Can't launch EU4 or several other Paradox games
- Thread starter Dorthak
- Start date
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That pretty much rules out video issues. Just leaves everything else!
I cannot think of anything else to try, I am sorry, until you feel safe to go ahead with a clean wipe and reinstall of Windows.
At least you can play some games still!
I cannot think of anything else to try, I am sorry, until you feel safe to go ahead with a clean wipe and reinstall of Windows.
At least you can play some games still!
Hi, I can help here with the clean install of windows. I did it and then I installed several games from Steam and not. Stellaris and EU4 are giving me exactly the same error as Dorthak. They kind of start, close and red triangle "Launching the game failed".
Tried compatibility modes, different resolutions, clean installs (even though it was since the beginning a very clean install), borderless windowed etc.. nothing changed.
What's next?
Tried compatibility modes, different resolutions, clean installs (even though it was since the beginning a very clean install), borderless windowed etc.. nothing changed.
What's next?
So, now that work's cleared up, I did a clean reinstall of windows. Once that was done, I installed Steam, made sure EU4 wasn't listed as installed, and decide, just in case, to follow the procedures in some of the early comments in this thread.
Specifically:
Paradox Launcher v2 was not listed in Apps & Features (as expected it was never installed), and all 3 of the listed directories were missing.
Steam/SteamApps/common/EU4 wasn't there, as expected
Documents/Paradox/EU4 **was** there, and I deleted it.
I then ran Steam as administrator, reinstalled EU4, performed "steam verify", hit "play" in steam to open the launcher, logged in, selected "Borderless fullscreen" in the Launcher, and hit Play.
It displayed the "EU4" screen, and then just hung there, until eventually I got the Windows prompt that the program wasn't responding.
Updated DxDiag attached. Now what?
Specifically:
Paradox Launcher v2 was not listed in Apps & Features (as expected it was never installed), and all 3 of the listed directories were missing.
EU4 was already not installed, and I had previously backed up my saves.
Steam/SteamApps/common/EU4 wasn't there, as expected
Documents/Paradox/EU4 **was** there, and I deleted it.
I then ran Steam as administrator, reinstalled EU4, performed "steam verify", hit "play" in steam to open the launcher, logged in, selected "Borderless fullscreen" in the Launcher, and hit Play.
It displayed the "EU4" screen, and then just hung there, until eventually I got the Windows prompt that the program wasn't responding.
Updated DxDiag attached. Now what?
Update:
Following the instructions here: https://support.paradoxplaza.com/hc...y-launcher-doesn-t-work-my-game-wont-s-start-
Both Steam and eu4 are permitted through Windows Defender, and I've excluded the entire Steam directory from anti-virus (just the built-in Windows 10 one). Under Ransomware protection, "Controlled folder access" is turned off.
Both steam and the game are installed on the same partition (though not on C)
Running Steam as administrator didn't solve the issue.
I ran the game directly (by starting the eu4.exe file rather than using Steam. It worked! However, it gave me an error message that some things required steam integration (achievements, presumably), so that's still problematic.
I then removed Paradox Launcher 2 through the add/remove programs tool, again opened Steam as administrator, and ran EU4. I could see the launcher reinstall, verified it was still on borderless (it was), and ran the game.
Here's where things got weird: It got past the splashscreen, showed the initial map of europe and started playing music, and then nothing else. The UI elements never appeared, there was nothing to click on, it just sat there at that screen, playing music, for more than 5 minutes, after which time I closed it manually.
Subsequent attempts to launch the game via the launcher resulted on the game hanging on the splash screen again. Ugh.
Will attempt the "rather long and elaborate removal of the launcher" mentioned in that article in a bit.
Following the instructions here: https://support.paradoxplaza.com/hc...y-launcher-doesn-t-work-my-game-wont-s-start-
Both Steam and eu4 are permitted through Windows Defender, and I've excluded the entire Steam directory from anti-virus (just the built-in Windows 10 one). Under Ransomware protection, "Controlled folder access" is turned off.
Both steam and the game are installed on the same partition (though not on C)
Running Steam as administrator didn't solve the issue.
I ran the game directly (by starting the eu4.exe file rather than using Steam. It worked! However, it gave me an error message that some things required steam integration (achievements, presumably), so that's still problematic.
I then removed Paradox Launcher 2 through the add/remove programs tool, again opened Steam as administrator, and ran EU4. I could see the launcher reinstall, verified it was still on borderless (it was), and ran the game.
Here's where things got weird: It got past the splashscreen, showed the initial map of europe and started playing music, and then nothing else. The UI elements never appeared, there was nothing to click on, it just sat there at that screen, playing music, for more than 5 minutes, after which time I closed it manually.
Subsequent attempts to launch the game via the launcher resulted on the game hanging on the splash screen again. Ugh.
Will attempt the "rather long and elaborate removal of the launcher" mentioned in that article in a bit.
Second update. Followed all the steps in the attached article. Still no good. Same issue. Game runs when launched from eu4.exe (with no steam support), but not from launcher. Going to go open a help ticket.
So I got the email asking whether to continue here or by email. Not sure if my reply went through, but here's fine.
Pleas update the nVidia driver in there:
Download the latest official NVIDIA drivers
Download the latest official NVIDIA drivers
www.nvidia.com
And please unplug the Xbox controller while we work on this, thanks.
So the situation now is that eu4.exe runs fine by itself, but when you run it from the launcher you get past the launcher but the game fails to run. Is that right?
Do HOI4, Stellaris and CK2 run okay since the reinstall?
Pleas update the nVidia driver in there:
Download the latest official NVIDIA drivers
Download the latest official NVIDIA driverswww.nvidia.com
And please unplug the Xbox controller while we work on this, thanks.
So the situation now is that eu4.exe runs fine by itself, but when you run it from the launcher you get past the launcher but the game fails to run. Is that right?
Do HOI4, Stellaris and CK2 run okay since the reinstall?
I've updated to latest drivers and unplugged XBox controller.
CK2, HoI4, and Stellaris (2.7.2) seem to be running fine. At the very least, they all get to the main menu and let me start configuring a new game.
EU4 is unchanged from the above, however. Seems to run fine (minus steam integrations) from eu4.exe.
But when launched from steam, after clicking "play" I just get the splash screen and music, but nothing else happens and eventually it hangs and I get a windows message that it stopped responding.
So definitely progress, but not there yet.
Edit to add:
When actually playing from eu4.exe, there seem to be a few graphical glitches. For example, country "flags" are missing - just black shield in top left corner, on rivals screens, diplomacy screen, etc.
I don't have any explanation why you can run eu4.exe fine but the launcher cannot, especially as it runs HOI4 and Stellaris okay.
Delete the folder Documents/paradox/eu4/gfx/ and let the game recreate it.
I fixed my issue by moving my GitHub repository to a different drive and folder. (If you are a dev/GitHub user)
I do have git installed, but not the github application (this is all under Windows). None of the git repositories are on the same drive as steam and EU4
Solved it!!!
Went back to the top of the thread and started walking through the various steps we tried before. Noticed that I still had "-opengl" set in the launch options from one of the previous diagnostic attempts. Took it out, it started to work. Explains why the other games worked - I never set that option for them since we were focused on eu4.
Thanks for the help!
Went back to the top of the thread and started walking through the various steps we tried before. Noticed that I still had "-opengl" set in the launch options from one of the previous diagnostic attempts. Took it out, it started to work. Explains why the other games worked - I never set that option for them since we were focused on eu4.
Thanks for the help!
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