I've had this game for a while and it always ran great with no problems until the recent update.
Now it crashes and won't play.

Same here start game paradox launcher crashes everytime i try to start game any ideas?

Nope. I tried uninstalling the game and then re-installing it. It didn't help at all.

Same here.

Tried fresh install(s), disabling DLCs, installing the newest .NET framework as suggested in the troubleshooting guides and nothing.
Just a "Launching game failed" message in the launcher, and just nothing if ran directly from the executable.

Also tried disabling fullscreen optimizations, windowed mode and everything I could think of.

Never used mods.

Running Herbert v3.2.2 (abcc) from a windows 10 machine. No hardware changes and 240+ hs played without issues until now.

Same here.

Ever since the most recent update, the launcher starts, but once I try to start an actual game, it crashes. I've tried to change the screen settings and nothing.

It's getting very annoying, I'd like to play.

Running a Win 10 machine with v3.2.2 and was able to play until the most recent update.

Are you on windows?

Find the stellaris.exe within your game folder and double click that to run the game while bypassing the launcher and see if that works. (It works for me, but you won't have multiplayer or achievements)

Edit: I'm running 3.2.2. (51669) - if there's been an update after that then I don't know if it would work for me

Edit again: I just rechecked, and 51669 is still the version they're offering me for download, so I think that's the latest. I'm guessing your problems are to do with the launcher or Paradox login or license, but just guessing, since the base game works for me.

Thanks for the input EastwindOrg.

Yes, it's a Windows machine, only 10 though. This computer isn't compatible with 11.

I tried your recommendation, but I had the same result. The game starts and I can select species, I can even create a new civilization, but once I try to start the actual game, it crashes. This has been a constant situation since the new update. I just can't start a new game. Oddly enough though, I can resume a saved game.

Any advice?

Update: 5 min after I posted this I found out that I can't seem to update the settings folder. I tried changing from window to full-screen play and I received a message that the settings folder can't be updated, make sure it's not write-protected... which I did not enable.

Sorry that didn't help you. I'm also on win 10, a laptop that was very high end when new but is 6 years old now.

Not being able to update the settings folder sounds like a windows issue rather than a game issue. There used to be a way to get into that particular knot if you had a folder that you usually accessed as a normal user, then you accessed it while running a program in administrator mode. That got it marked as 'administrator' mode and you then couldn't access it as a regular user.

There also used to be some security thing in windows that prevented administrative users from accessing certain types of normal-mode settings files - because they might be used to trick a priviledged user into doing something (even though it's all one user on a system, lol).

Anyway, maybe you can attack the problem from that angle. Try running the game as administrator and see if that works. If it does, then I think you need to get the files unmarked as admin mode files to be able to run as normal again.

I realize this is pretty hand wavy and might be all wet, but nobody else is helping you at all...

your computer is telling the game it doesn't have permission to do whatever it needs

what antivirus?
have you got a Vpn?
is there some 3rd party software cleaning out your temp folders?

what antivirus?

Avast - free

have you got a Vpn?

Not active

is there some 3rd party software cleaning out your temp folders?

CCleaner

Avast free does not have sandbox and CCleaner should not be blocking access... a Vpn can be setup wrong but I would look elsewhere first before getting into full geek mode

we know your old games will play so the files are there and we know the game can access your saves which are in your documents folder but it can't start a new game so that says to me its not allowed to enter new files into your documents area

step 1 open your explorer and right click the documents to see properites [see image]

step 2 goto location and take a note of the path [see image

the path should say something like C:\Users\Ussnorway\Documents where your username will be different to mine [Ussnorway] but I want to know if yours is inside a dropbox like onedrive, skydrive etc?

p.s, have you got more than one copy of the game installed for example Steam + Gog?

Where did you install your game? Did you install it on the system folder instead of making a completely separate game folder on your disk drive? This sounds like a UAC issue.

UAC issue was the theory I was working with (see my post above).

If, for example, the upgrade shell program asked for administrative mode, then at the end provided a button to 'play game' and the user pressed that, and the launch of the game that time inherited admin mode, then some files needed to run the game could have gotten marked as privileged.

I would go through and try to open all the settings files manually, just tell windows to use notepad, and close notepad immediately if the file opens (don't allow it to 'save'). Doesn't matter if the contents aren't readable. If you find a file that gives an access error trying to open it, then that's the problem, you'll need to get the admin bit on that file cleared. If you find one, keep checking until you've checked or fixed them all.

Hi all,

Thanks for the help... still having problems.

The game files are located here:
C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\Games\Stellaris

but apparently, my computer is defaulting to the documents folder stored on OneDrive:
C:\Users\(username)\OneDrive\Documents

How do I change that?

Oddly though, I have another game through GoG which is the same location, well to the Games folder, and that plays just fine. The only difference is Stellaris has the Paradox launcher.

I'm not surprised you are having problems with that set up and you must have an old copy of Galaxy to still be pointing at the programs folder because that gets UAC issues as others in this thread have said

all software should never ever be installed to c\ programs... when you are ready to reinsatall Galaxy next time put it in D: Galaxy or even C GOG Galaxy\Games\Stellaris as long as its not in C:\Program Files then UAC stops being an issue

as for Documents in the Onedrive that was Microsoft trying to get people to use their sync system a few updates back which no body liked... something about it not working ;) and the issue with Paradox is because they already sync their server to the documents are now you are basically syncing to a sync or making a copy of a copy if you want to think of it that way

to fix this you have two basic choices;
1 = piss off Onedrive all together {I do] but maybe you like having some of your documents synced and don't mind Microsoft keeping a copy... you disable Onedrive from settings and can leave a copy of your files with Microsoft or remove them as you see fit

2 = make some of your documents sit outside the onedrive sync [see images] basically the steps for this are, make a new folder to hold you docs [I called this example test but as long as its not in C programs or the root] example C will fail but C: test will work

next open the documents location and press the move , point to the new location and make up your mind if you want all documents or just some of them moved over... as long as the Paradox folder is not in onedrive