Game Crashing On Startup. Nothing working so far.

[muted mirage]

Since I downloaded the game, I have had issues with game crashes if I play for extended periods of time. As of yesterday, however, the game will no longer even launch on steam. When I hit play, the screen goes black as if the game is loading in fullscreen, then immediately crashes, and the crash report fails to send. I've tried verifying game file integrity, updating drivers, uninstalling and reinstalling, turning off steam cloud, backing it up and reloading the game with a new save, messing with wifi settings, etc. Nothing will allow me to launch the game. I'm happy to send any pertinent info if anyone has any ideas what I can do here. Thank you in advance for saving me from losing more hair.

I've also tried disabling steam controllers and doing the specific -borderless command to launch with

[toxic ruin]

I really hate to hear of the struggles. Our support should be able to help and they monitor these forums. I'd make sure to submit a ticket though! They should be able to help get you sorted

[muted mirage]

Already tried. Hopefully I'll hear back eventually but I dont imagine it'd be before the end of the weekend and I was really hoping to play with my buddies this weekend. I figured discord usually has smarter people with faster answers anyways so I'd also send a message here

[toxic ruin]

Looks like you've done most of what I'd suggest. You may want to try to re-download the c+ redistributables?

[muted mirage]

I'm too tech stupid to understand that sentence. Could you explain in "I've only ever had an iphone and just got my first gaming computer this year" terms?

[toxic ruin]

Here's a handy link if there is anything in there you haven't tried
https://discord.com/channels/393040947006406657/1097565593722441778

[muted mirage]

Thanks. I was able to find that link before and went through every step on it to the best of my abilities. Once none of those worked, I created the ticket to COTW and then came onto the discord for further help lol

[toxic ruin]

There are files games use c+ and c++ redistributable. I've heard some folks having to re DL these

[muted mirage]

This article was the main reason I knew to even try to do the borderless command or mess with the controller settings lol

[toxic ruin]

Windows 10 or 11?

[muted mirage]

11 home

[toxic ruin]

I'm not to familiar with 11 myself. I have seen folks in here playing on it but I've also seen some have issues getting it going.

Windows game bar active?

Also, silly question, do you have space on your hard drive?

Cotw is rather resource heavy. If.your running an ssd you'll want to to make sure you have at least 25% of your drive free

[muted mirage]

It was an auto update situation, not intentional. I'm not super familiar with the windows game bar. I've disabled the steam and discord overlays. And I have 3 TB of free space rn. I just bought a 4tb SSD and its incredible. As far as resources go, I'm running a less than a year old 2k computer with 32 gb ram and a 3070 or 3080 (not 100% sure. a friend helped me buy it)

[toxic ruin]

Fantastic gpu

[muted mirage]

I can run Ark survival and Warzone like its minecraft, so I really hope it's not a resource thing for COTW lmao

[toxic ruin]

If you push the windows key and G at the same time the windows game bar will pop up if its active. Alternatively you can search game bar and it will show up

It's caused me issues in games before

[muted mirage]

How do I turn it off? Didn't even know that was a thing

[toxic ruin]

In your settings you can enable or disable it

[muted mirage]

disabled it and i still crash on startup. I'm happy to copy and paste the crash report information or something if that will be helpeful (it's a lot of info)

[toxic ruin]

Can also try this (im racking my brain here my friend!)

I'm not support so I'm limited to what I can help with. Apologies for that

[muted mirage]

You responded fast bro you have nothing to apologize for. I'm not seeing compatibility mode when I right click and hit properties tho

[toxic ruin]

Found this here https://www.minitool.com/news/cant-play-games-windows-11-fixes.html?amp=
May be something in there to help? Wish I knew windows 11 better

[muted mirage]

slow mode made me wait to send this but that was meant to be attached to my last message

[toxic ruin]

I'm asking around atm. I'll let you know if I find something. Again, hate to hear these struggles. Hopefully we can get you up and going asap

[muted mirage]

Much appreciate good sir. I loved the first few days of playing despite a few bugs, but this is literally completely unplayable. Can't even start it up, so any solutions would be lovely. Don't want to have to try and get my money back or something.

[toxic ruin]

I've asked our QA if they have any info on this but they are done for the day in Sweden. Prob won't hear back until monday

[muted mirage]

I'd imagine this is the same problem with the support ticket. That's why I'm asking forums and chat groups lol

[toxic ruin]

The fact you were in game and now it isn't working may be a place to start. Any other games/programs you have DL in that time? Any overlays in use? Etc

[toxic ruin]

It's a smart move. Often times folks in here have found an answer.

[muted mirage]

I haven't downloaded anything since this game except for the auto driver installer. The problem started with a bad game crash. I was playing for a few hours and everything froze, tried to force quit from task manager and task manager also froze, had to manually shut down and reboot with the blue screen. Ever since then I cant even launch the game.

[toxic ruin]

You've tried a reinstall? Completely removing all files?

[muted mirage]

I've tried basically every suggestion from every FAQ, forum, and discussion board. The only other thing that I could possibly think of would be if I got banned or something. The game crashes started when I switched my game files over from epic to steam when I bought the DLC's on steam. My theory is that switching my save from epic to steam marked me as messing with game files or something and I got banned? idk how this stuff works.

[toxic ruin]

Can keep a back up of your save but try with a fresh save

Then re import your save

[muted mirage]

Slow mode is killing me here. I want to answer your questions faster lmao. I've completely reinstalled the game twice now. I made a backup, deleted the main random number folder, and tried to boot that way, etc. None of it has worked. It's possible I'm an idiot and doing it wrong but I doubt it

[toxic ruin]

I know, slowmode is a pain.

[muted mirage]

would reimporting my save cause issues as far as their cheating guidelines go? if not, my theory is completely debunked and that's not the issue. When I see the ability to import save files, that tells me theres an ability to mess with save files to give yourself stuff, so my theory was that they see that as cheating

[toxic ruin]

No your ok. People, including myself, move their saves around.

[muted mirage]

okay so this game is just bricked then. oof

[toxic ruin]

I'm sure there is a fix. As I mentioned further up I've seen folks struggle with windows 11 and games. I've been searching the discord for these convos to see what solution they found

[muted mirage]

I need to turn my auto updaters off. I had the same problem with my old macbook when catalina came out. It ruined flash and 64 bit games and I couldn't downgrade so I basically lost all the games I played on mac because of an update

[toxic ruin]

You can try an update roll back if you did one during this time

But I did the same, turned off auto update. I will say whenever I have an update pending goofy things happen

[hallow storm]

@muted mirage try disabling steam cloud saving if it’s not already disabled. Then, locate the folder that has your save files in them (Documents/Avalanche Studios/COTW), then cut/paste that folder somewhere that you’ll remember it. Then try to launch the game and see what happens

Unless you’ve done that already

[toxic ruin]

Appreciate you Cash

[muted mirage]

Thanks for jumping in and helping! I've tried this with no success. It's possible that I'm just an idiot and doing it wrong. When I initially downloaded the game, I turned off steam cloud and imported the files from epic over to steam. It worked okay for a few days and this happened. Since then I have deleted the "49587693845634" or whatever folder and made a separate backup of my save information. The game still won't even start, let alone start with a fresh save. I've also turned steam cloud saving off and on a couple times

[toxic ruin]

Hmmmm steam and epic files are not compatible

A fresh install would have removed them though

[muted mirage]

They were compatible enough for me to play for a few days with all of the right information saved. When I booted it up on steam I had my guns and levels and money all correct, and bought more dlc's, played in disc here with people on servers etc, all based off that epic save transfer

[toxic ruin]

If you have it on epic, have you tried playing thru there? Crossplay is available for pc platforms. So you could still play with your buddies on steam

[muted mirage]

friggin slow mode. I have it on epic but I have 0 DLC's there. Wouldn't be able to play my silver ridge reserve, go to my lodge, use tents, etc. I just got the base game when it was free, then bought the DLC's on steam when they were on sale

[toxic ruin]

I know, slow mode is a pain. Don't worry, we're watching

[muted mirage]

I also just like steam better in general so I'd prefer to play it there if possible. Obviously I'd rather play it on epic than not at all on steam, but I have money invested on the steam side at this point

[toxic ruin]

Totally get that. You uninstalled from epic I assume. I'd also make sure your not using files from epic.

[muted mirage]

I did uninstall on epic. I just followed a youtube guide that I saw from a steam discussion board. Basically all it told me to do was copy the inside of the "3948576349587" random number folder on epic and replace the inside of the steam save folder with that information. It seemingly worked fine for about 3 days of playing over the course of 2 weeks before going down the toilet.

I believe the windows 11 update happened during that 2 week period although I'm not 100% sure on the timing. I might've played since the update and it might've been later and the update is the thing that is causing the issue

[toxic ruin]

My concern is each platform handles their files differently. This may cause issues as we can't support them. I'd start with that.
Next, I would try a windows update roll back. You can do this in settings>>>updates

[muted mirage]

I am still able to load and play other multiplayer games liek Black Ops or Ark Survival just fine

[hallow storm]

Can you open up the crash log file and see if you can get any info out of that?

You can find that in the game’s root folder

[muted mirage]

This is where my lack of tech knowledge shows. I am looking through steamapps/common/COTW and I see a couple files that say crashrpt_ or crashinfo, but none of it makes sense to me. Random symbols when I pull it up on notepad or whatever. I can try and copy the info on the crash report generated when I try and launch the game if that would work. If not I'm going to need you to hand hold me a bit more lmao

[hallow storm]

Send a screenshot of where the two files are rq

[muted mirage]

hopefully this is what you mean. editing this since slowmode. I think I got it. I'll SS

[hallow storm]

Crashinfo.json

See what that says

[hallow storm]

@toxic ruin I think we got something to work with

[muted mirage]

Hallelujah. Music to my ears. I guess scratch music to my ears then lmao. Sound was the issue?

[hallow storm]

If you have the option to do so, roll back your sound drivers

Or update them

Seems like the sound effects are not registering which causes the game to die

[toxic ruin]

There's the error log.

Good catch

[muted mirage]

lmao that's a weird one. Can the game not just launch with no sound? didnt realize it was that integral to the game startup

[hallow storm]

Or it could also be that whatever sound engine the game is using isn’t working properly

Lemme dig deeper

[muted mirage]

in the "windows update" section of the settings it says everything is up to date, I've tried checking for driver updates (including optional drivers or something like that) and dont see anything for sounds. I'm also not tech savvy as we've established, so what am I missing? attaching SS when slowmode ends

[hallow storm]

Open the device manager

[toxic ruin]

Push windows button ans X. This will open device manager.

Head to audio, select the driver, you can roll back from there

[muted mirage]

Not sure which of these to try and update, or how to update it

[hallow storm]

There’s also “audio” which is at the very top of the device manager list

[muted mirage]

The only options are "properties" which doesnt seem to do anything, and "scan for hardware changes" which causes the screeen to refresh or something but doesnt seem to do much else

[hallow storm]

Hmmmmm

@muted mirage go to your sound settings in windows. Change the output device and see if anything changes

[muted mirage]

alright things are getting crazy. Dug out a bluetooth speaker and set that as default and the game launched. how do I get it to launch with headphones? you're a genius btw. never would've thought that was the issue

[hallow storm]

Show me your windows sound settings. Also what previously was the default device?

[muted mirage]

before the default was my headphones. Just a $50 jbl pair that is plugged into the jack on the front of the computer. It's worked fine every other time I've played. Right now I'm on a random bluetooth speaker

[hallow storm]

How about the drop-down menu for “headphones”?

[muted mirage]

I launched the game, then went into settings and selected COTW in volume mixer and switched to headphones and that worked. I can't launch the game with headphones, but I can launch with a speaker and switch to headphones mid-game. Super duped buggy game design so idk how to report that but I want to lmao

[hallow storm]

You see the arrow next to “headphones”?

What happens when you click that?

[muted mirage]

drivers are up to date

[hallow storm]

This thing here caught my eye

[muted mirage]

it's set to allow. If I click that it will turn my audio off. slowmode, but I have a SS

[hallow storm]

Ah

Hm

[muted mirage]

honestly, it's super weird to have to switch over audio, but it is functional, and you've been a massive help in getting it functional. This should be good neough to play through the weekend, and now I have way more info to give the game team if they get back to me on my support ticket

[hallow storm]

Scroll down on this menu

“All sound devices” under the advanced tab

[muted mirage]

You've done more than enough to help me get playing again, so you can call it here as far as your responsibilities are concerned. still happy to look into it more if you think you can really dig in and get a solid answer. if not tho I'll just leave it to the support team

[hallow storm]

Once they respond, give them the info you showed me here

Particularly that crash report

[muted mirage]

I've got all the screenshots saved. I'm assuming I wont hear back until monday, but I'll have an arsenal of information to give them when they do respond

[hallow storm]

👍