Fallout 3 bugs

Every game has its share of bugs and glitches, and Fallout 3 isn't an exception.

See also: Fallout 3 patches.

[ submit a glitch ]

Waters of Life

 * When completing the Waters of Life quest, when you need to get to the control center, the door won't open...you cannot exit the game, or reload from an existing saved point because of auto save.. and you cannot exit the building, restart another game.


 * This might be caused by bringing companions with you during this quest. Try leaving them somewhere else (like your house at Megaton) before attempting this quest.:


 * If you left Dogmeat at home (Megaton or Tenpenny Tower) while escorting Doctor Li and her team to the evacuation point & Taft Tunnel, Dogmeat makes an appearance, behind a door, it won't hurt you, even be friendly in your radar, but you wont be able to talk with it, and will attack Doctor_Li and her team,  the only options are:


 * - Kill Dogmeat and move on.
 * - Reload a saved point from before entering the Jefferson Memorial with your father and Doctor Li's Team.


 * Killing Dogmeat as an option due the solution to the bug explain above, can cause another bug. If you accidentally hit a member of Doctor Li's team, while attempting kill Dogmeat, all of them will be fleeing and wont follow you, in addition, Doctor Li might ask you to spare some Stimpaks to heal a member of her team but after you agree, you can't talk to her because she'll be fleeing.
 * - The best option is to reload a saved point from before entering the Jefferson Memorial.
 * - Another option is to ignore them and continue killing anything in your way, and after you make it to the Wasteland, most of the team will be there with you, this means some of the team members will be dead, (this doesn't affect the game story since Doctor Li can not die).

Big Trouble in Big Town

 * During the Big Trouble in Big Town quest, after bringing Red and Shorty back to Big Town, when presented with the option to defend the town by repairing the damaged robots, the game can sometimes glitch and the robots will not be in the town. A reload to an earlier save does NOT correct this issue.
 * If you rescue Red but never find Shorty, and go on to complete the quest, you can find him later, and he cannot be rescued. Once you rescue him, he won't get up, he will stay tied up and talk to you as if he was rescued a long time ago.
 * In the PC version, the following instructions enables you to fix the problem manually until Bethesda releases a fix: press ~ to open the console, then the following in. After each line, hit enter. PRID 2d934 kill resurrect disable enable PRID 2c11b kill resurrect disable enable After each enable command the console should write something about bot being set to Patrol. After exiting the console, you should now see both bots. Even though they are up and running, you still need to go up to each of them, select them with E, and choose repair bot. See this thread for more information.
 * If choosing the option to teach the residents to shoot, if a resident accidentally shoots Charon, he will kill the resident, thus causing the remaining residents to become hostile towards him.

The Power of the Atom

 * Just before Mr. Burke shoots Lucas Simms in the back after you report Burke's plan to blow up Megaton, if the player fires upon Burke he will begin to point back and forth between the player and Simms with his gun, eventually shooting in a random direction until he is killed. Simms will walk to the exit of the building after this, and upon leaving will appear dead on the other side of the door.
 * If you rig the bomb and then meet Burke in Tenpenny Tower; save it before activating the detonator. If you try to quicksave after the explosion the game may crash and will damage any savegame made after the explosion.
 * If you report to Simms about Mr. Burke while he's not in the saloon, Simms still go to the saloon but then he leaves due to Mr. Burke is not in the saloon. When he's found Mr. Burke, the conversation will skip and Simms will be killed for no reason.

Following in His Footsteps

 * Even if you haven't gotten the quest to do so from Colin Moriarty, the game only gives such dialogue options resembling as if the player had done so.
 * Getting the password for Moriarty's computer, and then finding out about "dad" that way removes the possibility of going through this quest, even if you talk to Silver first about it, and tell her that you will clear things up with Moriarty. Player should still should have the option of being able to go through the dialogue options to go on the Kill-her-for-information-for-caps quest for the sake of XP if desired.
 * Visiting Silver in Springvale first before even going to Megaton caused some issues with the conversation i had with Moriarty. For some reason he wouldn't even offer me the chance to do the mini mission with Silver even if i had under 100 caps (which apparently is the only circumstance he offers this to you). At that point i had 700 caps so before i spoke to him i left all my caps in a nearby container and then spoke to Moriarty, although this still didn't prompt the relevant conversation threads.

Wasteland Survival Guide

 * Wasteland Survival Guide quest gets stuck if Pinkerton gives you the proof again about Rivet City's true history (he does this if you ask more about Doctor Li) after completing that part. Moira just wants to hear from Rivet city and you can't return other quests.

Galaxy News Radio

 * Three Dog disappears after the quest "Galaxy News Radio". (sometimes can be found in a bed in the GNR building.)

Tranquility Lane

 * If you have the military school brochure with you and choose to activate the Failsafe while the quest objective "Make Timmy Cry" is running, it may get marked as if you have completed it already (even if you haven't even talked to Timmy).

Those!

 * Those! quest doesn't work if the player visits Marigold station and clears it of ants before starting. When prompted to return, the scientist will not be present, and the queen ant unreachable. This may also be a result of approaching Grayditch from the wrong direction, skipping the initial trigger.
 * After killing the guardian ants but not killing the queen ant in "Those!" quest, after talking to the Doctor, he walks to the Queen Ant and then escapes.

Blood Ties

 * Blood Ties quest is unable to be completed. When knocking on the doors of one of the two locked houses, you get stuck on the "..." message and have to reload a saved game. Possibly caused by entering the West's house before knocking on the 2 doors.


 * Quest is unable to be completed, when returning to Arefu you receive a message saying "Quest failed, you are now hostile with the residents of Arefu reloading a saved game may fix this bug.

Vault 101

 * Right after Doctor Li leaves and your Mother says "We did it", the game becomes idle; only the E button works making the baby cry, your Dad says nothing, nor leaves and nothing happens.
 * Unable to proceed past the book when you are a baby. Your Dad's leg clips into the door. (Not sure if this is a bug, as the baby can open/close the door to "unhinge" the Father.
 * At 10th Birthday, upon being given the PipBoy, you are unable to move, but still able to look around. So you sit there looking around.  Eventually your father leaves.... and the guy goes to the bar, and you still sit there. Just, sitting.
 * In the birthday scene, Officer Gomez may become unresponsive (Trying to talk to him does nothing but he's still in an idle animation. On my save, he was also about 40cm behind the bar stool where he should be, sitting in mid air). When Butch attacks you, nobody intervenes, so you continually get pummeled until you get your BB Gun or die.
 * If you decide to start the game over during the G.O.A.T. test, then when you get to the baby part the camera will only be able to turn in one direction, sometimes spinning very fast when pressing in the same direction as the one way turn.
 * After choosing not to kill the Overseer, Amata walks out of the room where she has been sitting and abuses the player for killing her father. A quick check of the room where he was reveals it's now empty, and the Overseer is nowhere to be found. All further dialogue with Amata runs as if the player had killed the Overseer, when the player had left him alive.
 * After opening the vault door and killing the guards that subsequently attack you, if you follow Amata back through the door and turn back around to leave she can somehow teleport to the tunnel outside of the vault door. (Needs confirmation on PC)

Rivet City

 * Jumping on the upcoming bridge when it is not in final position causes throwing into the air and falling onto the bridge, causing death.

Megaton

 * Can get stuck in Player's house in Megaton and not escape. (See below on way to fix this).
 * Walter is dead for no reason at ground level in Megaton with a lead pipe through his gut.
 * Walter in Megaton sometimes falls to his death off one of the bridges in the town. You can resurrect him by entering the console, typing "prid 00003b59", hitting enter, then typing "resurrect" and hitting enter. Finally, type "enable", hit enter, then type "moveto player" and hit enter.  When you exit the console he should appear next to you.
 * After speaking with Silver in Springvale, you cannot find Moriarty anywhere *note* may be on balcony area outside of the bar. Pipboy may show wrong place in world map near the river. If you get this bug do these steps on the PC: To summon Moriarty you have to do this: 1) Go to his bar 2) Go into console mode (press ~ ) 3) Write and confirm: prid 00003b3c (that is Moriarty's object ID) 4) now you have selected Moriarty and can move him to any item in the world, so you can put him right next to bar stool, so write down this: moveto 00003f61 5) He should be here and act normally
 * After blowing up Megaton, attempting to reenter Tenpenny Tower results in a crash with exception 0xC0000005; a memory access violation.
 * Sometimes, in the Xbox 360 version of the game, the player can fall through the ground of the craterside store for no apparent reason, which traps them falling outside the map, the console must be restarted to rectify this glitch. NOTE: Moira will fall through the floor first, but the mercenary leaning against the wall is unaffected.

Grayditch

 * Game Objects (Player, ants corpses, etc.) will twitch/fall through the surface of the map near the Marigold station entrance and ramp area. This is basically the "bobbing" bug of the player in Oblivion. Gibs however, can result in the game displaying their anticipated paths, textures, trails far into the sky.

Arefu

 * After meeting with Ian West in Arefu when you have just saved him, all the other people of Arefu may turned hostile towards you.
 * The old favourite when fast traveling to Arefu, a Rad scorp/robot/anything actually is attacking Lucas Simms, you help out, the entire village is hostile.
 * When fast traveling to Arefu on some occasions deathclaws will come through the highway that arefu is built on and continue flying through the air until it is out of sight. They can however be targeted in vats until out of range. (unconfirmed)

Evergreen Mills

 * When fighting the Super Mutant Behemoth in Evergreen Mills if you stand on the walkway so you can throw a Frag Grenade at it, the Mutant may start to rise in the air and get stuck there, appear next to you and other strange things (if it gets stuck in the air, when it falls down it dies giving you a great advantage).


 * Sometimes the behemoth may also disappear and appear only when you will destroy all nearby generators.


 * Sometimes, upon freeing slaves, they may free the Behemoth as well. Unsure if it is scripted this way.

National Guard Depot

 * Protectron bot corpses outside the Depot do some bad jittering and falling if fast traveling to the location later, or exiting the Depot and returning back outside.

Jefferson Memorial

 * Sometimes while approaching the Jefferson Memorial the game freezes. Clearing cache does not work to fix the issue.
 * Attempt to exit the Jefferson Memorial during the "Scientific Pursuits" mission crashes the game to desktop. This bug appears to be triggered by completing the main quest missions out of order and perhaps related to the bug which crashes the game when getting within a specific distance of the Jefferson Memorial.
 * Jefferson Memorial Crash - While traveling or approaching the Jefferson memorial during main quest the game crashes. (This only occurred after speaking to Dr. Li; walked past Jefferson Memorial without trouble on the way into Rivet City.}

Vault 92

 * If you go to the overseer's office and walk along the wall behind and to the right of his desk, you will clip through it and fall into the hallway below his desk. From there, you can go through the door into a locked room in the Sound Testing chamber.  There are some useful items in this room, but there is unfortunately no way to get back, since the door ahead of you is jammed, and the hallway behind you is still covered by the overseer's desk.
 * Sometimes the Overseer's terminal won't have an option to open the secret passage under his desk like it should.

Vault 87

 * If you revisit Vault 87 following completion of the main quest mission (accessing it via the Reactor Chamber), then open the vault door from the inside, there is no rendered exterior and you are confronted with a void.


 * Sometimes the Centaurs will bug and be able to leave their locked cells and attack the player. This happens more often while accompanied by companion characters.

Regulator HQ
You can summon Sonora Cruz back by entering the console, typing "prid 0006f212", hitting enter, then typing "moveto player". When you exit the console she should appear next to you.
 * Death Claw appearing inside when entering for first time.
 * Sonora Cruz at Regulator HQ sometimes flees into the wilderness after a giant scorpion or Yao Guai attack.(Confirmed,happened to me on Xbox360,but she only ran when Dogmeat came through the door,which was 30 seconds later for some reason...)

If Sonora Cruz flees after a Giant Scorpion or Yao Guai attack, she will leave the building and run into the wilderness. Since she cannot be killed, you can get her back, as she does not disappear either. If you search the wilderness in the vicinity of the HQ you should find her. The easiest way to get her back is to knock her unconcious, then drag her body back to the HQ, when you get her in front of the door and she wakes up, she will go inside. However, this will cause all the other Regulators to become hostile to you and they will have to be killed. This is an excellent option for players on the PS3 or 360, who do not have console access. (Confirmed on PS3)

Temple of the Union

 * If you ask Bill Seward about Lincoln, the dialogue is missing speech and mouth animation.

Tenpenny Tower

 * The game may crash when you get the reward from Burke on Tenpenny Tower (after the bomb explosion).
 * The game may crash when you get the necrophage mission.
 * While standing in the lone wanderers suite a Paint Gun seemingly appeared out of nowhere and fell to the floor. When picked it up and it disappeared from my inventory. Didn't cause the game to crash or anything. It was just really strange.
 * While Tenpenny is still sitting in his chair next to the detenator for power othe atom i used a mesematron on him and it caused him to glitch. His hands became the size of deathclaw hands but he could still shoot his gun

RobCo Facility

 * You may see some robots lying down, frozen in the air.
 * There may be graphic glitches where the robots are stuck bouncing "in" the floor making loud clanking sounds, and even dragging them won't reset their position.
 * Using V.A.T.S. on the Mole Rats may freeze the game.

Shalebridge Hill

 * The game will crash when you attempt to pick up any of the 5.56 ammo magazines in the Ant Queen's chamber

Museum of Technology

 * Trying to leave the security office upstairs results in repeatedly being pushed back, can't leave the room. Might be a result of picking up the Nikola Tesla and You book in the back corner.

Smith Casey's Garage

 * On some occasions when fast traveling to this location, the game will glitch, causing a sentry bot, 3 robobrains, and a Yao Guai to spawn. Thirty seconds after they all die (not counted if in menu) the game will crash. This ocurred on the 360, and each time the save is reloaded the same happens. Only by running away from the robots can the player avoid this.

Follower NPC, general

 * Sometimes the NPCs will go off the track of their movement and wander around the wasteland. This is usually caused by going back and forth through two areas which will load them in a different spot. Or attacking them in combat and leaving the area or having them chase you out of the area.
 * On some save games (this might randomly show up in the beginning of the game and will never end) NPCs will randomly stop conversations between each other before they should, or the player might not get his/her controls back if a script does the "disableplayercontrols" command and a conversation ends. This has occurred at least in Vault 101 in a conversation with Dad and Oasis with the conversation between the two arguing inhabitants.  Another problem that seems to be related (appears along with the aforementioned bug) is that NPCs may walk through a load door to a new cell and not appear on the other side.
 * Both these problems are seemingly fixed by going into the G.E.C.K., loading Fallout3.esm, and clicking the "recompile all scripts" button and saving a plugin with this change, loading it right after Fallout3.esm.
 * The v1.7 patch still requires this fix.
 * A workaround has been found: save the game if NPCs stop talking suddenly, and then reload that save.  They'll continue their conversation for at least one response.  Repeat the process as many times as needed to get the conversation to finish.


 * Companions being stuck in the wall or outside of game
 * Sometime when you go through a door they won't come with you.
 * Sometimes followers or other NPCs will kill an enemy and continue to attack the body. The "disable" command won't work on the "half-dead" enemy.  Their inventory cannot be accessed, and the player will just get the regular "cannot do this" sound and nothing will happen when activated.  Other NPC enemies may fall into this state, but NPCs won't continue to attack these enemies after death, and if the player has the Cannibal perk, eating the enemy will make their inventory accessible afterwards. Cannibal perk-players won't be able to access the enemy's inventory by choosing "Search" from the dialog box before devouring them, though.
 * Fast traveling may cause some NPCs to become stuck in inaccessible places, such as Fawkes becoming stuck inside the Enclave barriers at Project Purity. Fast traveling again, or waiting an extended period of time may fix this problem.

Follower NPC, specific

 * When giving Charon a Shishkebab, after about 1 week in the game there is 2 Shishkebabs. When one is removed, both disappear from his inventory. [confirmed on Xbox 360]
 * This can happen with any follower and most weapons.
 * Scribe Rothchild disappears and cannot be found. The quest marker puts him north of Springvale School and east of Big Town.
 * Scribe Rothchild can get stuck, making the main quest line impossible to continue. Can't be fixed by traveling elsewhere, pushing the character, or making him unconscious. This bug is possibly caused by Rothchild leaning to a wall in his room when you speak to him about the vault.
 * A solution to this problem is to find Vault 87 yourself. When you get to the Vault the Missions will complete and you can go back and knock Rothchild stupid.
 * PC: Fixable by entering console (~), clicking Rothchild, typing "disable" and after that "enable".
 * If you have a save game before talking to Rothchild and he is already stuck beside his bed: you can WAIT until night - then Rothchild is suddenly sleeping in his bed and then you can talk to him about the vault.
 * Make Rothchild unconscious and drag him in front of the orange map.
 * "Dogmeat" will randomly attack friendly NPCs.
 * Eulogy Jones in Paradise Falls, as well as other characters that are in the same building may vanish. If any other character is scripted to engage with any of these characters, they will enter the building and then remain stationary permanently. The only fix is to reload a save from before every character in Eulogy Jones' building vanishes.
 * The giant robot "Liberty Prime" can get stuck on the left side of the highway when heading to install the G.E.C.K. Going forward and fighting some enclave soldiers can fix this problem. (Save immediately when you see liberty prime walking for the first time to avoid this bug.)
 * Liberty Prime gets stuck and does not progress forward, making it impossible to finish the quest.
 * Can be fixed by waiting for an extended amount of time with the WAIT function.
 * PC: Liberty Prime can be nudged by using the noclip cheat until he no longer glitches. To enable or disable noclip, press the tilde '~' key and enter the command "tcl".) This may also be caused by the remaining soldiers of the Lyon's Pride being left behind - gathering them up will also solve this problem.
 * After getting the slaves to the Lincoln Memorial, a stuttering glitch happens to the NPC leader Hannibal Hamlin. Usually because of the interruption of his "lecture" at the monument to his fellow slaves (talking to him during the middle of his talk). Keeps repeating "Bye" over and over again, while the slave NPC's stand clapping, forever. Only fix is to fast travel away from the area.
 * After bringing Cherry to Rivet City to free her from Dukov, Cherry will stay on the bridge outside of the city. In a subsequent fast travel to Rivet City, she respawned in the same spot, except the bridge was no longer extended so she immediately fell to her death.
 * Ahzrukhal and Charon become stuck and cannot interact after informing Charon about his contract. Seems to be related to when Ahzrukhal starts work, he will walk over to the bar and Charon will just stand by his bed.
 * Leo Stahl may occasionally 'teleport' up to where Stockholm is in Megaton, permanently. The only way to fix this is by loading an earlier save or by using the console to move him.
 * Firing upon Fawkes with a gatling laser while he is using one may occasionally cause the projectiles to stop showing. This can be fixed by resetting the game or console.
 * Sometimes when the player gives a large weapon to a follower, then the follower walks into a mine it can casue the weapon to be stuck through their bodies but still shoot as if they are still holding it in their hands
 * Dogmeat rocks quickly forward and backward as though his physics are off when standing idle. This seems to be triggered when loading a save where Dogmeat is set to the "Stay" command.  Fast traveling and reboot do not fix it.  Only loading an earlier save will correct the problem.
 * While at the National Archives during the "Stealing Independence" quest, if you choose for Sydney to join you, she will sometimes get stuck and run against a wall forever. Even pushing her out of the way doesn't work.
 * When attempting to recruit Dogmeat for the first time in the Scrapyard, can talk to Dogmeat but he didn't follow, tell Dogmeat to go get ammo and wait by Vault 101 but Dogmeat simply stood there and did absolutely nothing.
 * Cross will end up dead for no reason. This happened after re-entering Vault 87. Cross is frozen on the ground and you can search her body.  However, the game shows "Talk Star Paladin Cross" under your crosshairs.  After a few days, receive the follower message indicating that she has died.

General Bugs

 * Upside Down Gun. Follower NPC ends up carrying their gun in their hand, upside down. Even fires upside down. Inventory manipulation (removing all equipment, giving different weapon, etc) does not fix. The gun is actually floating in the air about an inch or so from the back of their hands. (Xbox360, PS3) (confirmed
 * Giving Sydney a stimpack temporarily fixed it.


 * When traveling to Paradise Falls there was a line connecting the character to one of the attacking slaves. V.A.T.S didn't work properly.
 * It is possible to get "stuck" between rocks with no way of escaping (jumping, crouching, etc.) User can fast travel to escape (if no enemies are near by.) The wasteland could really use some environmental management out here!
 * If you get "stuck" between rocks or in the mist of fallen debris there is another way to get out: Save the game, then reload that save game, while the save game is loading mash "Y" (or what ever you have changed jump to) while mashing "Y" also try holding either forward or backwards. If it doesn't work holding it Forwards, try holding Backwards. This should get out unstuck and able to play on. NOTE: This also works with getting stuck on Railings, Desks.. Etc Etc (Example: Read the next Dot-Point)
 * It is possible to get "stuck" in "your" home at Megaton between the bed and the wall with no way of escaping (jumping, crouching, etc.) The user can NOT fast travel to escape.
 * It is possible to get "stuck" in "your" home at Megaton by sleeping and having a big sized companion. The user can NOT fast travel to escape, but can dismiss/kill the companion to escape.
 * To fix these problems on the PC, open the developer console (tilde, or `) and type tcl. When you are unstuck, type tcl into the console again.
 * If you have the Lawbringer or Contract Killer perk and you knock someone unconscious over and over again they will keep getting ears in their inventory,which you can pickpocket from them. (example: Shrapnel at Rivet City).
 * In some places, such as the Deathclaw Sanctuary, it is actually possible to become stuck inside of a large boulder. Though it's not likely to happen by accident.
 * When stuck, if you toss a grenade at your feet the resulting explosion can occasionally jar you loose.
 * When you pass between the rooms, radio may be glitched because of loading. It repeats a part of the song/speak until the radio returns to normal. (codec related latency?)
 * Using the Mister Sandman perk on some children while they're asleep leads to unlimited experience. You get the experience, but the children can't be killed so it's possible to do it repeatedly.
 * Radio songs and news skip occasionally skipping to another song or another piece of news
 * Corpses and gibs can actually "fall out" of the maps. (Mirelurks in tunnels, ant gibs in Grayditch)
 * Items and other objects can also do it, but this is rare.
 * In some maps, this is more of a problem than others, see the bugs for the "Grayditch" location.
 * In Megaton, (also experienced in Minefield) when reloading a game the Player Character got stuck in looped attacks, without buttons being pressed, resulting in a shot being fired or melee attack, when exiting the Pip-boy or out of an ammo box :*This is related to firing while loading a new zone, reloading saves will continue to exhibit this behavior. Closing and re-opening the game will fix this.
 * After alt-tabbing the menu was playable, meaning you can walk around with the different options on the side and the "Fallout 3" text to the left somewhere. To get rid of this press ESC.


 * Jefferson Memorial Freeze - While traveling or approaching the Jefferson memorial during main quest game freezes.
 * Visiting the Jefferson Memorial building, the player may find themselves permanently locked in/out of the building during the main quest the Waters of Life, new objectives drain the intake pipes begins.
 * After visiting the GNR building, the player may find themselves permanently locked in/out of the building.
 * Speech Errors - NPC's mouth moves during dialogue but nothing is said. Script/subtitles at the bottom of the screen "fast forward". Reloading previous saved games DOES NOT fix error. Restarting seems to be the solution.
 * Megaton NPCs dead for no reason - Possible death from falling from a height. Walter and Lucy West can die this way.
 * When heading to Vault 87 through Murder Pass (after you retrieve G.E.C.K and get caught by enclave) the Vault 87 vault door opens and there is simply the end of the map, a gray nothingness, walk through it and you end up back in the confinement chambers where you rescue the Supermutant.
 * Citizens of Big Town will all be dead, after clearing the Mutants and saving the two from Germantown Police HQ, the security robot was still active and "guarding".
 * Lyons' Pride will attack without being provoked after taking down the Super Mutant Behemoth in front of Galaxy News Radio.
 * The dialogue for the first Enclave soldier who greets you in Raven Rock was not recorded twice; he refers to you as a "he" if you are playing a female character.
 * At the birthday scene, the door in the back opens up after some dialogue, and if you go through, you will be warped to another part of the vault, with no way back to the birthday scene.
 * After looting a body, the some parts will still have clothing.
 * This is true for any body that has lost a limb. Removal of clothing from the corpse does not affect detached appendages. This does not lead to sleeveless business suits, sadly.


 * Disarming traps (tripwire, pressure plate) and then quicksaving and quickloading lets you "activate" the traps again but nothing happens.
 * If people start to flee, they will be read as hostile to the player. This is normally harmless, but should you have a follower they will fire upon the NPC. This means that killing one person in a town will most likely result in the deaths of everyone else if your character is powerful.
 * The dead bodies of decapitated humans (possibly ghouls?) will begin to spaz about, squirm on the floor, and jump into the air. Nicknamed "Break-Dancing corpses".
 * Ash piles and goo piles never disappear. What's more, they stay linked to their actor, which is not really a problem, unless actor is alive and friendly. In this case, when you try to loot it, you will be actually pickpocketing her/him/it, which she/he/it might not take too kindly with consequences that follow (just turned Outcasts hostile, back to quick save).
 * NPC's (usually dead ones) become stretched out like chewing gum. Targeting limbs appears to target pieces of them that are smeared. Can be associated with incorrect one-hit-kills but the bodies remain alive and shooting, even to the point of the game thinking they are still moving around. VATS registers on the "dead" body, but the HUD indicator moves around (backed up by the crosshairs registering red and the voice of the actor also eminating from the indicator.) Occasionally it happens to live NPC's which can "Break Dance" like before, shooting off into the sky, however they are like a surreal 3-D kaleidescope, rapidly changing shapes.
 * Sometimes even if no one there you will stay in caution phase when sneaking.

Combat-Related

 * Sniper shots may simply pass through the target at long ranges.
 * In certain instances, the shot might even definitively make contact (with such confirmations as 'Critical hit on Raider' or 'Sneak attack critical on Super Mutant' appearing in the corner) and yet no damage is done to the target or its weapon (in cases in which the shot hits their weapon, of course). When this happens, the target often gets a limb crippled, despite not having lost any HP. It is not uncommon to connect with a headshot, only to have the target alerted and crippled, yet not take any damage.
 * The above issue is also true with the Backwater Rifle (Point Lookout) or possibly other weapons, with both V.A.T.S. and free-aim attacks.
 * You may have hit the enemy on their weapon, causing it to to become broken. (Not a glitch, attacking a target's weapon will damage/break it, depending on the remaining weapon health and your attack damage. You can do this to force disarm an opponent.)


 * During a fight (more prevalent in large battles), the player may notice that none of the bullets from his gun are causing any damage to his foe and seem to go right through him/her/it. The issue is more common with the Minigun and situations where multiple hostiles are firing at the player at once. Even the "kill" console command will not kill the enemy; the only way to neutralize them is to use the "disable" command, which makes getting their items impossible.

Beneficial glitches

 * Knock Knock of Little Lamplight has an easy Speech Challenge that does not get cleared. Can repeat for infinite experience.
 * Vera Weatherly of Rivet City has the ability to "Gossip" with you, she can gossip quite a bit, this means that every time you pass you speech challenge you get Exp. Isn't Infinite, but if you want/need quick exp, go see her.(this isn't a bug....)

Technical problems

 * Freezing for 10 seconds or so whenever the radio tracks loop. Does not do it every time, but most of the time. It is always after a track on the radio finishes. (Not a codec, fdshow, or pagefile issue)
 * Crash on Vista x64 with K-Lite codecs. Problem in FLVsplitter.dll. Uninstalling codecs helps
 * Vertical Sync may force an unsupported refresh rate for some monitors, resulting in no display. Disabling v-sync may correct this issue.
 * When launching the game a 'Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library Runtime Error - C:/Program Files/Bethesda Softworks/Fallout 3/Fallout3.exe - The application has requested the runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.' error pops out. Pressing any key exits the game.
 * When reloading a saved game, your character will have nothing in his/her inventory, just access to Enclave Radio and Galaxy News Radio.
 * At 10th Birthday, upon being given PipBoy, unable to move, but able to look around. So you sit there looking around. Eventually your father leaves.... and the guy goes to the bar, and you still sit there. :Solution: This can be fixed by going to Control Panel->Sound and Audio Devices. Under Speaker Settings click Advanced. Under the Performance Tab lower the acceleration tab to "Basic acceleration" or lower and it should fix it. Enjoy! :If that doesn't work, typing enableplayercontrols in the console forces the game to let you move around. Doesn't fix any of the sound issues though.
 * Not responding when launching the game on XP
 * Crash when launching the game or soon after gameplay starts on Vista x64 - Program has stopped working message. Note that updating video drivers tends to fix this, however the newer nVidia 180.84 and 181.20 also have been reported with this problem, so you may need to downgrade to 180.48 until nVidia resolves this problem.
 * No games saved when clicking "save". Possibly related to having a roaming user profile. Check if your saves are located in your save game folder. If they are, start game and scroll down to the bottom of your save game list, and your saves should be there.
 * Severe drop in FPS at random times while playing in the wastes. Reloading a different save or minimizing/restoring the game usually fixes it. Lowering texture resolution to medium or small will also lighten this problem
 * Crash to desktop without a send/don't send error report.
 * Crash to desktop if Anti-Aliasing is turned on, usually when tab is pressed to bring up the Pip-Boy, but sometimes just on the loading screen. Turning AA off solves this issue for some.
 * Crash to desktop when tab is pressed to bring up the Pip-Boy
 * Crash when "getignorecrime" is entered into console.
 * Crash to desktop on exit. (Also present for some Oblivion users.)
 * Crash when "New Game" is pressed in the main menu (related to ffdshow - adding fallout3.exe to the exception list in the Audio Decoder Configuration apparently fixes this, but usually doesn't work.).
 * Crashing and corrupting top save to be back at beginning of game.
 * Crash when "Play" is pressed in the launcher splash screen (Discuss specific issues/solutions on Talk:Fallout_3_bugs).
 * APPCRASH with faulting module Cinemasteraudio.dll. Removing Roxio software, uninstalling Fallout3, then reinstalling Fallout3 appears to fix this.  First encountered issue in the bar, later saves also had issue.  The fddshow method above may be an alternative to this.
 * Tilde (~) not working to open console. Going into Device Manager Device Manager->"Human Interface Devices"->"Microsoft eHome Infrared Transceiver"->'Update Driver Software'->'Browse my computer for driver software"->'Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer'->'Infrared HID Device'->'Ok'->'Close' (Note: same fix works for TOEE) Once the driver has been changed, it can be changed back.  Somehow changing the driver frees the tilde (~) mapping.  Note: Infrared receivers are one of many possible incompatibilities/problems.
 * Crash on loading screen when trying to load saved game.
 * Crashes happen more frequently the longer the game is played, resulting in a "log in and crash straight back out" effect after only an hour or so of game time. Check for a running virus scan. Stopping AVG's scan seemed to help me.
 * Crash with error "APPCRASH Fault Module Name:	d3d9.dll" - Try this: since this is DirectX related, try Start->Run dxdiag and run the diagnostic tests.
 * Disk unable to be read, viewed or otherwise seen as media on some DVD drives such as a Sony DRU-720A. (If you are experiencing this, you could try defragmenting your drive before installing, or install to a new hard drive.)
 * VATS - severe drop in FPS for some users when entering VATS. Disabling anti-aliasing in the game launcher may fix this(This is the memory leak being addressed.)
 * VATS - freezes the game for a few seconds when activated. The same happens with the PipBoy. (settings: HDR, medium textures, full actor, object and item fade distance, 800x600; also, switching AA on does nothing, texture edges are still "steppy")
 * Mouse lag and strange acceleration. Force vsync off in your graphics Control panel to fix.
 * Due to an error in installing, certain sound effects (like gun shots/reloading and monster sounds) do not play.
 * Drop in FPS after playing for an extended period of time. Restarting the game fixes this. Lowering the texture resolution to medium or even small will also help
 * Rebinding The Pip-Boy key only rebinds the key to open, the closing key is still default. NOTE: As a workaround, since the three categories Stats/Items/Data of your Pip-Boy are also hardwired to the F1-F3 keys (this is unrebindable, not shown in the in-game >controls >action mapping menu and NOT mentioned in the game manual at all), you can use those instead of needing 2 different other keys for opening / closing the PB.
 * Some key bindings are dropped (very rarely) after loading a saved game.
 * Wait function does not work when button is rebound to "w" key.
 * Sometimes when firing full auto or pistols too quickly causes sounds of weapons to be silent for a few shots. (Sounds very similar to the "radio glitch" mentioned under general bugs.
 * Streaks, flickers, and graphical corruption on full screen with Vista and SLI enabled. Running in Windowed mode solves the problem. (Try adjusting your monitors refresh rate, I'm not sure if you have to adjust both your graphics cards to the same refresh rate since you are using SLI, but you may.
 * Turning on radio causes graphics to stutter, possible solution: turn down the graphics a bit, if your graphics are walking on the edge, throwing in the sound might be just too much for a few seconds, and cause the stutter.
 * On some configurations, no 16/9 or 16/10 resolutions are available in setup.
 * Can't exit vault 101 - game crash. Loading imported save does not help - game crash after walking anywhere.
 * Suddenly unable to play holotapes. Reverting to a previously saved game seems to fix it.
 * Music on the PipBoy crackles and pops, while the DJs are coming in crystal clear. Is fixed by installed K-Lite codec pack, opening FFDshow and moving the DirectShow slider all the way to the left. *Note a properly functioning radio will have a slight underlying hiss the farther away you are from the station. This is not to be confused with the crackling/popping which is a symptom of broken codecs. (An alternative to the K-Lite/FFDshow solution is to install a single DirectShow filter MadFilter.ax. It can be found at sourceforge.net/projects/maddxshow )
 * Defeated enemies weapons sometimes spontaneously disappear from their inventories, leaving only the ammo behind. Loading an earlier quicksave didn't help, but restarting the game and loading the very same quicksave again did fix this.
 * Pressing Tab does not exit Pip-Boy when in the Items->Misc->Keys submenu.
 * After playing for a long time, textures start to be loaded at very low resolution. Restarting the game resolves this.
 * Raiders spawn inside the stone bridge ramp between Wilhelm's Wharf and The Citadel. Raiders can shoot out from inside the solid walls.
 * Bad Z-sort of transparent hair texture when Grandma Sparkle is wearing goggles.
 * In VATS, at certain zoom levels, it won't highlight any areas on the target until you either select a new target with the left or right arrows, or unless you move the cursor to a far edge of the screen and back again.
 * If an Xbox 360 USB controller is plugged in, and if "Enable Xbox 360 Controller" is set to "Off" in the controls menu, key bindings in-game will still show as the controller. (e.g. In the HUD, instead of displaying "Use E)" which is really the keystroke you would use if the controller option was set to off, instead when your crosshair is over an item, it'll show up as "Use A)" as if it were still using the controller.) Unplugging the controller will remedy the bug. You can also go to control settings and set "Enable Xbox 360 Controller" to on, and then off again to fix this, but you will have to do this every time you restart the game.
 * In the Inventory screen, when interacting with the various boxes and containers of the game world, it's not possible to scroll the item highlight cursor up/down with the arrow keys. When you try this, all you get is an unhealthy "flicker" between items as if the cursor is stuck somehow. NOTE: This only happens when you still have the mouse pointer hovering over the list, i.e. it's not a bug at all.
 * Sometimes when user plays with an Xbox 360 Wireless controller, the game disables it and user must press on Xbox guide button in order to re-enable it.
 * In the wasteland, if user looks at the mountains, the geometry flickers even with Ultra settings.
 * When walking in the wilderness it is possible to have your feet seemingly stuck in the ground, or walking in mud, and jumping only makes a tiny jump. This followed by warping back to earlier positions and finally a crash.
 * Scrolling with mousewheel in Pipboy 3000 causes fatal crash, monitor turns off and you have to reboot system
 * On the Rivet City Flight Deck, pointing towards the broken Bow is a portion that is a good deal lower than the rest. The game fails to realize this and has the player walking on thin air.
 * Cannot talk to "Mister Burke" character in the bar in Megaton (have tried disable/enable fix to no avail)
 * Scroll wheel problem. Using scroll wheel makes anything usable by the scroll wheel constantly up or down. e.g either fully zoomed or out on map, either fully zoomed in or out for 3rd person to 1st person, either fully scrolled up a list or down the list. If you scroll up (wheel) the scroll bar will move up to the end and will be unmoveable unless you scroll down one click with the wheel to try and put the scroll wheel in neutral, scrolling two much down will move the scroll bar down to the end. Sometimes when the scroll bug is activated after talking to someone even through it wasn't activated previously. This also affects VATS.
 * User cannot quit the game normally and has to reboot the computer.
 * With Sound Blaster sound cards using surround sound, some sounds such as NPC speech do not always play. (Sounds like clipping from an overtaxed processor not able to process the ogg stream in six channels)
 * Some sound clips get stuck and loop until very far away from source. - fixed by lowering or disabling "hardware acceleration" in Control Panel > speaker > advanced [Seemingly related to EAX support]
 * Fawkes's Gatling laser will occasionally cause a sound glitch when fired at a target that has just died, quicksave/quickload resolves this.
 * Memory leak related to excess processes, on-board sound card, and/or SLI.
 * Upon exiting VATS, graphics will have automatically reduced to low settings with jagged edges, flickering buildings and trees, and brightly lit pixelated shrubs. Game restart will revert graphics back to normal state. (sounds like antialiasing is somehow getting shut off from zooming in on enemies maybe and your video card is not restarting antialiasing once leaving VATS, have you maybe managed to get a similar problem to occur with either zooming in and out with scopes, or playing with third person modes mouse wheel zoom? Also do you have your card's settings managed to "application specified" Or does your card have a anti aliasing level "forced" by your card's software?
 * The game freezes during the character creation stage, a few minutes after selecting the gender for the player.
 * Complete crash of entire system when opening gate for Washington Monument.
 * Attempting to enter the Arlington Library after the entire building has been cleared (but before any books have been turned in to the Scribe) causes the game to crash (Faulting application fallout3.exe, version 1.0.0.15, faulting module ntdll.dll, version 5.1.2600.2180, fault address 0x00001230).
 * Pink screen during few seconds after launch while background music and voices are playing and then crash on desktop. Mostly for ATI videos.
 * Game freezes randomly after entering any house with no NPC present in it.
 * Saving while inside the Nuka-Cola Plant often leads to corrupt saves (game crashes to desktop when loading the save). Sometimes the game crashes during quicksaving there. Seems to be specifically this location that causes those, hasn't happened elsewhere.
 * Blue screens or reboots system when you enter name, use pip boy or get to character creation screen, this is still unresolved for people with this issue. :Since blue screens are the result of either driver or hardware failure, try updating video driver and testing your system memory (DirectX should be updated by the installation utility). If you have an nVidia laptop, try using a driver from laptopvideo2go instead of the vendor supplied driver since vendor drivers tend to be significantly out-of-date.
 * When entering the Super Duper Mart, after 1 minute or less inside the building, the screen starts to show white dashes across the screen (like static) until the game freezes completely requiring a restart, or if the user exits the game quickly, the computer doesn't freeze, but the static remains.
 * This sounds like a problem with data corruption in your video card. Make sure your video card is not overclocked and is properly cooled.
 * Using the scroll wheel in the console (used to scroll through targets) causes a 'Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library Runtime Error - C:/Program Files/Bethesda Softworks/Fallout 3/Fallout3.exe - The application has requested the runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.' error.
 * Crash when a Raider near Megaton is killed.
 * General freezing issues after short amount of gameplay (can be fixed by changing the memory buffer size, in the ini, to a much larger number)

Gameplay related
-More specifically there are two types of pre-war books. There are the ones which are represented in the inventory by a stack of books, are light blue in color in normal gameplay, and can be offered to the Scribe in Arlington Library. The other variety are a darker blue in normal gameplay and are represented by the miscellaneous icon in the inventory. This second variety are apparently unimportant to the Scribe, despite her insistence that even children's books are important artifacts. Unfortunately, all pre-war books purchased directly from vendors are of the latter variety (confirmed by purchase through Crazy Wolfgang, as well as Lydia Montenegro (or Michael Masters if the ghouls are let in) in Tenpenny Tower.
 * Game crashes often when alt-tabbing while in fullscreen mode.
 * When selling and buying leather armor to/from merchants (tested with Crow and Moira Brown), armor's repair level isn't uniform. Further, selling and re-buying the same suit of leather armor will yield a fully-repaired suit! This is thus partially a bug and partially an exploit, as the player can obtain a 100% repaired suit of leather armor (DR 24!) at level 2 for less than 100 caps.
 * Above armor exploit works with all armor Crow sells provided he has at least 3 of that item or 2 with 1 in 100% condition. After investing in him to increase his trade supply you can take whatever you want, repair all items (his repair is 70 after upgrade), and walk away 1,000 caps ahead (plus whatever armor you wanted, including power armor, can easily get 6 suits in 3 minutes.)
 * It even works with weapons. To be more specific, it affects all Merchants, and only the items they have by default.  Meaning if you sold items to the Merchant that they don't already have, attempt to glitch with said items, the bug does not occur.
 * Sometimes NPCs get stuck on path while advancing toward deployed Frag Mines then instantly appear as though they teleported through it's triggering area. Additionally, Frag Mines have also been observed warping nearby enemies onto the Mine...which then detonate spectacularly.
 * Named NPCs spontaneously die in Megaton, possibly from falling off walkways or rad exposure near the bomb.
 * NPCs and/or corpses appear to float. Restarting the game fixes this.
 * Random named NPCs disappear from towns and are teleported outside of the town wall, floating in empty space. Some quests are unable to be finished in normal gameplay due to this bug. Temporarily solution is using the "tcl" command in the Console to reach those NPCs. Also you can use these commands in console mode to bring NPCs back: prid (disappeared NPC objectID), moveto (AnyObjectID). Object IDs can be find out in console mode (~) by clicking on character/object.
 * Game load state may not exactly match game save state: a fresh set of enemies were spawned next to the player at the graveyard north of Big Town when loading a quicksave that was created after the player had just killed all the enemies in that area. NOTE: Confirmed from here, but for me, it happened in Downtown. Ouch!
 * Disappearing followers: When leaving Rivet City Marketplace after closing time, the companions may suddenly be missing.
 * The two paladins (Hoss and helper) are hostile towards the player when entering the area for the first time and cannot be interacted with.
 * All Brotherhood of Steel members starts as friendly and then turn hostile towards the player after first contact for no apparent reason. (This happens because you accidentally killed one of them at some point in the past.  car blowing up, landmine, stray bullet.  Game completed 2x without them ever being hostile.  be careful! (Wonder if it's possible that if you keep killing super mutants and "rival factions", your diplomacy with said faction improves?
 * There is a large City Liner coach on the south-west side of Vault-Tec Headquarters that can be bashed around by simply walking into it.
 * There is one Pre-War Book with a VAL of 5 instead of 1, and it cannot be sold to Scribe Yearling. NOTE: This is simply a different style Pre-War book. They can be bought from Crazy Wolfgang once you invest in his store.
 * Attacking feral ghouls or raiders running at the player (to attack in melee) will sometimes pop from 30ft in front of the player to melee range. The new position is usually just to the left or right off screen.
 * Mysterious Stranger perma death by behemoth mutant- unable to fix at reload, have to restart new game.
 * When doing The Replicated Man, if you take the android component but reveal the truth to Harkness, it will remain in your inventory, but you will not be able to talk to Dr. Zimmer to remove it for some positive Karma. See below.
 * Ink Container from the Arlington Library for Button Gwinnetts optional quest in Declaration of Independence cannot be dropped/stored/sold after the quest is finished - message says "Cannot drop a quest item" NOTE: Confirmed. Useless Quest items sometimes remain in the inventory and cannot be removed. This has so far happened with the ink, the Android part for Dr. Zimmer and the House: Pre-War theme. You can use 'player.removeitem 3AA2 1' in the console as a quick fix to get rid of the Ink Container.
 * During hacking any terminal, it is not possible to chose any password or bracket string which is close to the end of each line, because the chosen string highlight 3-4 chars from mouse pointer.
 * Outdated video drivers are usually to blame for pointer position/draw offsets. Check to ensure that your card drivers are fully up to date. If your mouse uses third-party pointer driver software, check it as well.
 * A rare level-up bug leaves the player with a negative number of skill points to allot, jamming the game in place at the skill point distribution page. With no points to grant and no provision for removing them, the player cannot continue to perk selection and resumption of game. Reverting to an earlier savegame does not clear this error.
 * You can fix this by manually setting the number of skill points in the console.
 * In the event of not being able to properly access Games for Windows - LIVE (other than simply problems with the user's internet connection), the game will not be able to abort the sign-in process, thus locking up the main menu. This can only be solved by forcibly exiting the program via alt-F4 or the task manager.  Such an inability to access properly may be due to a GFW-LIVE outage or a problem with the automatic sign-in function (unconfirmed).

Common User Errors

 * Player stuck unable to move, HUD also missing. Possibly due to bumping the "~",which opens the console to input cheats, directly above the TAB. If you're sure the console is not open, pressing the tilde (~) key and typing "enableplayercontrols" will fix this.
 * This can also happen in other places. I've had it happen to me by punching Betty after triggering the Chinese Invasion, because she got confused and could not turn around to give me her line and kill me. --Dark Pulse 04:09, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Sometimes you get stuck in "slow walking mode". CAPS LOCK, which locks down "run", is probably enabled (and possibly toggled when you Alt-Tab out of the program if the light is mismatched), so try hitting the key again.

PlayStation 3

 * Susie Mack's Test results sometimes skips completely and she walks out of the room (also on PC).
 * When you have two followers, or a follower (Jericho, Clover, Fawkes, Charon, Sticky, or Cross) and Dogmeat, there is sometimes a problem when entering a building that results in one of them not following you in. In some cases, this will cause the game to freeze or crash when you try to exit. It should be noted that the game will autosave when you exit, therefore there is the possibility of corrupting your data if you turn the PS3 off. The only solution to this problem is to reload a previous save before exiting the area, and turn the autosave function off so it won't corrupt your data if this bug occurs.
 * The main prevention is to keep Dogmeat at home, as it only seems to freeze when Dogmeat accompanies another follower.


 * When at the birthday party, your father will ramble on, and when the Overseer is supposed to give you the Pip-Boy 3000, the game will not crash but everyone will just stand there and you will remain in the fixed position. This cannot be solved by reloading; instead, turn off the system properly and wipe the disc.
 * Watch out if people stop using voices. This will cause the dialogue text to skip by very quickly, and the player will miss out on whatever was being said. A possible solution to this is to simply restart the PS3.
 * When repairing many items in your PipBoy if you press the "Triangle" button twice quickly the game will freeze. To fix this restart your PS3 and only press the "Triangle" button once when repairing items.
 * Having multiple followers and very quickly telling both of them to wait, can result in one of them with a false-wait flag. They will continue to wait in that location, and the dialogue prompt to rejoin will not appear. The only fix being to fire the follower, or reload to a previous save. This can be highly demotivating when you've gone to the trouble of retaining multiple followers. When telling characters to wait, don't do it too quickly, and don't leave the area too quickly.

Graphics glitches

 * In the Birthday scene, Officer Gomez's left eye may stretch over the entire viewable screen and follow his head and eye movements.
 * While in third person mode, if you back up into a wall (forcing the camera to zoom in and your character to become invisible), it will glitch if you walk out of it slowly and your body will become invisible (except for your head and your weapon). Reversible by switching in and out of third person and first person mode.
 * Random objects blocking both PC and NPCs. If outside, fast-travel; if unable to fast-travel, load a previous save.
 * PipBoy moves up a little in the screen each time you view it. Repeatedly viewing and hiding PipBoy will eventually render the whole PipBoy screen invisible. Keep opening and closing eventually will reset to normal.
 * Using your PipBoy to repair many items at once may cause the PipBoy screen to become distorted and the text to dissapper. Upon going to the start menu the text will not appear or be distorted aswell. To solve the problem you must go to the XMB Menu and quit the game.
 * When shopping at Lydia Montenegro's at Tenpenny Tower, the merchant window lags; exiting results in pinwheeling or complete blackout. Restarting the game and reloading the autosave from entry into Tenpenny Tower usually fixes this
 * Out in the wasteland, scorpions will sometimes spawn at an angle to the ground, with their front half stuck in the ground and the back half sticking up in the air. They are forced to run around in this askew condition, highly limiting their speed and mobility. This is advantageous for the player when it is an albino radscorpion (very common), but can inhibit looting the body if the scorpion falls completely under the ground (confirmed).

V.A.T.S.

 * Sometimes saving (or autosaving) while in motion or firing your weapon may make the player unable to fire a weapon or reload it after loading the save. The gun will begin to fire randomly and it persists no matter what weapon used and the same thing happens when unarmed or with a melee weapon. V.A.T.S. becomes inoperable, it will enter slow mode but the weapon will never fire. The only way to fix this is to reload a previous save or to prevent it from happening by never saving while in motion or firing/fighting/jumping etc.
 * If the game is started with the controller set to Controller 2, 3, or 4, the game will still be playable, but L2 and R2 will fail to function. This makes it impossible to enter V.A.T.S. or switch views.  Restarting the game after reconfiguring the controller will fix this problem. Also, holding the PS button, turning off the controller, and turning it back on seems to help.
 * V.A.T.S. will freeze before showing percentages.
 * Time slows down during V.A.T.S., but your opponents can still attack you in between shots. Assume there are two Fire Ants on screen; one close, and one far.  If you target the close one, he may have a chance to respond, which freezes up V.A.T.S. while he breathes fire.  Afterward, you take your last few shots in V.A.T.S., and the game returns to normal.  However, in the off chance the far away Fire Ant gets an attack opportunity, the game freezes until that distant ant crawls (very very slowly) up to you and breathes fire.  This has happened twice.
 * When switching in between enemies body parts will not highlight. Switch back to last enemy and wait for the parts to highlight, then continue.
 * When you are about to kill an enemy (when the screen turns black &amp; white), and the enemy moves behind an object, the game will occasionally stay in V.A.T.S.. The only way out is to reload the game.

Xbox 360

 * After dying and having the game auto-load, sometimes the primary fire button will get 'stuck.' By this, you cannot fire by pressing the trigger. It will keep firing automatically every few seconds. So far, the only known way to fix this is to completely shut down the console and restart it.
 * When fast travelling anywhere in third person, your legs wil raise in mid air to the sitting position breifly and then return to normal (confirm?)
 * Upon arriving in Big Town, speak to a girl named Bittercup, where she will rant about how she has been with all of men in Big Town. In this rant you find out specifically about what happened with her and Pappy. End the conversation with her and talk to Pappy. A couple lines in you'll have a speech option that will never go away and can continue to gain 5 XP experience as long as the speech is successful (It was 100% when my speech skill was at 30)(Patched).
 * During the mission to escort Dr. Li out of the Jefferson Memorial, Dr. Li disappears into the wall directly in front of the exit to the Rotunda and does not emerge on the other side. The map marker indicates that she is inside the center island in the room.  Restarting has not fixed the issue.
 * When quick traveling to Raven Rock with Fawkes, Fawkes will spawn and not respond/follow you, or, he will spawn partially in the ground where you are standing. Fast traveling to a new area will fix the issue.
 * During early game, near Bethesda Ruins, a horizontal line with a vertical triangle on top towards random enemy shortly before combat, lasted until death. Reverting to save did not fix, but system restart did. May be an isolated glitch.
 * After fixing the water leaks in Megaton, Walter disappeared completely, thus making the mission impossible to finish. Have not found fix yet. NOTE: Walter can randomly fall to his death sometimes. Look behind brass lantern or the doc's and find Walter's dead body to verify.
 * After getting into a fight in Tenpenny Tower and fast traveling away the game locks upon re-entering Tenpenny tower. The only fix is to re-start from an earlier save.
 * When heading toward Three Dog for the second time, after installing the dish, Pip-Boy screen got progressively brighter until it was no longer readable. A save, and restart of the game through the Dashboard was able to fix the problem. This has also occurred in other situations, and may be triggered by long periods of play.
 * After assisting the Temple of the Union with the Lincoln Memorial the refugees never show up if slavers are killed first. The only known solution is to wait until Hannibal Hamlin asks for help with slavers before eliminating opposition at the memorial. WORK AROUND: Sometimes Fast Traveling around to random locations/ waiting for a few days to pass, after coming to where the arrow shows, they will be there. The refugees are just slow.
 * Upon doing Trouble on the Homefront quest, player can only move with the LS, the RS non-functioning yet it works in pip-boy, previous saves, reloads, all have no effect, have to restart game.
 * All notes have vanished from the Note page under the Data tab. Workaround: Saving the game and using the xxlbrbxx cache clear code on the dash board solved this problem.
 * Randomly, upon exiting Megaton, a clipping issue occurs where the players legs sink into the "soft" terrain (not affected when on cement or rock). This causes movement to become sluggish/jerky and makes corpses sink and become unsearchable. Loading a previous save seems to fix the problem.
 * When setting Dogmeat to the "Stay" Command, it is possible that upon returning to that location, he may be gone. You will not get the prompt that says he is dead, and so far it is unknown where he has gone. (A message should pop up after letting Dogmeat wait for an extended period of time that says Dogmeat is waiting for you outside of Vault 101. This is not a glitch)
 * This Dogmeat error extends to other NPCs as well, some of whom simply disappear when in waiting mode, even from safe locations such as the Megaton house.
 * Try speaking to a traveling merchant while he is swimming with his head above water so the conversation is allowed. When he's introducing himself his head will make a full 360 turn counter-clockwise.
 * The runaway slaves randomly attacked only companion and not the player. The only way to escape this is to run away from the compound and fast travel, hoping they haven't killed him by then.
 * During the Those! mission in Marigold Station. There's a fire ant at the bottom of some stairs sitting on the track of a door (half-in, half-out). When approached too close and killed the body sticks to the player. It's headless body dangles and jiggles in front character and can only be gotten rid of by reloading.
 * After fighting and killing a Super Mutant outside Chevy Chase Station, upon reentering the station the game froze. When the game was reloaded from auto save after a system restart, the Super Mutant was alive again, but immortal. Repeated bursts to the head did no damage.  Was still vulnerable to splash damage from frags.
 * When approaching the Super Duper Mart at dawn, all the raiders spawned outside the building at once, creating a mob of raiders which spawned right in front of the player. Reloading and waiting a little while allowed them to presumably walk inside.
 * If the player fast travels to the Citadel when escorting Dr. Li to the location during the "Waters of Life" mission, Dr. Li will move to the right of the entrance and refuse to move. Attempting to force her to the door is ineffective, as she constantly walks back to the wall and paces back and forth. This glitch in the main storyline is considered to be game-ending.
 * On the bridge to Anchorage War Memorial covered in land mines, one of the mines is active but is not visible by the player. Trial and error to collect mine.
 * Crouching and un-crouching while using the mini gun will cause it to stop firing even though it still uses ammo and makes the spinning animation.
 * When player leaves Vault 87 before collecting GECK but after Fawkes is in position to get it --but not told to, yet-- one of the doors on the way to the GECK chamber will be locked when player reenters. It is the door in the room the Enclave will ambush the player in on her way out with the GECK. The lock cannot be picked. I'm not aware of a workaround, currently.
 * During Head of State quest in Downtown D.C. Hannibal Hamlin appears to get stuck. A Tesla-Photon barrier has been set up but only the generator is visible.
 * In the Wasteland Survival Guide quest, in chapter 3, after doing the Rivet City section, returning to Moira, and picking all options other than the lie, then choosing the "Take a break from the research." option, the quest becomes impossible to complete. If you speak to her again, she repeats all of those same options and then only gives you the choice to take a break from the research. The only solution is to lie, which alters the outcome of the quest and gives you bad karma.
 * Sometimes creatures will be stuck in the terrain.
 * During the Three Dog quest to replace the satellite dish, the game would freeze when passing by the Washington Monument on the way to the Museum of Technology. After several trial and error attempts to reach the MOT, it appears that having your radio on when you pass by the monument is the cause.  No idea why, perhaps 3 Dog begins a broadcast that makes the game crash.
 * Randomly, there will be graphical glitches that appear to stretch and obscure your view in certain directions. The fix for this is to fast-travel to a location far away and then fast-travel back.
 * Right thumb-stick stops responding at random when transitioning between locations. After it has happened you have to load an earlier game to fix it. Alternatively, entering some locations (locked) will automatically fix this. (Unconfirmed)
 * After doing the quest for the ghouls to get into Tenpenny Tower and live side by side with the humans, the dead bodies of the remaining humans that the ghouls will kill do not appear. Probably caused by staying in the tower for 48 hours (about the time the ghouls move the bodies into the storage room). Only workaround is to complete the quest, go and wait or sleep outside Tenpenny Tower for 48 hours, and come back to the tower.
 * During the Stealing Independence quest, NPC hands glitch occurs (when the arms/skeleton of the Sydney NPC would retract into the body, stretching the arm textures, causing a floating gun effect). Occurs only after the battle with the super mutants, probably from the massive amount of grenades used, and also the missile launcher used by the mutant. Fix is to enter and exit the area with the Sydney NPC following.
 * Certain weight/chain traps start spontaneously shaking, probably caused by the level not loading correctly. The heavy weight connected to the chain seems to float in mid-air while the chain violently shakes. No known fix.
 * Issues with teleporting creatures, especially the giant fire ant queen for the misc quest "Those!". Queen ant would be in main chamber, then suddenly teleport to the smaller hallway, blocking exit, thereby resulting in the player frantically escaping by jumping over and/or squeezing through the side of the queen. No known fix.
 * Small lag issue in where the player character would teleport forward as he's walking, dialogue skips, or game stops and tries to load. Usually caused by going into Xbox guide during play through (not pausing), and letting the disc stop spinning. Easily preventable glitch, just pause game and then open Xbox guide (might be on the Xbox's fault).
 * Crazy Wolfgang NPC, Trader Protector NPC, and Brahmin NPC all flip out randomly when Player Character is attacked by other NPCs in vicinity. Specifically, was at Rivet City near the entrance to the drawbridge. After trading with Crazy Wolfgang NPC, Talon Mercenary NPCs opened fire on player character. After those NPCs were dealt with, Crazy Wolfgang NPC and Trader Protector NPC flip out and attack Player Character. No fix, they were killed except for the Brahmin.
 * When trading with Moira, going back into dialog and then back to trading again can cause you to switch the amount of bottle caps you both have. A bad trade off as the player most likely has more caps than Moira.
 * When in the artificial world in vault 112 the game freezes if you repeatedly check your PipBoy(which is then a watch).
 * Sometimes when buying the jukebox from Moira it will not appear until later in the game at random points.
 * The quest for rescuing initiate Pek is severely bugged. After several attempts random events seems to happen. Sometimes Pek is dead, and the quest cannot be completed. Other times the paladin Hoss is gone when you emerge from the office building, and then later reappears in random settlements running away from you when you get close. Sometimes both Pek and Hoss is both dead or missing.
 * Occasionally the PipBoy screen will appear entirely green and too bright to read, though the now-unseen menus can still be accessed and inventory / fast travel still works. Fixed by reloading a previous save, or by turning your PipBoy light on and off, and then rechecking your PipBoy. You might have to do the latter multiple times.
 * Starting a new game, my right stick will not allow me to turn right, only circles to the left. Exiting and starting another new game does not help.
 * At Rivet City it is possible to get behind the scenery of the broken off bow.
 * Robots in Big Town might be missing, even before quest has started. When defending the town from super-mutants these might get stuck after the first dies because of frag mines(or grenades)
 * talon company mercs might teleport out of nowhere right in front of you, during Those quest and leaving the metro station (Mercs appeared in front of me after walking 4 or more meters).
 * Dropping a frag mine on a dead enemy might cause a sharp drop in fps and then freeze the game. The only fix is to restart the console.
 * In the Vault-Tec Headquarters the door to the Mainbrain in the final room will sometimes not unlock after you have accessed all three computer terminals.
 * For some reason, the hands of ALL characters (PC and NPCs) will sometimes get stretched to very strange proportions.
 * In Seward Square, there is a place where you can easily walk out of the map. Walk north east behind the Capitol Building, past a spot where Talon Mercs and Super Mutants and in a firefight.  You will come upon a set of buildings that are obviously low-poly distant-land models with low-res textures.  You can continue walking presumably indefinitely on completely flat land once you pass these buildings.  This might be an issue with loading adjacent cells.
 * after Killing certain enemies ( most likely only applies to humans) when the bodys are still fully intact ( IE no blown off head, arms, etc) the limbs become stretched and zing all around, the body being pulled too-and-fro. the limbs stretched out at least 10 times the length of the body, and never stopped. the body eventually sank underground and was unsearchable during its "seizure". unknown if it was from killing the enemy in V.A.T.S. or in standard firing. occurred with Stockholm (outside megaton) atop the entrance to Megaton. as well as a Talon Merc.
 * When fighting humans e.g. enclave, talon company mercs if you go into V.A.T.S when they are low on health or hurt they may regenerate some lost health when you enter the V.A.T.S results they may even regenerate all of their lost health this may happen on creatures and mutated things.

Add-on specific
For add-on specific bugs, please see the following pages;


 * Operation: Anchorage bugs
 * The Pitt bugs
 * Broken Steel bugs
 * Point Lookout bugs
 * Mothership Zeta bugs