Fallout: New Vegas bugs

General advice and notes

 * Fix these dumb, simple bugs that everyone hates already. It can't be that hard. Seriously, get a fucking grip.

Bethesda's FNV support page offers many simple solutions to common problems.
 * Save often and in different slots. Do not rely too much on autosave. A frequently overwritten autosave slot can easily become corrupted.
 * Make sure your computer meets, or exceeds the minimum system requirements. If any component of your computer falls below the minimum system requirements, do not report any bugs you may experience.
 * Installing the game can help greatly cut down load times and lessen glitches triggered by entering certain locations or interacting with certain NPCs. If you are experiencing game freezing and frame rate drops, loading screens that last 60 seconds and longer, or multiple crashes ensuing from the same action or location, installing the game can help with some of these issues. It may also help to clear your console cache (found under "memory > device options") which will then prompt you to re-download any patches issued on XBL when you next launch the game. Excess saves may cause this as well.

Weapon Mods

 * Fixed: When you attach a mod onto a Weathered 10mm pistol, you hold a large red error marker indicating it has a missing mesh. This will also affect the item when dropped, and will not be able to pick it back up. This was corrected on the latest PS3 and Xbox 360 download patch.

Using the console
On the PC, many NPC, quest, and player-getting-stuck issues can be resolved through the use of console commands.

Crashing, freezing and other hardware- or software-related issues

 * Whenever the player first loads the game(Normally from autosave) and tries to shoot, the game freezes. It does not matter which gun. Trying to load the game from a saved file occasionally works. It is possible this could be a hardware issue for certain Graphics Cards. In this glitch/bug, ATI Radeon HD 5700. The easiest way to quickly get back to the game is to ctrl+alt+delete and stop the process (FO:NV) then log off and back on to the account.
 * Stuttering, crashing, freezing, and slow-down issues are often hardware- and/or software-related. Please visit the Bethesda Fallout: New Vegas hardware forums for information regarding these issues. In particular, read through the stickied threads at the top of the forum pages.
 * Alt-tabbing out of the game can cause problems of all sorts.
 * When playing the game, for uncertain reasons, your entire field of vision can become permanently blurred, without having any head injuries at all. The blurring is absolute and total, not fading in and out of focus in cycles like when you have a crippled head. There appears to be no fixing this bug, turning the Pip-Boy light on and off, sleeping, fast traveling, getting killed, and reloading the game and rebooting the system several times did not fix the problem. Perhaps getting a crippled head may make a difference, but more likely the cycles of blurriness would not even be apparent as your vision is already at maximum opacity. (Getting a crippled head made no difference *verified on PS3.*)
 * Solution found: go to Guardian Peak. Just wander around for a minute, use your Pip-Boy a couple times; it should fix itself.
 * A message that reads "This save game relies on downloadable content that is no longer available. Some objects may be no longer available. Continue loading?" may pop up. Even if the player selects the "Yes" option, the game will return to the main menu with a message reading "The storage device you selected is no longer available. Load canceled." This can happen even though no downloadable content has been downloaded and even if the Xbox has never been connected to Xbox LIVE. This issue appears to be caused at multiple points in the game. It is fixed in the 1.2.0.315 patch.
 * Equipping cowboy hats via mapped key sometimes causes the console to freeze (as of latest patch)
 * Trying to holster weapons seems to make some characters stick to the ground, and be immobile. Zooming and turning still works, but the player cannot pull out his or her gun. Dropping the weapon frees the player for a few moments, as does dropping anything out of the inventory, but the player sticks quickly after. No known fixes, waiting and fast traveling doesn't work. The player also cannot fire any weapon, and switching weapons causes the bug to occur. Resetting seems to fix this bug, and it only seems to happen after loading a save file, and then loading a second file. erasing old saves and clearing the hard drive cache may fix the problem.
 * Trophies collected do not sync to the Public Trophies list at playstation.com.
 * They can be seen through the Trophies list and compared via the Friends menu on the Playstation.
 * Excessive save games in memory may cause crashes.
 * Sometimes when accessing the world map in the Pip-Boy and leaving the console, the background will disappear. Leaving and reentering the Pip-Boy fixes this.
 * 'Extremely-low textures' / 'blurred textures' / 'unreadable Pip-boy buttons text' and some other descriptions could be the different names of the same driver-settings-related bug (tested for some ATI videocards, see the pictures for comparing).

Also note that performance boost caused by 'High Performance / Performance' setting for Fallout: New Vegas is rather negative.

Patch 1.1.1.271 "Everything's Essential" bug

 * Patch 1.1.1.271 introduced a bug - Any creature or NPC could suddenly become essential. This bug is fixed by the next patch 1.2.0.285.

Gameplay bugs
Reload the game from a very early save. (Even this may not work) Or just restart the game completely.
 * Dead Money poison gas carries over on save files if you save within the gas, unknown if it can be cured. The only work around is this. (PC only)
 * When performing various unarmed attacks, character's vocal expressions (yells, grunts) were that of a female despite the character being chosen as a male. Perks, NPC interaction, and model were all that of a male as well.
 * If you talk to Fisto in the atomic wrangler most of the time if you say maybe later it will give you 10 caps each time.
 * Companions and other NPC's may randomly flee, and possibly never return to their original location.
 * Occasionally after changing ammo types in one of your guns, you will be unable to manually swap ammo types from within the Pip-Boy. It is still possible to change types via the hotkey, but when selecting a new ammo type in the ammo menu you will get an empty sounding click and the square indicating selection will refuse to move. Experienced with Lucky, the Service Rifle, and the Varmint Rifle. Dropping the affected weapon and picking it back up appears to fix the issue.
 * Boxes or jars of ammo primer or powder are useless and take up weight until dropped or stored in a container, and then picked up again, at which time the quantity of weightless ingredients is added to the inventory. This applies to most boxes and jars with a few exceptions, such as "Ammo Box, Micro-fusion Cells", which are correctly added as ammo immediately. In hardcore mode, this 'bug' is actually a benefit; a box of 250 x 5.56mm Surplus rounds weighs only 5 WP as opposed to 250 x 0.03 = 7.5 WP.
 * If an enemy attacks someone that is Neutral to the player and the enemy, the Neutral NPC becomes hostile to the player.
 * Purchasing the strength implant does not increase strength when at level 7.
 * Occasionally clothing and armor is not properly unequipped, resulting in being attacked for no reason by enemy factions. Example: If the NCR starts attacking for no reason, re-equip Legion armor and unequip it again. Make sure you receive the message that you are no longer dressed in Legion clothes.
 * The above fix doesn't always work. In that case, you'll have to use the console command.
 * Sometimes weapons do not properly hot key when multiple items are being assigned.
 * Loading a save may not change your current reputation with a faction.
 * The "Sneak" skill has no difference in effect from 50 - 100. Only factors are the amount of light, running (pre-perk), stepping on some obstacles, and line of sight.
 * When pickpocketing ammo cases, the "pick" is not counted, does not count towards the challenge and achievement, and your karma will not be adjusted. You can take it freely as if it wasn't owned.
 * Sometimes in VATS, if queuing up attacks with a firearm and attacking, the player will not do anything and can still be attacked. However, AP is not lost when going out of VATS after a few seconds.
 * Various wasteland critters often fall through the terrain. Occurs most often over high, rocky, and uneven ground. Also occasionally occurs at Lake Mead with Lakelurks. This can result in creatures with half their bodies exposed and half their bodies submerged, making them destructible but unable to move and attack the player.
 * Occasionally when the player ventures in and out of the casinos (the Tops when the player confronts Benny in particular) will remove all non-holdout weapons from the player's inventory and not return them when the player leaves. Possible fix, you will have to break into the bank/cashier and steal your weapons back
 * When a new game is started sometimes vendors and traders stock will never change and you won't be able to buy new things through the entire game.
 * Possible fix: attempt to buy all the trader's items and come back a few hours or days later.
 * Xbox 360 Fix: Clear system cache by going to Storage Settings > Memory > Press Y while Hard Drive is highlighted > Clear System Cache. After you've done this, all vendors will refresh their inventory.
 * Individual Vendor Workaround: Go up to the vendor that you want to refresh their stock, then create a save, exit to main menu, then continue from the save you just created. (Note: Only the vendors stock that you saved by will be replenished)
 * Corpses will often become either immovable or unlootable, which also happened within Fallout 3. Occasionally, revisiting the body will result in it being able to be looted, but at other times it still will be set in and you won't be able to interact with it.
 * When looting an ash pile while sneaking, the "body's" inventory showed as a pickpocket attempt. When it was attempted to be taken, the attempt failed and a Raider came running up.  When he was killed, his body had the same inventory.  The ash pile then showed as empty.  The same thing happened with a goo pile.  A NCR trooper 'caught' the attempt.  Upon reloading the very recent save, the trooper's inventory was checked, then one item from the goo pile was successfully 'pick pocketed'.  When the Trooper's inventory was rechecked, the item that had been taken from the goo pile was gone.  The 'pocket' picked showed up on the tally of pockets picked as well.  **This glitch also occurs when revisiting an area where energy weapons were used previously.  Ash and Goo piles can be 'looted', stripping a dead NPC several feet away.
 * If you take advantage of your companion's inventory to store weapons, and then enter an area where your weapons are confiscated, the weapons you stored in your companion's inventory may not be returned once you leave these areas and are gone forever.
 * Possible fix break into the bank/cashiers and steal your weapons back.There should be two lockers that has stuff. This will cause anyone there to turn hostile.
 * After completing the game along Mr. Houses questline, you can load a different game during the end cinematic, stopping the cinematic. But, after loading the game and playing for a few minutes, the end cinematic starts to play again, refuting any new progress.
 * Sometimes after auto-saving then turning off the console (sometimes without even turning off the console) the right stick can become stuck. It can still be used to look around on the map screen in your pip-boy.
 * Fix: Entering VATS and performing cinematic kills (where by the game slows down to show your kill) has been known to un-stick your controller.
 * If you kill everyone in a casino on the strip (such as the Gomorrah), the game may freeze when you walk into it again because there is no person to take your weapons.
 * Sometimes, when entering VATS, the game will freeze and make the Xbox guide unable to appear but will make sounds.
 * During a cinematic kill while NOT in VATS, occasionally, the game will remain in such a slow-motion state following the kill. This can continue from anywhere to a few seconds to several minutes.
 * Doc Mitchell will not fix radiation poisoning if you select any other fix after that choice, until you exit out of dialogue with him.
 * Putting away a weapon after making an NPC hostile will never cause them to cease being hostile (though, like FO3 a tooltip claims this can occur).
 * You can be attacked after fast traveling to any location. Fast travel is supposed to be a player shortcut, not literal teleportation, so the player should have "seen" nearby enemies at a longer range.  This results in fast travel "ambushes" that should not be possible.
 * Enemies can move through the player during hand-to-hand combat, and will sometimes be thrown away several meters in a random direction faster than the NPC can move. This can result in 1) targeting problems if the player attempts to use VATS in melee and 2) situations where an enemy can strike at you from a longer range than their weapon seems to allow.
 * VATS targeting can sometimes cause the screen to move and limit the options available to the player. This is most common when enemies are too close.  A similar but possibly related issue can occur at range when body parts are shown in VATS but cannot be targeted because the limb selection option won't appear for certain limbs (most common when targeting small objects like antennae).
 * At HELIOS One, Old Lady Gibson's dogs may spawn at the back door (facing the tower) and become hostile.
 * Also seen once where dogs were not hostile, but Gibson was sitting in mid-air. Also, upon exiting Helios One there were sounds of metal objects colliding with one another. Upon looking to the ground the cursor displayed info on multiple junk items (such as paint guns and tin cans). However, these items were invisible.
 * At the bottom of Vault 3, there is a door that is too low for ED-E to go through. Sometimes ED-E goes further into the vault, but cannot get back through the door and is therefore stuck. Loading a new game and telling ED-E to wait on one side of the door fixes it.
 * Some versions of the Xbox 360 experience problems while attempting to hack a computer terminal: The screen blurs out but the hacking minigame does not initiate. This seems to only occur with the terminals with the non-foldout keyboard.
 * This bug seems to only happen if you change the default button mapping of X on the PS3 or B on the Xbox 360 to another button. Restoring your button mapping to default will let hack the stationary (not foldout keyboard) terminals, OR a bypass is by holding down the 'activate' button down, this will bring up the hacking screen enabling you to hack. Keep it held down till you complete the hack, release, then re-enter the terminal and all will be well.
 * Often when doing the Gun Runner quest, after stealing the Pre-War Schematics, fast-traveling back to the Crimson Caravan will cause a freeze while loading.
 * Sometimes when you attack an NPC in VATS and it runs away through to a new area (by door) you will be teleported to a white room.
 * Sometimes when equipping a weapon mod to a weapon, the mod(scope, extended magazine, etc.) may not show up on the weapon but will still be applied to the weapon.
 * Occasionally, when attempting to fast travel, the game may tell you that fast travel in unavailable from your location.
 * Game crashes to desktop when you try to set or overview hotkey-ed slots (key 1-8) regardless of being in Pipboy view or actually playing. Glitch often caused by Cowboy repeater and could be related with other hand-reloaded rifles / All-American. Fix is the same as for 'Custom button-mapping bugs' case for Xbox360: unload all of your inventory weapons (in worst cases - all equip-able items) to container or even plain ground (not recommended) and after picking it up try to re-set your hotkeys. If this doesn't work add Save > Exit game > Start game > Load - and then pick up your stuff. (Tested on Windows XP x86 SP3)
 * When in the New Vegas Strip outside of Gomorrah, if you punch one (Unarmed) of the girls dancing outside, mostly every civilian runs into Gomorrah, if you run with them into Gomorrah, you'll have no HUD and no ability of movement, no pip-boy or weaponry system only crouch, this is un-fixable, unless you saved recently before entering the area.
 * If you have more than 2 different save games, it will automatically stop you from leveling up. (2 Completely different saves, not more than 2 of the same save game.) This can be fixed by either of 2 ways:
 * After convincing the Great Khans not to form an alliance with Caesar and completing Aba Daba Honeymoon, every once in a while your character may disappear entirely and a random Great Khan will appear in the area. Your character will reappear after talking to someone.
 * The day of the week is set to Sunday when loading a save just after starting up the game regardless of the date in that save. This causes vendors' inventories not to reset unless three game days pass without exiting the game entirely.
 * When hostile NPC's are Sneak-killed (Feral ghouls, Vipers etc...) you are given Good Karma but when they are killed without sneaking there is no karma gained or lost.
 * If you have Benny come up to the presidential suite with you, and let him survive, he will move to the front of The Tops lobby. If you have 35 barter skill, you can then repeatedly choose (what do you have in mind?) and (The suite's a nice touch...), which will give you 500 caps and 250 The Tops chips every time.  This bug allows for effectively infinite money.
 * Sometimes when playing your pip-boy screen may turn bright green and you will be unable to read anything. This can be fixed by reloading the game.
 * Sometimes while playing the player may randomly fall through rocks and will not be able to get out. The player can fix this by fast traveling to any location.
 * If you move any Fallout: New Vegas file that has a companion following onto a memory unit, then you insert the memory unit into an Xbox 360 without Xbox Live, and no title updates on either the Xbox or the memory unit, the current companion will keep entering conversation if they get too close to the player while following. This was only tested with Boone.
 * Sometimes, when trying to Continue or Load the game from the main menu, the game will begin loading, but stay loading "forever" (slides will still change, and the roulette wheel will still spin, but the game will never actually load - tested up to 25 minutes), this is easily solved, just clear the cache on your Hard-Drive (Xbox 360) and it should then allow you to load.
 * In Old World Blues when talking to your brain it is possible to get stuck in a loop when asking him about what he misses of being in a body. Game will not crash but the dialogue will repeat indefinitely until another save is loaded.

Custom button-mapping bugs

 * Using custom control-mappings can cause problems when attempting to activate or use objects, fire weapons, reload, etc.
 * Fix: Unload all your equipment into a container. When you pick it all up again you can once again use the D-pad.

Caravan bugs

 * When discarding cards from your hand in your initial turn (before you place any cards down on the table,) the third card from the left in your hand seemingly changes randomly to another card in your deck. Once the animation for drawing a new card is completed however, the card returns to its initial value. For example: The three right most cards in my hand might be a 7, 9, and a Queen. Once you choose to discard the Queen for example, the 7 changes to another card in my deck, possibly a 9. Therefore, while the animation for discarding a card and drawing a new one is taking place the two rightmost cards will appear two nines. Once the animation is finished and the player is able to make another move, the nine will then change back to its actual value of 7.
 * Upon winning, the player receives the amount of caps in the pot added to their cap total, though the in game message only reports adding half the pot. This is only when the player wins, if the NPC wins the caps are removed and added properly from both. (i.e. NPC bets 800, you call. If You win you get 1600 caps instead of 800, if NPC wins they only get 800.)(This is clearly a mathematical error on my part, i am sorry for being such a douche that i cannot understand the principles of gambling.) This is due to the player not having their caps taken from them when they place their bet, and obtaining their caps "back" as if they did.
 * When playing caravan the game (rarely) ends abruptly even when the win conditions are not met. Either the player or NPC can win.
 * NPC's may not be able to ante and money may not be transferred after a win. This bug has been reported as both random but also consistent within a particular game (associated with a character).
 * When playing caravan if you remove an enemy card lowering their score below 21 the game can still end as if the column is still sold prior to enough cards being re-added. This is a bug as this does not happen when a column is removed to try and restart it, nor is the column value noted anywhere.
 * When playing Caravan, when the player discards their last card, the card may appear to be on it's side and half of it will be phased through the table.
 * For some reason during the quest run goddsprings,run, if you kill Ringo and take his deck of caravan cards it may freeze for a couple seconds and make the noise like when you scroll down you pip-boy menu then stop and you can take the rest of his things.It doesn't seem to cause any problems other than freezing for a moment with the noise.

Pip-Boy bugs

 * The Pip-Boy screen may increase in brightness to a point where you can't see anything on the screen. Turning on then off the Pip-Boy light or saving and loading can fix this.
 * In some instances when the player turns on their Pip-Boy's light, the entire sky may glare up, regardless if day or night.
 * When bringing the Pip-Boy screen up, the Pip-Boy moves partially off screen, occluding the view of the Pip-Boy screen. This can be fixed by equipping or unequipping a weapon.
 * Occasionally the damage threshold indicator (Ex: DT 10.0) in the top-right of the Pip-boy screen will disappear (Just the letters 'DT' and the value - all other parts of the screen are fine). Resetting the console, and reloading the save, seems to fix it.
 * On the 'Stats' screen, certain stats are not accurately reflected. For example, I have consumed water hundreds of time so far, yet 'water consumed' reads as zero. This also happens with 'weapons crafted', I have made gas bombs, time bombs and all the spears in Dead Money and my total is still zero.
 * The Pip-Boy character texture can sometimes disappear and not enable to take it back.
 * While on the world map, and the dashboard button is pressed the background of the world map will vanish leaving only the map icons, this can be fixed by removing the Pip-Boy or switching from Map to another screen.
 * After starting a new file, the Pip-Boy map may have all locations discovered on previous file marked when Pip-Boy  was first received. Exiting Pip-Boy  and re-entering fixes the map.
 * Rarely the Pip-Boy might appear further up the screen at an angled view while sneaking.
 * Occasionally the Pip-Boy will not will not center vertically on the screen preventing you from seeing the menu options. Exiting and performing some other action (such as holstering your weapon) will sometimes fix it.
 * If you die while opening your Pip-Boy, your game will freeze and corrupt all your data.
 * Sometimes, after finishing a game with companions, when you start a new game the companions location will appear on your Pip-Boy map. They will appear in their initial location where you first find them in the game. (Unknown if this happens with all companions, but does with Raul, Rex, Cass, ED-E, and Boone.)
 * Switching between the main Pip-Boy screens will become less responsive as you 'fill it with data'. e.g. Discovering (and completing) more quests, collecting notes, etc.

NPC-specific bugs

 * For NPC-specific bugs, please see the respective NPC article page.

Quest-specific bugs

 * After collecting the holotapes (by not giving them to Hardin) can sometimes cause the BoS to be hostile towards the player character. (The way to avoid this is to have Veronica as a companion before starting the BoS quests)
 * The unnamed quest to find the food processor parts doesn't allow you to fix the processor even if you have all the parts, one more part is needed. You will need one extra Pot in your inventory, only one pot will be removed when fixing the food processor. (jury rigging perk also allows it to be repaired)
 * In the unmarked quest A Two-Bit Hustler you are asked to provide evidence that Keith is cheating at cards and selling drugs. Once you provide this information to Captain Parker he will enter Aerotech Suite 200 and confront Keith.  Captain Parker will begin a dialog with him. If Keith was awoken by Captain Parker he will go back to sleep as soon as the conversation is over. Captain Parker, who wants to kill Keith for insulting his wife, will spin around in circles with his gun drawn above the sleeping Keith. You can correct this by talking to Keith.  As soon as Keith gets up off his bed, Captain Parker will kill him.
 * Before initiating the quest For Auld Lang Syne after Arcade Gannon may lose the conversation option to invite to party causing his quest to become unobtainable.
 * While playing the Camp McCarran quests, if you decide to kill Silus before doing other quests such as The White Wash or I Put a Spell on You, they will become unavailable due to Carrie Boyd not wanting to speak with you.
 * If you do not meet with Ambassador Crocker when you first enter the strip, after the NCR Trooper tells you that he is waiting to see you, his character disappears. After searching the entire Embassy and NCR MP headquarters, Ambassador Crocker is nowhere to be found. This is a problem if you want to finish the game with the NCR at Hoover Dam.

Location-specific bugs

 * When traveling up the river from cottonwood cove about half way up on right-hand side is a clearing where Deathclaws hang out, when you go up the ramp go left and there is a rock that does not connect with the ground, kneeling down allows you to see through the rocks.
 * In Goodsprings, entering buildings or saving after returning from the NCRCF causes the game to crash.
 * In the Lucky 38 Presidential Suite the terminal used for purchasing extra features does not have the items properly mapped and you must click of to the right of the right of the item to select it. EDIT: Or you can just close the Computer and try using the standard menu.
 * After upgrading the Lucky 38 Presidential Suite the containers by the workbench can reset causing you to lose any items placed there.
 * When fast traveling or walking to Camp Forlorn Hope, the game freezes or drops to around 2 frames per second. Rendering the game unplayable until Major Polatli is dead. There is a chance to enter the area from the west hills of the camp without causing the game to crash. Immediately after discovering the location, fast travel away. Then you can return with the fast travel without having too much problems. You may encounter two legionaries in front of the command tent.
 * At some point, the gate to the Strip might be locked requiring a key. It's unknown what causes this or when it happens. However, killing the Securitrons outside the gate will provide you with keys.
 * Entering the Strip may cause console to crash showing only black screen. Wearing the old cowboy hat can prevent this.
 * At REPCONN Headquarters, it is possible despite gaining an Executive Level pass from hacking Isley's computer, that the robots in attendance upstairs will not acknowledge the pass and the alarm will be sounded after 30 seconds.
 * At HELIOS One when you walk out the door to the solar panels sometimes you will see Old Lady Gibson, her dogs, and mole rats or any combination of these. If you have a companion they might accidentally hit Old Lady Gibson when they are attacking the mole rats and they will kill her. In addition, a collection of invisible barrels can also load, causing collision noises as you walk. Loading a prior save is recommended.
 * During the quest For Auld Lang Syne be warned; Save before entering the Remnants Bunker and before starting the quest, Because If you convinced him to return to Freeside right completing the quest, he might not even be outside the Bunker to give you the item Gannon family Tesla armor to you or the dialogue won't even appear.
 * Sometimes, Little Buster's dead body won't spawn near the train tracks near Freeside's North Gate.
 * At the Lucky 38, the automatic doors before the real doors to go inside will not open and you wont be able to go in (talking to Victor won't fix it)
 * Game crashes often if you try to go up the steps at the back of the camp. This can make any related quests near impossible to complete. Resetting the console does not seem to help. The rate of crashes seems to be 50/50.
 * The road to the REPCONN test site (if traveling from Novac) seems to have poor textures. Only on a small amount of the road, and there appears to be no way to fix this. Even playing through the game again, the bug is still there.
 * Its possible to leave the normal map near the Morning Star Cavern to the south. If you are there and are looking to the south, just walk along the mountain left to you. Use any chance to get a higher path on the stonewall, and soon you will be just able to run around out there. And probably everywhere else outside of the map. The water of the great river is by the way irradiated. (1 rads/sec by swimming in it, 9 rads by drinking from it)
 * If you go to searchlight airport and jump up upon the fuel containers to the east or to the left of the actual airport building you can jump over the fence of and go out the level due to no invisible walls, you are simply free to roam around the mojave outside the boundaries, and there have been no crashes so far as a result of doing this.
 * Sometimes a rock will block your path when exiting Coyote Mines, but fast traveling is still possible.
 * Upon exiting The Cuckoo's Nest and entering VATS, you may be stuck In the firing position indefinitely.

Exploits
Please see Fallout: New Vegas exploits.

General solutions

 * Leave and re-enter the area.
 * Load a save from before the glitch occurred.
 * Exit the game, restart the game, and load a save from before the glitch occurred.
 * PC users may be able to fix some issues by using console commands.

Clipping

 * Clipping (items and actors getting stuck in the ground or in other items) is a common problem.
 * The Courier may be pushed through objects, such as the ground, and launched forwards.
 * Sometimes, if you pick up an object from a table or other surface, all other objects on it will fall through the table.
 * Occasionally a corpse may sink into the ground then fly back up and around the map while it's limbs extend dozens of feet.
 * There are several locations where you can become trapped within a rock, wall, or hill. You may also fall into a few areas where large rocks are built, which put you "inside" the map. You may also become trapped or you may just be able to walk though the texture to the game play area.
 * NPC and Enemies maybe stuck "inside" the map, with only the head above the map.
 * Some dead enemies, preferably large ones, can appear as alive, such as a red crosshair, and create duplicates that stretch across the screen and disappear, but when the player steps near the body it jumps up and floats away.
 * Running on graves in the cemetery can send the player high into the air, which can cause an injured limb or lower health.
 * in some areas it it possible to clip through the ground and fall which results in dying.(when watching in third-person it will look as if the player "trips" and dies)

Crashing, freezing and slowdowns
Crashes and freezes may happen occasionally to anyone. Crashes and freezes are only notable when they are repeatable (e.g. they happen under the same set of circumstances often). If the crash only occurs on one particular save, then the save itself is most likely the source of the problem. Please verify that crashes and freezes are repeatable on more than one save game before reporting.
 * Crashes often when you near completion of the game.
 * Crashes in VATS are somewhat common.
 * Crashing or freezing when entering or exiting areas is somewhat common.
 * Crashing or freezing upon entering The Strip is fairly common.
 * Crashes or very severe slowdowns are common when the player character reaches the top of a hill or ridge and the landscape and sky beyond become visible.
 * Severe slowdowns are occurring on all platforms. Restarting your system may help.
 * Turning the pip-boy radio off and leaving it off seems to help quite a bit. Try it if nothing else seems to help.
 * The game freezes when repairing/wearing/unequipping the NCR Bandoleer Armor found in the tent next to Lieutenant Hayes' Tent and in the Supply Shack at Camp McCarran.
 * If one saves at the beginning of the game while editing your character the Level up system can crash.
 * After entering the Hidden Valley Bunker. In the main office, after handing over your Weapons, Clothes and Ammo. (Occurred during ED-E My Love quest)
 * Workaround: Don't bring any companions inside the bunker with you during the "strip"
 * Attempting to fire Euclid's C-Finder at any time with the Heave Ho Perk. (After arming the Archimedes-II)
 * At any time the game will freeze up and crash followed by a message box stating that required downloadable content is not present, and then continuing to load will bring up another message saying selected save device is not present.
 * Equipping the sniper rifle may cause the game to slow down severely and most likely freeze. On the PS3 equipping the sniper rifle can cause the weapon hotkeys to stop functioning, and the game to crash shortly thereafter on attempts to sleep, save, enter a new area, or just walk around the map for a minute or so.
 * If the game has been installed to an Xbox 360 hard drive, there is a chance that the files will become corrupted. The game will crash extremely often with a notification saying that the disk is unreadable. This issue can be fixed by uninstalling (and reinstalling, if desired) the game to the the hard drive. If this happens when Fallout: New Vegas wasn't installed, it is likely that the hard drive itself is at fault.
 * Entering Dead Sea's Barracks in Nelson may cause the game to freeze. This may have been caused by meeting Dead Sea in Nipton beforehand.
 * Occasionally, an enemy will turn invisible without stealth boy use, and when one targets them using VATS the game will often crash or see through the floor to the grey background.
 * Sometimes changing the color of the interface can cause the game to crash or lock up. Keeping the interface Amber may help in avoiding this. (On both the Pip-Boy and Hud)
 * Scrolling the list of saved games can cause the interface to freeze and crash.

General NPC bugs

 * ED-E may sometimes, upon waking up from being unconscious, make a sound as if he is slamming into metal and then disappear unable to be brought back even when fast traveling. He will not come back even if using Vault 22's elevator as well. He will still be considered a companion, so you will not be able recruit Rex later on if this happens. When traveling to Zion National Park, you will be told "ED-E has returned to Primm" as usual, but he has not.
 * game crashes/console freezes after trading with some wandering merchants, either upon exiting transaction screen, or when trying to save immediately after, or leaving the environment. In one particularly bad case, it seems that the merchant would still have the stock you just bought from him when you go to trade again. This might be related to the crash, if one were to re-buy the same item in this way.
 * Pacer during the quest "King's Gambit" will sometimes not appear in the location your pip boy is pointing. he will also not appear in his room.
 * Companions that are using lever action or pump action weapons may occasionally get stuck reloading their weapon indefinitely. A couple ways to fix this is to change their weapon preference from ranged to melee and back again, or take the weapon from their inventory and then return it.
 * It is possible that while in Camp McCarran ED-E can become lost. The map says he's there, but if you go exactly where ED-E is, he's not there. The only way you can get him back is loading to a previous save. ED-E does come back later when you are battling at Hoover Dam.
 * If you press the A button when facing some brahmin in the Crimson Caravan camp, the subtitles will show generic Crimson Caravan dialogue, such as "McLafferty is a hard boss, etc.", even though no voice will sound.

Engine Bugs

 * Occasionally a corpse or item (Or several) that are visible upon entering/exiting a room or building, may fall from a few feet above ground after loading. Some items are known to float after this effect.
 * If a number of small items is on a shelf or tabletop, taking one of them will cause all the others to move upward and then begin bobbing up and down, slightly but perceptibly, as if they were floating in water.
 * If a bucket or other pot-like object is thrown into water and then taken out, it will perceive itself as still in water. When thrown on the floor it will splash, and if taken to a lower level of height and dropped, it will sink slowly, as though in water.

Radio-related bugs

 * Some songs played much more often than others. (Seems to only be radio stations with an announcer, Mojave Music Radio appears to randomize correctly)
 * A noticeable distortion is present in Mr. New Vegas' speech when in Freeside or the New Vegas Strip caused by the ambient sounds.
 * Radio New Vegas has dramatically different levels between the announcer and the music being played

Animation bugs

 * If you are using the Gatling laser and you switch weapons, the Gatling backpack may sometimes glitch onto your back. It cannot be removed even if you drop all your weapons and/or armor. There are three ways to fix this; reload to a previous save not affected by this phenomenon, reset the game console (in case you auto-saved with the bugged backpack on) or change to another weapon while you have your weapon holstered. Keep doing this until the backpack disappears.
 * If "True Iron Sights" is disabled, many modded weapons when aimed will block the target reticule and obscure all view.
 * Sometimes your character will hold the gun above the screen if you're in first person. Switching from first person to third person and back will fix this bug; alternatively, you can access your Pip-Boy.
 * Zooming in with Guns equipped with the scope mod sometimes results in a black screen with a hack computer screen.If you exit the game completely, restart it and "load" a save game rather than "continue", the bug is cleared.
 * Zooming in and quicksaving the game and then loading the game will cause the zoomed-in view to overlay the first-person view, you will be able to move around normally but most of the screen will be covered.
 * Occasionally, some NPC's heads will do an 'exorcist', or will turn completely upside down, being near their chest. This is extremely rare, but the most notable person to do this is Antony
 * This bug can be solved changing the screen texture settings in "PAUSE" menu.
 * Sometimes, your fingers will 'break', and your index finger will bend and partially clip through itself.
 * Many NPCs seem to sit about 2 feet to the left or right of chairs instead of actually in the chair in several places throughout the game.
 * Sometimes, when a character is talking, their mouth won't move or their mouth will move when they aren't talking anymore. This happens (generally) when a message pops up on the screen during a conversation.
 * When activating a computer console for use, the screen becomes blurry, rendering the terminals unusable, but you can hear the typing on the computer as if nothing is wrong. Players can still back out from the screen.
 * Numerous NPC's will sit down at a dining table or empty desk and begin to type on a computer that isn't there. You can hear the keys and their fingers will move, but no computer will ever appear in front of them. Note that this has occurred in locations where a computer isn't present.
 * Sometimes after wearing heavy armor such as power armor the holster and unholster animation for two handed guns or energy weapons will remain the same no matter what you wear. This can be fixed by reloading the last save. Some NCR rangers may also suffer from this even if The Courier hasn't worn a power armor.

Weapon Bugs

 * If you throw mines too close to each other and then take one, any mines close to it will disappear and you will lose the other mine(tested with plasma mines).
 * Weapons freeze and refuse to fire. Going to the Pip-boy and unequipping and then re-equip the weapon will fix this.
 * Many weapons, when modded will block the target reticule and obscure all view when aimed if "True Iron Sights" is disabled.
 * Anything related to the hot-key functionality might cause the PS3 to hang, requiring a hard reset. Including: using R2 to assign a weapon to the analog-pad hot-key from the pip-boy interface, using the D-pad to change weapons.
 * After reloading a pump-style or drum shotgun the fire trigger may not work from 0 to 60 sec [not good in combat as you can imagine] after the reload. Also occurs with the Cowboy Repeater rifle and lever-action shotgun. Solution: Do not let the ammo in your gun run out, i.e., reload before it's absolutely required to fire another shot.
 * It affects more than the fire trigger: pipboy cannot be accessed, cannot aim or search bodies/crates either.
 * Performing a quick 360-degree spin or taking a step backwards, allows the weapon to be fired once again.
 * Hitting the fire key/mouse button won't fire the weapon while in this glitch, but fixes it quickly.
 * This bug happens with all guns you load rounds into individually such as .357 Magnum, Hunting Shotgun, and Cowboy Repeater. It happens with all reloads whether it's firing every shot, pressing reload button, or switching ammo types. All controls including pressing Esc will be locked out. The last thing you press before LMB (Fire) will happen except if you press LMB (Fire) twice. Solution: Press Tab then LMB (Fire) to bring up the PipBoy menu then press Tab again to get back in the action. Obviously beware having to reload any of these weapons in VATS as you will sit there doing nothing for a while.
 * This glitch will happen when during the end reload animation your character isn't standing still.
 * When you have an upgraded as well as a standard 9mm Submachine Gun, moving them in and out of a container might make the standard one disappear (it reappears upon removing the other one) or be "magically" repaired to full condition. Similar problems with Plasma Rifles found, this happens with many weapons on the PC while trading with companions. (Added by another user): See also the bug list of 'Crashing, freezing and slowdowns' above: There seems to be a generic item bug which happens from time to time. Similar things can happen not only with weapons but with other items as well.
 * When unequipping a heavy weapon with a backpack attachment, sometimes the backpack will stay even if the player is not using that weapon. (Viewed in 3rd person mode) Other weapons holstered on the back or with backpack attachments will clip through the glitched backpack.
 * After finishing hacking/using a computer then attempting to zoom in with a scoped weapon you will have a computer monitor display instead obstructing your view.
 * If an unarmed weapon like the Ballistic Fist or the Power Fist is equipped and then forcefully unequipped (such as when entering a casino or the Fort) the player's model will fail to update correctly. The weapon will be unequipped, but the player's hand will still look as it does when having the weapon equipped.
 * Revolver type pistols fired from the third person camera do not hit where aimed. Instead they hit much higher, probably due to the fact that revolvers have a bigger kick and the weapon moves upward when fired therefore the bullet is set to leave a little to late and hit a lot higher than aimed. In the first person camera this bug does not manifest.
 * The + sign that indicates the weapon is modded may not show up when opening storage containers or trading like it normally should.
 * The + sign that indicates a weapon is modded may disappear when another weapon of the same type is traded.
 * Firing a missile launcher until it breaks with either HE or HV missiles equipped, and then switching to another weapon using the Pip-Boy, will cause any remaining missiles to be loaded into the selected weapon. This weapon will now fire missiles instead of its normal ammo. This works with almost all weapons tested, including melee and thrown. For example, instead of my hunting shotgun firing 7 buckshot pellets at 10x7 dmg, it fires a spread of missiles at 24.3x7 dmg. This only costs 1 missile worth of ammo.
 * Occasionally the Assault Rifle and Assault Carbine will reload incorrectly causing the entire magazine to shoot but instead of the fire animation at the end of the barrel there nothing and the gun makes the out-of-ammo click although causing damage to the enemy.
 * If you load an Anti-Materiel Rifle with incendiary rounds and target anyone in V.A.T.S and leave V.A.T.S without attacking, the targeted opponent/npc, catches fire. Causing the targeted person to take standard fire damage.
 * Sometimes when wielding a ranged weapon, the weapon will randomly disappear from onscreen, and automatically holster, or just disappear entirely. This can be fixed by taking your weapon back out or by aiming/firing the weapon.
 * having a flamer with the expanded tanks mod will sometimes stay on your back and you cant get rid of it by equipping another weapon dropping the flamer or giving the flamer to a companion
 * Explosive weapons may inflict absolutely no damage when in 1st person view or in VATS.
 * Occasionally, more so after prolonged play, enemies will begin to be invulnerable to explosive weapons, strangely they will still take 1 or 2 damage from the weapon physically hitting them, but the AoE/Splash damage has no effect. However when viewed in VATS or with Living Anatomy, their health bars will be empty, even though they will only be missing 1 or 2 hp.  This glitch becomes much more prevalent for the reporter after about 3 hours of play. At which point every combat will feature at least 1 invulnerable enemy. Restarting the XBOX alleviates the problem for about 20-30 minutes, however it manifests again more quickly with each subsequent restart.

Barter system bugs
It is quite likely that this only occurs when trying to purchase a card that you already have one of within your inventory.
 * (Others?) If a vendor's standing cap count via barter exceeds approximately 32,000 caps(likely 32,768 (2^15) or more), that vendor will no longer transfer caps back to the player when the player sells items to them. However, the vendor will continue to accumulate caps for items sold to the player. This upper limit count may not apply to vendors that provide repair services or have shared inventories, as caps accumulated in those cases are handled differently for some vendors(ieSamuel Kerr). The map cell the vendor operates out of(not the the vendor inventory) generally has to reset to fix this condition.
 * Old World Blues - The SINK vendor unit will display caps spent for repairs But will be unable to dispense them when buying items from the player. (Verification on Steam forums, Fix available for PC)
 * Do not at any point attempt to sell any faction armor that is currently equipped as it will result in you receiving the notice that the armor has been removed and you are no longer dressed as the said faction. You will be unable to select "A" to accept the message, if you do hit "A" it will simply sell or buy the next item in the list. When this happens, if you press the start button and then resume, you are then able to get rid of the notification.
 * The vendor's name is blank when the barter screen is first opened. If the category of the vendor's items is changed, when you cycle back to the vendor's name, it is now displayed.
 * when purchasing a caravan card from any vendor you will hear one or two clicking noises. DO NOT PRESS ANY BUTTON WHILE ITS CLICKING!! wait a sec or two after the last click before continuing your transaction, or it will freeze your ps3. also never buy more than one of the same card at the same time as it usually freezes your system.
 * Selling a modded weapon, and then subsequently trying to buy back the weapon, will result in the purchasing of a different form of the weapon(if it is stocked). Example: Trying to buy back an extended mag 10mm Pistol while other 10mm Pistols are present will result in the purchase of the unmodified weapons first. Purchasing all weapons did not solve this problem, as the modded weapon would not be transferred, though caps were lost
 * If the user abuses the infinite caps glitch with a vendor, the item the player is buying may duplicate in their, or the vendor's inventory. If the item duplicates in the players' inventory and the player is already carrying an item of that type, all the duplicates will not be listed. However, once the player drops or stores that item, the duplicates will appear.
 * When repeatedly buying items from vendors, the item the player is buying may simply disappear when the player accepts the trade. The player will still be charged for the purchase, but never receives the item.
 * When bartering with a traveling merchant, the barter system may freeze upon finalizing a transaction when purchasing one or more cards. this is either because you pressed a button before the system inserted the card to your deck(to avoid this wait a second after you hear one or two clicks before you press any buttons), or its because you bought two of the same card at the same time.
 * First time bartering at 188 Gun Runners or Vendortron Gun Runners: save, quit to main menu, continue from lasted saved game will refresh the inventory (including 45-70) once you leave the area the bug will stop working but if you continually go through the process you can get unlimited amounts of stuff. If you quit to the console's main menu and then "continue" from the games main menu, it will refresh even if you had left the area and returned.
 * When buying multiple ammo boxes, the game only adds the amount listed for 1 box, a workaround would be to buy all the ammo boxes, then sell all but one back and exit the buy/sell screen. Then once the game registers the ammo as being added, repeat as needed. DO NOT exit the buy/sell screen till you sell the ammo boxes back as that will simply cause the game to only add the amount listed for 1 box.

Schematics/Workbench/Campfire bugs

 * If you obtain Food Recipes, they may not show up in the workbench or campfire crafting menu. Rock-it launcher schematics will never appear as the launcher is cut content.
 * May be unable to use Schematics/Workbench/Campfire because it doesn't list what you can make.
 * Butter Knife not recognized for the new Cutlery-to-Metal recipe.

PC-specific bugs and issues
Stuttering, crashing, freezing, and slow-down issues are often hardware- and/or software-related. Please visit the Bethesda forums for information regarding these issues. In particular, read through the stickied threads at the top of the forum page.
 * A common bug is a slowdown when opening containers or loading new areas, looting or searching corpses. The cause of this slowdown is due to third party graphic software. Uninstalling software such as ASUS SmartDoctor, ASUS Gamer OSD or FRAPS will resolve this issue.

Leveling Bugs

 * After completing a playthrough and starting a new one as the opposite sex (tested male to female), the Courier may not level up past level 1 despite gaining more than 200 xp. This can be fixed by starting a new playthrough as the same sex you were on your original playthrough. This may also occur if you pick a different race, but are the same sex as your original PC. It is not confirmed whether or not trying the old race fixes this.
 * Changing race in a new playthrough does no longer prevent leveling up past level 1 in the new patch. Changing sex still unconfirmed.
 * If you are killed just as you level up you may stay at your previous level and require the same amount of XP for the next level to progress.
 * Even with no DLC, a character may level up beyond 30.

Graphics glitches

 * It seems the problem described above happens when a modded weapon is held in the players personal inventory with an un-modded weapon of the same type with better condition than the modded weapon. The weapons "stack" and cannot be accessed in the players inventory at the same time.
 * When crouched and holding a rifle while in first person mode, your arms will occasionally appear to be above your head as if the camera moved down your chest and arms did not follow. It can be solved by standing and crouching one or more times. Additionally, the gun seems to disappear altogether from view, even when holstered and redrawn. It can be solved sometimes by switching view to third person and back. (This glitch can now be fixed with a patch see Fallout: New Vegas patch 1.4.0.525)
 * Sometimes the players hand and equipped weapon will simply vanish from the screen as if it had been holstered but the player is still able to fire. The pip-boy also becomes invisible at the same time. Movement causes the players hand/weapon to reappear and disappear erratically. Quitting to the main menu and reloading usually solves this.
 * Occasionally, doors appear not to be present and instead you will see the horizon, although this doesn't actually affect the gameplay.
 * Sometimes when using a stealth boy, the character model will become completely invisible and will not reappear after the stealth boy has worn off.
 * The clouds in the sky may occasionally turn to abnormal colors, such as a pure red, purple, orange, pink, and even green. This may be unnoticeable at night, and the glitch usually occurs at sunrise and sunset, but only appears when the sky has less clouds in it, which also usually occurs at sunrise and sunset. This glitch is easily fixed by simply entering a loading screen, but if this isn't done, the clouds will continue to slowly change colors, until night falls or more clouds enter the sky. None of this has any effect on gameplay, save for a rather interesting view.
 * After removing the head of a Giant or Evolved Centaur, either by shooting it or using melee, the ground that the centaur is above can be seen through its neck, where the neck gore would be normally seen. Can be easily achieved by going to The Devil's Throat on the top right of the map.
 * When Sneaking/crouching in First person view the player sometimes is able to see his clothing but the clothing is transparent showing only certain parts of the item, usually around the neck area and most commonly happens with the Bounty Hunter Duster.
 * The fencing within the Legates camp, most notably near the steps leading to the Legates tent, will sometimes not generate properly and can be seen hanging in mid air. No known fix is available.
 * When in third person, if you zoom in with your current weapon using the L1 Button then switch to first person whist still holding L1 your gun will disappear from view when zooming in after that. (FIX - You need to simply un-equip and re-equip your weapon) (Needs verification on other platforms)
 * Very rarely when waiting in the section of the strip with the Lucky 38 and Gomorrah a powder ganger and great Khans will randomly spawn.
 * Sometimes your hands will appear to be abnormally large. The easiest fix is to reload your game
 * Sometimes the area will go very dark, a little darker than night, even when still daytime. When it does become night (via waiting) it becomes even darker to the point where you can't see, as well as when you enter a dark cave. Fast traveling or reloading saves does not fix. Restart system to fix.
 * Weapons used by NPCs may be invisible to the player. They will fire and reload them as normal, but the weapon cannot be seen. Seems to happen mostly with Fiends.
 * Sometimes after killing a Human NPC by completely turning their body into gore and meat, a mesh of a head may appear above.

Audio glitches

 * Your character's voice when performing power attacks or taking damage may never be heard again, it's causes are unknown.