Stellaris launcher won't run

[Wedlor]

Well clearly neither the devs nor QA see this problem as they run this game and launcher, and do reinstalls, every day. I'm not sure what extra they'd need to do to try and duplicate your finding, do you have any thoughts on that? Without a duplication scenario different from what they already do it's hard to see what we'd be asking of them.

And i'm ready to provide debug information or even remote access! But you don't look loke interested in it.

Sadly to hear such an anwser. "Everything works for us!" That's disappointning. What's the use of support of a bought game if it cannot help? I could belive that the problem is in my PC, but i see a lot of ppl who have the same problem. And lot's of them asking to get rid of this "new" launcher?

What should i do next? ... try to cooperate with support and devs to find the problem and find a fix that will help the community?

 

[AndrewT]

We don't do remote access, I'm afraid, there are liabilities around that which we are not set up to handle.

I am sorry I have not explained my position well. I am NOT saying "everything is okay here so you cannot be having a problem"; the launcher is clearly having issues including permission issues that need to be fixed. The need for many people to run Steam as the Windows user for it to install properly shows that, although why that does not happen to everyone is a mystery to me. Whether fixing that issue will fix the issue you are seeing with needing to separately run dowser.exe as the Windows Admin user I cannot say, but it does not seem impossible. But all this is a launcher issue not a Stellaris issue, so it's the launcher devs that would need to be involved.

By all means offer your cooperation in the launcher support thread, can't hurt.

 

[Wedlor]

Ok, got it. Thanks.
Close the thread i guess?

 

[kkr_jp]

Had the same problem. But solved?
Version change
Installing the launcher
re-install
Play with v2.3.3
If I had these, I had them.
I don't know how it was generated.
booststrapper-v2.exe
Launching it launches the launcher and I can start Stellaris.
I hope it will be a clue to the solution.
Sorry for google translation.

 

[Wedlor]

Had the same problem. But solved?
Version change
Installing the launcher
re-install
Play with v2.3.3
If I had these, I had them.
I don't know how it was generated.
booststrapper-v2.exe
Launching it launches the launcher and I can start Stellaris.
I hope it will be a clue to the solution.
Sorry for google translation.

Nope, haven't helped.

As long as PDX do nothing to help solving the problem i'm adding log files for Kiyosen (tnx, mate!)

From registry

Launcher folder (placed launcher-settings.json there)

Error when starting PDX launcher directly (dowser.exe cannot start it)

And the launcher window if i drag stellaris.exe on it

That's it.

 

[Kiyosen]

Since I was mentioned, the error for launching the launcher directly seems normal since you're likely not supposed to launch it directly. dowser.exe should be the file for that since I ran that directly and it seems to treat as if I ran Stellaris normally through Steam (any devs can correct me if I'm wrong). Also, support =/= devs (unsure if they interact with devs as I'm pretty new here but this is a "special" case due to it being a launcher issue inside a game tech support forum) so they're probably as confused as we are.

What I'm seeing is basically that the bootstrapper file is looking for a version file and checking for a version file. The 2019.11.3 version doesn't seem to have it and tries to run your 2019.10.3 version instead, which was already broken. Your dowser file seems like it's drunk though because apparently it can't find the bootstrapper file.

I guess for starters, try undoing some stuff you messed with so that random stuff isn't mixed in, like this:

HAHA, found a solution Guys

i also had the Problem that the Launcher couldn't do anything because it was on a diffrent Drive
so i found out you can tell Windows where it should install new Programms in the RegEdit (what you have to change is highlighted)
and now Steam installs the Stellaris-Launcher directly into the Gamefolder - and that works fine

now i can finally tell the Launcher to start the game in Windowed-Mode and i can actually play

maybe this helps the Tech-Teams too

sincerely
Colibru

So you would refer to that comment's attachment and change it back to C:\Program Files and C:\Program Files (x86), respectively.

Then, get rid of D:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\Stellaris\launcher\launcher-v2.2019.11.3 (backup the folder somewhere else, don't permanently delete it). Yes, the whole folder. And then run the game (however you were able to run the launcher).

If that doesn't work, undo the move and delete the other folder (launcher-v2.2019.10.3). Then run the game (however you were able to run the launcher).

If that doesn't work, put that folder back to its original spot and check if there's a file called "version" in D:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\Stellaris\launcher\launcher-v2.2019.11.3\.cpatch\launcher-v2 and if it does, open it in a text editor and tell me what it says. If not, create that file (as a text file for now), write in "2019.11.3", save, remove the file extension, and put it in that folder. Then run the game (however you were able to run the launcher).

If that doesn't work, then give me a screenshot of the contents in the launcher-v2.2019.10.3 and launcher-v2.2019.11.3 folders.

EDIT: Added an important preliminary step.

 

[Kiyosen]

Currently, the main thing I'm suspecting is the dowser.exe file, which is a Stellaris game file. I personally use Revo Uninstaller (free version) to uninstall stuff and I tested uninstalling Stellaris with it and found out that there's registry values for the dowser.exe file.

If everything I said above fails, try uninstalling Stellaris and Paradox Launcher v2 with Revo Uninstaller. Do an advanced scan and delete all leftover files and registry values. Then install Stellaris and run it via Steam.

EDIT: Just realized that there's dowser.exe files in the launcher folders as well. I want to clarify that I'm talking about the one in the Steam-Stellaris folder.

 

[唯叹之]

I have the same problem as you. Now I have solved it.



I have reinstalled windows. Now I can start playing normally. Happy（

 

[Kiyosen]

@Kiyosen, tried all the stuff, still nothing.

Any specific information? Or is "literally nothing" happening when you launch Stellaris normally for everything you tried? Also, can you provide a cpatch.log file?

EDIT: Does your computer recognize that Paradox Launcher v2 is installed?

EDIT #2: I want to mention that I was able to reproduce your errors when starting the launcher directly and moving stellaris.exe into the launcher by simply having launcher-settings.json in the launcher folder. Since that's normally not supposed to be there (only the cpatch folder, launcher folders, bootstrapper-v2.exe, and ThirdPartyLicenses.txt are supposed to be there), results from running the launcher using those methods are irrelevant because those methods don't communicate with Steam.

EDIT #3: Would be nice if I could see everything inside all subfolders of the launcher folder as well (and the subfolders of those folders).

 

[Dank Jank]

I had a problem with the stellaris launcher but I was able to play the game through the stellaris.exe file in my steam folder.
My user name had no unique characters.
I used the launcher-installer-windows file to remove the launcher and then restarted it to install the launcher. This allowed the launcher to start through steam but had an error appear.
There was a launcher-settings.json file in the steam folder for stellaris and I copied it to the paradox launcher folder in appdata. I pasted it in both the paradox launcher folder and the logs folder.
I was able to run stellaris through steam and had 0 issues. Steam recognised that the game was running and the launcher worked fine.

 

[Maphusio]

Please try this:

- exit the Steam app completely

- uninstall the Paradox launcher from Windows Control Panel , Remove Programs

Delete the following folders if still present:
- C:/users/<UserName>/AppData/Local/Programs/Paradox Interactive/
- C:/users/<UserName>/AppData/Local/Paradox Interactive/
- C:/users/<UserName>/AppData/Roaming/Paradox Interactive/launcher-v2/

- run steam.exe as the Windows Admin user

- run the game from the PLAY button in Steam

Good luck with that!

After over a month of playing around with it and running Stellaris via its EXE file, this did the trick.

All said and done, the launcher, clearly could have used a bit of work before being released.

 

[Super_CD]

I have the same problem. When Hoi 4 and stellaris download, steam doesn't install launcher for me! The problem is the same as that of wedlor. But imperator:rome's launcher can start normally!
OS: Win10
Locale: China

Sorry, my English is not good. This is machine translation

 

[Super_CD]

I have solved this problem! My original system is windows 10 1809. Today, I upgraded it to 1909, and then opened stellaris with steam, and started to install launcher automatically. But it was not successful. I manually installed launcher and successfully opened launcher! The result shows that it is the problem of the system. I updated the system and solved it successfully! I hope it helps