DLC's don't work from .app, can't run game from launcher.

[ArlitoV]

I have to run the game from .app, because of the common "Launching the game failed" problem in the Launcher. In game when running from .app while the game itself works and the DLC icons are coloured, it still says "Not owned" and i can't play the game with DLC's that i own. I'm on Windows 8.
Edit: I forgot to mention, that i already tried reinstalling and doing a full-clean reinstall. Also there was this one time, when i ran the game from .app and the DLC's worked, but it happened only once.
I'm coming back to this game after 2 years, so the last time i played it was in 2019 when there was no launcher and everything worked fine.

 

[AndrewT]

If you can run eu4.exe but the launcher can't, that is usually some file system permissions issue.


What antivirus app do you use? You need to make sure all these apps are in its exceptions lists:

eu4.exe and dowser.exe (in the Steam EU4 folder)
C:/users/<UserName>/AppData/Local/Programs/Paradox Interactive/launcher-v2.2021.9/paradox launcher.exe
C:/users/<UserName>/AppData/Local/Programs/Paradox Interactive/bootstrapper-v2.exe

IF that does not help, also set all those .exe files (EXCEPT eu4.exe!) to run as the Windows Admin user.

 

[ArlitoV]

I managed to find the solution, but thanks for the response!
To anyone in the future that could have this problem and stumble upon this post: For me, the solution was to run not the launcher or the game from .app as admin, but Steam. So, first open Steam as admin, start EU4 and in my case, both the launcher and the DLC's worked.