I had the same mistake. I had to unblock the "Paradox Launcher" file "Ransomware Protection" in AVG.
Sorry for my English is not good.
Sorry for my English is not good.
Not working launcher
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I have this problem without using any 3rd party anti-virus. (I use windows defender) I have tried adding EU4 to the exclusion paths without any success and even briefly disabled the entire anti-virus to rule it out. I have also tried reinstalling/updating the launcher as admin without noticing any difference. Manually erasing all launcher related files also did not help. It works fine on updates prior to the addition of paradox mods support.
Disabling the antivirus doesn't help, because it is the ransomware protection component (AKA "controlled folder access") which blocks the launcher. You probably have to add the launcher to the Ransomware "Apps Allowed Through" list(here are instructions for that).
When I say I disabled the antivirus, I disabled everything under "Virus and Threat protection" including ransomware protection. I haven't used Controlled Folder Access in ages anyway, it was constantly causing similar problems and I have less intrusive countermeasures for ransomware.
Edit: I still have the normal anti-virus on, I just disabled it for a few minutes to rule it out as a potential cause.
That message has only been reported by Avast and AVG users so far, probably ~100 of them by now, and 0 reports from users of other AV apps. Are you sure you don't have one of those installed, maybe left over from some previous time or user?
Please install and run the free utility Speccy. Send its output to a text file and attach that here, thanks.
Then you could try making a new Windows user and logging into WIndows as that. Install the game and launcher there, and see if you still get this problem.
Please install and run the free utility Speccy. Send its output to a text file and attach that here, thanks.
Then you could try making a new Windows user and logging into WIndows as that. Install the game and launcher there, and see if you still get this problem.
Windows Defender is the only AV that has been installed on this machine. No one else has ever used this install, and I set it up from a clean slate a few years ago.
I ran speccy and attached the results.
Edit: Probably not related, but I get "Error in response: Get : signing TTL received is too close to current time (threshold of 60 sec)" in my cpatch log files regarding the update metadata. I am on version 2022.1, which I believe is the latest, so these are probably cosmetic.
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Not at all, that prevents the launcher from updating for instance. However I can't see how it could cause this database error.
This error means your computer is not on good internet time, which confuses our servers. Go into the Date&Time control panel and make sure Set Time Automatically is ON. Then hit the Sync Now button.
Then run the game again, the launcher will probably update itself now.
In that Speccy file we see lots of failed Windows updates going back to 2019, but again it's hard to see how they might relate to the database error.
I was already on "Set Time Automatically", but Windows had put me in the wrong timezone. (Oddly, the displayed time was accurate to my actual timezone, so the actual UTC time must have been wrong.) When I fixed the timezone and synced the time, the launcher stopped giving the update errors. It was already at the latest version though. (2022.1)
I tried deleting the sqlite file again in case the errors were related after all, but the database error is still there.
Please make a new WIndows user and log into Windows as that. Install and run the game from there, does it still get this problem?
I don't want to make a new Windows unless absolutely necessary, so I installed process monitor and looked at the results of the syscalls involving the sqlite file. Hopefully, it is helpful.
There was one write to journal of 512 bytes, which was successful. Subsequently, the application readback some of the data written successfully. The journal file was then deleted, seemingly without any attempt to write any data to the main sqlite file.
I noticed that most of the calls to CreateFile referencing launcher-v2.sqlite-wal and launcher-v2.sqlite-journal resulted in NAME NOT FOUND. All of the these calls had the Open Reparse Point option. CreateFile calls without the Reparse Point option all seemed to succeed.
QueryAttributeTagFile on the journal failed with INVALID PARAMETER. FlushBuffersFile on the journal returned 0xC00000D2.
The single attempt to open launcher-v2.sqlit with the Open Reparse Point option also gave NAME NOT FOUND. All other operations involving the file returned SUCCESS or END OF FILE (for reads). No writes were attempted.
Edit: All the file queries returned standard stuff. Allocation size 64K, size 0 (for the main db file), size 512 (for the journal file after the write), number of links 1, not a directory.
Edit2: Reverting back to version 2.0.4.0 (from EU4 1.30.6) still fixes the problem.
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I'm afraid I'm not a developer so I don't know the significance of any of that. But there is clearly something on your machine doing to you what AVG and Avast are doing to other users, which prevents the launcher accessing the sqlite file properly or fully. What that might be I cannot see.
You should be on launcher 2022.3 now, is that right?
If you run the Windows Up[date app does it find anything to do? If so please apply that update and reboot.
And I see you have MSI Afterburner, which I've seen cause other problems to our games. Hard to see how it could cause this exact problem but can you try unloading it anyway please?
You should be on launcher 2022.3 now, is that right?
If you run the Windows Up[date app does it find anything to do? If so please apply that update and reboot.
And I see you have MSI Afterburner, which I've seen cause other problems to our games. Hard to see how it could cause this exact problem but can you try unloading it anyway please?
Just a belated follow up, updating did not help. I was on the most recent update previously, and installing the updates released since my last attempt made no difference. Uninstalling afterburner also did not have any affect.
I have since realized that I can simply edit dlc_load.json manually, which works fine. As such, I am no longer too concerned about this. If someone can figure out a fix, then great. Until then, editing the json is "good enough".