Starting this game up is a nightmare. Any solutions?

[IronMongrel]

Most times I try to launch this game, it fails. It either freezes at an all white screen, or it freezes during "Initializing Game...". I haven't been able to find any solutions, but it's very frustrating, and it's been a problem for a very long time. It's been going on for at least a year for me. No updates help it, and I haven't found any solutions through my good friend the Google. It's not a hardware issue, as I've both had this issue with 2 different PCs now as well as having had just upgraded to a top of the line PC. I still have troubles launching this game. I'd really like a solution, but I'm not very optimistic that one will be found. :-/

 

[FishieFan]

Tried launching in admin mode?

 

[The Shacks]

Had the issue with two different PCs, interesting. What are the commonalities, is it Win10/MAC, launching via steam presumably, all your drivers up to date?

 

[IronMongrel]

Launching through Steam on Windows 10. Happens when pressing both "Resume" and "Play".

 

[AndrewT]

Right click on ck3.exe , properties, compatibility. Tick "disable fullScreen optimisations" untick every other box in that dialog, Apply and exit.

Then in the launcher Game Settings menu, select fullScreen display mode, Vsync off, cap refresh rate at 60.


If those don't help:
DXDIAG is a program you run from the Windows search box on the task bar. After running it will open a window and start collecting info with a progress bar in the lower-left corner. When it completes click the 'save all information' button and save it to a file then attach that file here.

Please attach here your Documents/Paradox Interactive/CK3/pdx_settings.txt .
From your Documents/Paradox Interactive/CK3/logs/ folder, attach here system.log , error.log , exceptions.log

 

[IronMongrel]

error.log is empty and there is no exceptions.log

 

[AndrewT]

In that dxdiag I see our game Stellaris crashing in nakama-cpp.dll , which has caused problems before. Try unloading that utility, or prevent it running at boot time then reboot.

If that doesn't help, what happens if you run ck3.exe directly from file explorer? Do you see any Windows error then?

 

[IronMongrel]

I'm not sure what nakama-cpp.dll is associated with, but I couldn't find anything in my startup or currently running processes named nakama anything at all.

I'll try launching via the exe directly in the future and let you know if I'm getting crashes or long hang times on initializing (sometimes it can sit on that screen for 5-10 minutes before actually launching the game, other times it won't launch at all).

*Edit*

I've tried launching via the exe directly and am having the same issues.

 

[AndrewT]

Sorry, my error, I was thinking of Nahimic! Nakama is the external MP service we use, so that's not the issue here. That said I've not seen any crash in it before ...

Did you see any Windows error when ck3.exe failed to start? or what happened exactly?

 

[IronMongrel]

I usually have to manually kill the process via task manager. It will occasionally give a windows error on its' own but it usually just freezes until I kill the process.

 

[AndrewT]

What if you make a new Windows user and log into Windows with that - do you get the same problems with this game?

 

[IronMongrel]

Yes, I tried it and still had the same issues.

 

[AndrewT]

I'm running out of ideas on this one, I have to admit.

What antivirus app do you use? Is ck3.exe in all its exceptions lists?

Please install and run the free utility Speccy. Send its output to a text file and attach that here, thanks.

 

[IronMongrel]

I use the default Windows anti-virus.

 

[AndrewT]

Go into Ransomware. Enable Controlled Folder Access if disabled, and add these to its Apps Allowed Through list:

ck3.exe (in the Steam CK3-binaries folder)
dowser.exe (in the Steam CK3-launcher folder)
C:/users/<UserName>/AppData/Local/Programs/Paradox Interactive/launcher-v2.2023.4.1/paradox launcher.exe
C:/users/<UserName>/AppData/Local/Programs/Paradox Interactive/bootstrapper-v2.exe

If that doesn't help, you can disable Controlled Folder Access again.

Disable the Discord overlay.

Right click on Documents in the left column of File Explorer, just under This PC there. Go to properties, location. What does it say in there?

 

[IronMongrel]

The Controlled Folder Access didn't help and I've already had the Discord overlay disabled.

C:\Users\jwoll\Documents

 

[AndrewT]

I am sorry, I cannot see what is wrong on this machine or Windows installation to prevent our game starting.

I take it Stellaris and EU4 work okay for you?

 

[IronMongrel]

They both start up okay. Ever since I upgraded my PC, however, all 3 games crash to desktop in varying degrees of frequency.

 

[AndrewT]

That does NOT sound good! My instinct at this point would be to recommend a Windows Reset at the least, plus a thorough check of hardware.

How do you feel about those ideas?

 

[IronMongrel]

I don't think that I'm going to do that.

I ran a RAM diagnostic today because I was suspicious of my new RAM, but it came back clean. I might try running some benchmarks on my processor and gpu for a while to see if they're functioning correctly under load, but I'm not sure whether a problem with my hardware would be likely to crash to desktop rather than giving me system errors completely.