"Stellaris is Still Running"

[Omniscient]

Starting last night, I've been having problems where whenever I close Stellaris, steam thinks that the game is still running, and won't let me run it again unless I close and restart steam. I've already tried several supposed fixes, such as running in administrator mode, with no success. Does anyone have any idea what is going on?

 

[Tom D.]

I also can't seem to find Stellaris in the Task Manager either since the update, maybe that might be related?

 

[Omniscient]

I also can't seem to find Stellaris in the Task Manager either since the update, maybe that might be related?

I noticed that too, although I'm not sure how that might be related.

 

[Terry Flap Florian]

I'm as clueless as you are, but I do recall having the same problem with Civilization VI. It would have a hidden process in the task manager somewhere I'd have to shut down manually. The basic nuke-fix for me at least was to uninstall the game, navigate to the folder it was installed and manually remove all files. Also the user folders (copying any saves you want to keep). Might also want to check you defaulted special options like compatibility or fullscreen nonsense or whatever.

 

[AndrewT]

Starting last night, I've been having problems where whenever I close Stellaris, steam thinks that the game is still running, and won't let me run it again unless I close and restart steam. I've already tried several supposed fixes, such as running in administrator mode, with no success. Does anyone have any idea what is going on?

FYI the game did not change on that day, last update was 2.3.2 on June 18th. So I guess this must be a Windows or antivirus update ... ? Or even Steam maybe?

Anything like that happen then?

 

[Omniscient]

Well after restarting a few more times I got it to work properly. Thanks for trying to help, though.

 

[Narse]

I'm having this issue. Surely there is a known fix after a year+ right?
Is there any idea at all what it is?
To add detail, even if I close the launcher without launching the game I hit the error where steam thinks it's still running.

 

[Narse]

Extra detail: I messed with the permissions on the steam and launcher executable. It fixed nothing but I did get this fun interaction when I didn't revert both changes and launched steam normally but set the launcher to run as administrator.
steam > stellaris > run
Hit a Bootstrap error, launcher doesn't display.
Steam *still* thinks stellaris is running, and prompts you to "stop" instead of "run".
Steam > exit
"Waiting for Stellaris to shut down" (which doesn't resolve in 30+ seconds requiring an "exit now")

 

[AndrewT]

My guess is there's a Steam problem causing this for you, as we haven't had other reports like this in the 2 years since this thread.


Please do a full **clean** re-install of Steam and game:

- move any valued save games elsewhere, and user_empire_designs.txt from /Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/ if you have made any custom empires or races.
- "uninstall" in Steam-Stellaris
- exit the Steam app entirely
- manually delete both the Steam/SteamApps/common/Stellaris AND Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris folders

- delete everything in the Steam folder EXCEPT steam.exe and the SteamApps folder
- run steam.exe to rebuild all that

- re-install game in Steam, run a Steam Verify when done.
- add stellaris.exe to the exceptions list of your antivirus app; ESPECIALLY if you have Windows Defender, add it to the Ransomware "Apps Allowed Through" list.
- start the game with no mods active and test

Good luck!

 

[Narse]

Thanks for the guidance. The issue hasn't re-occurred after a restart of my computer. Regardless it's good to have that info here where people will see it in search results.