapped corpse at the docks or attack the corpses up the hill with arrows or go to them up the hill and attack them with melee. This glitch is applicable to Xbox360, PS3 and PC versions.

Rise of the Vanquished
It is possible for an already vanquished foe to rise from the dead and become an unkillable menace to your party. The newly risen vanquished will have no HP so all damage you to do it will be zero, but they will still be able to do normal/critical damage to your party. The only way to correct this is to revert to a previous save as once in combat mode, you will be unable to leave an area, meaning you will be fighting an unkillable foe for eternity.

The following are some ways to attempt to resolve this without being forced to use a save or autosave:


 * Using some form of knockdown ability. Stone Fist/Shield Pummel/Pommel Attack/etc.... If you get them down again they usually die.
 * Forcing the cutscene/dialogue with the woman and merchant (or other cutscene dialogue). When the scene ended, the Bandit Leader was gone and it was no longer in "combat mode."

Orzammar Glitch
If you complete either of the quests "A Prince's Favor: The First Task" or "A Lord's Trust: The First Task" at any point it is possible to betray either Bhelen or Harrowmont and begin working for the other side. If you do this you either need to speak with Vartag or Dulin. They will ask why you were working for the other side, and it is possible to tell them that you only completed the other's quest in order to spy for their side. If you complete both quests then tell Vartag and Dulin you want to spy on Bhelen and Harrowmont respectively, neither side will trust you. The inability to effectively speak with either candidate or their agents will break the "Paragon of her Kind" quest. Can't have your cake and eat it too.

This has been fixed in patch 1.04 (confirmed)

Side missions after Howe's Estate mission
In Rescue the Queen (the mission to Arl Howe's Estate), after rescuing Anora you are confronted by Ser Cauthrien and a horde of Howe soldiers. If you choose to attack them and manage to defeat them all (it is possible), you will not be arrested and will bypass the Fort Drakon mission. This causes some of the final side-quests (Mages' Collective, etc.) to become unavailable (if not already done).

Captured! Bug
If you choose to get captured after completing the mission where you have to fight Arl Howe and you also choose not to try and escape there is a bug where when you get to the end of the mission you cannot talk to your main character and continue with the mission.

(If this happens, try entering the cell with the nonresponsive main character, use the D-pad to target the cell door, and try to close it and open it again. This caused the cutscene to trigger and the quest to continue.)


 * This glitch can be caused by using a character with the 'thief' ability to pick the lock on the warden's cell door rather than using the 'key to cell doors' dropped by the prison guard. If you picked the lock, try repeating the scenario but pick up the guard's key first and switch to a character who is not a thief. This time opening the door should trigger the cutscene.

Warden's Keep Bug
If you decide to kill Avernus, it is possible that the skeleton's he spawns to assist him in battle will be stuck inside the back room, trapping your party in combat mode after Avernus is dead. Being unable to open doors in combat mode and being unable to get far enough away from the skeletons to end combat mode makes this a game ending situation as you are unable to actually reach the skeletons because they are behind a locked door and appear to be stuck in a path-finding issue.

This bug can be worked around with a mage (at least on the PS3), by using some spells. Crushing prison, tempest and blizzard can be cast through walls. These attacks will make the skeletons open the doorway, enabling the battle to complete. This technique can be used any place in the game where enemies are behind closed doors, as long as the enemies do not require dialogue prior to fighting.

On the PS3 it is possible to get around this by simply pressing up on the D-Pad when in front of the door which will focus on the door itself and allow you to hit x and open the door.

Profile Transfer Glitch
It is possible to lose all saved information if your Xbox 360 profile is transferred to another Xbox 360 console. Despite this, all downloadable content as well as completed achievements remain. There is no way around this other than re-transferring the profile, however, it is not guaranteed to fix the issue.

Locked Specializations
It is possible to have all unlocked specializations become locked once more, forcing the player to go through the trouble of completing the quests/buying the manuals. If a specialization becomes locked after completing a specialization quest, the player will no longer be able to give any characters those specializations.

Successful way to re-unlock your specializations if you did download the patch is as follows; You have to do a Gamertag Recovery. This forces Microsoft to re-sync your profile and therefor corrects the error applied by the patch. To do this, sign out of all your profiles then select the box for Profile Sign-In, select Recover Gamertag and input the information for your Xbox Live ID. It wont erase or change any of your data because you are simply re-writing the profile you already have back onto to your hard-drive. Then go into an old save file, find a way to re-unlock just one specialization then save in a NEW file. Exit the game completely, then when you go back in all specializations you had unlocked will be re-opened across your entire profile.

XBox 360 - Specializations
After some playing, an error has popped up for me that slightly hinders gameplay. Any specialization that requires a book to learn, such as Spirit Healer or Ranger, will not be attainable should you continue playing several other characters and progress through the dialog with characters to unlock specializations again. Example being you played a Warrior, and missed buying the Ranger book or could not afford it, and on your next playthrough you did not unlock the specialization again, but continued unlocking other ones, and continue this chain until you bother to finally purchase the specialization, and now it is no longer available for purchase.

A similar bug will keep specializations locked, even if you have completed the prerequisite requirements. For example, learning Assassin specialization from Zevran, when levelling up the specialization remains 'locked' despite having been taught.

PS3 Kolgrim bug
After you defile the ashes you will meet Kolgrim once again. I chose to fight with him this time by saying "all you guys are too dangerous to live" but before the fight started another dialogue scene suddenly appeared in which i got to speak with Kolgrim normally. After saying goodbye the fight scene started. The same thing happens with sten during "The Fade:Lost in Dreams" quest.

Another Achievement Glitch
After having used the latest bugged patch for the game, certain achievements for the game did not pop at their appropriate times for me, including "Recruiter" and "Traveller" (Despite my party statistics saying I've explored 100% of the world). Perhaps the patch disabled some other flags in addition to the specialization ones? I am currently seeing if clearing the hard drive cache and recovering my GamerTag will allow me to obtain it on another playthrough.67.84.224.173 16:55, January 18, 2010 (UTC)


 * This is a known glitch, the one that was supposed to be fixed by the title update. You see, the only problem there was with RtO was that for some reason the new achievements added somehow conflicted with old ones, allowing them to not unlock properly. The minor title update that jacked your specializations was supposed to fix this, but obviously it had problems of its own and just broke them anyway. As far as I know there isn't actually a way to fix this that I have seen confirmed...cache clearing/gamertag recovery might work, but I already have all the achievements so I can't confirm it for myself.

Dialogue Making No Sense
A minor glitch but during the human noble origin if using a female character with a specific voice, one of the combat quotes is, 'my warden sense is tingling'despite not being a warden yet.

This has also happened with the Dwarf Male noble using the Wise voice.

Also happens with the male human noble origin.

xbox360 item select/deselect problem
Removing items that give bonuses to talents such as dexterity, strength etc. will leave equipped items of clothing and weapons that are no longer compatible with the charachters current talent ratings. Items will appear greyed out and unselectable but still with the equipped ticks by them.

xbox360 pickup items problem
When picking up an item from a chest/pile of bones etc. and it is the same as an already equipped item such as arrows or bolts the two stocks do not combine as equipped. You will have one stock equipped and one stock in your normal inventory. To resolve un-equip then re-equip the item. This is especially critical if your inventory reads as full but may have up to four further slots available.

Epilogue bug
After defeating the Archdemon the epilogue failed to load and re-loading the game took me to after the epilogue when you can play the DLC quests.

This bug also shows up in the 360 version of the game, and can usually be fixed by resetting your hard drive cache.