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BATTLETECH - Games dies on startup

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rc1024

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May 14, 2025
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One line summary of your issue
Games dies on startup

What platform are you running the game on?
Steam

What operating system do you use?
Windows 11

Which version of the game are you running?
Latest

What DLC do you have installed?
Flashpoint, Urban Warfare, Shadowhawk Pack, Heavy Metal

Please explain your issue is in as much detail as possible.
Trying to run the game causes it to immediately exit (before splash) and kills steam. Verifying files fixed it for a day but the issue has reappeared and a second verify did not fix.

Have you tried verifying your files?
Yes

Steps to reproduce the issue
Run game.
Game immediately exits, steam also exits.

Attach DxDiag (PC), System Info log (Mac), or run sudo lshw -html > specs.html and uploaded specs.html (Linux)
File(s) attached

Attach Output Log
Windows: \Users\YourUserName\AppData\LocalLow\Harebrained Schemes\BATTLETECH\output_log.txt
Mac OS: Users >{name} > Library > Logs > Unity > Player.log
Linux: ~/.config/unity3d/Harebrained Schemes/BATTLETECH/Player.log
File(s) attached

If the game crashed, please attach the crash file with the time stamp closest to the crash.
Windows: [Steam library folder]\steamapps\common\BATTLETECH\DumpBox
For v.17 and beyond try here: C:\Users\[YourUserName]\AppData\LocalLow\Harebrained Schemes\BATTLETECH
OSX: Macintosh HD > Users > [username] > Library > Application Support > Steam > steamapps > common > BattleTech > DumpBox
Linux: [Steam library folder]/steamapps/common/BATTLETECH/DumpBox
File(s) attached

If a save game was loaded at the start of the game session, upload it. Please make sure to upload the save game with the timestamp closest to when you loaded it.
Windows:
Steam: [Steam installation folder]\userdata[SteamID]\637090\remote\C0\SGS1
GOG: 'C:\Users\USER_ID\AppData\Local\GOG.com\Galaxy\Applications\50593543263669699\Storage\Shared\Files\C#\SGS#'
Vanilla:'C:\Users\USER_ID\AppData\LocalLow\Harebrained Schemes\BattleTech\C#\SGS#'
OSX:
Steam: Macintosh HD > Users > [username] > Library > Application Support > Steam > userdata > [SteamID] > 637090 > remote > C#> SGS#
GOG: Macintosh HD > Users > [username] > Library > Application Support > GOG.com > Galaxy > Applications > 50593543263669699 > Storage > Shared > Files > C# > SGS#
Vanilla: Macintosh HD > Users > [username]> Library > Application Support > unity.Harebrained Schemes.BattleTech > C# > SGG#
Linux:
Steam: /home/.steam/steam/userdata/[steamID]/637090/remote/C#/SGS#
GOG: /home/[username]/.config/unity3d/Harebrained Schemes/BATTLETECH/remote/C#/SGS#/
Vanilla: /home/[username]/.config/unity3d/Harebrained Schemes/BATTLETECH/remote/C#/SGS#/
File(s) attached

Attach screenshot / video
File(s) attached
 

Attachments

  • DxDiag.txt
    148,6 KB · Views: 0
  • output_log.txt
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Upvote 0
I don't see any clear cause for this in those files, that log in particular is weirdly short.

Has this game ever worked properly on this PC? Or never yet?

You may as well up[date that Nvidia driver to May 2025 https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
If GeForce Experience or the Nvidia app are running after that, exit them before starting the game.
 
Yes it worked great back when it was windows 10, I was able to play a full campaign.

Also since doing the win 11 upgrade I was able to get it working for a day or so by verifying files in steam, but that's now not fixing it.

I'll try the Nvidia drivers, might as well at this point.
 
I believe I am having the same issue, I also have been unable to solve. I have 885 hours logged on this game in Steam... I don't know what has changed, but something has changed. I have been focusing on troubleshooting various graphics and driver related items, verified files via Steam, uninstall/re-install, nothing has managed to fix it. In the course of all of this it has loaded once or twice and won't repeat the trick. I feel like if I could reset to basic graphics settings or load a graphics profile on start that might help, but no obvious way to do so.
 
StarfishPDX said:
I believe I am having the same issue, I also have been unable to solve. I have 885 hours logged on this game in Steam... I don't know what has changed, but something has changed. I have been focusing on troubleshooting various graphics and driver related items, verified files via Steam, uninstall/re-install, nothing has managed to fix it. In the course of all of this it has loaded once or twice and won't repeat the trick. I feel like if I could reset to basic graphics settings or load a graphics profile on start that might help, but no obvious way to do so.
Click to expand...
Can we get your game log please.
 
That does indeed look like the same log. No real idea what could be causing this to you or the OP here.


Please try a **clean** reinstall:

- Remove the game from Steam (uninstall)
- Manually delete all these files and folders, if still there:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\BattleTech\
C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\LocalLow\Harebrained Schemes\ (To see the AppData folder you'll need to enable View Hidden Items in File Explorer)
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\USER_ID\637090\
(first move the \remote\C#\SGS#\ folder elsewhere to keep your save games)

- Install the game again
- add steam.exe and BattleTech.exe to the Whitelist of your antivirus app, whatever it is

If you still get any problem, please send me a new dxdiag.txt and output_log.txt , thank you.
 
StarfishPDX said:
the AV software in use is Windows Defender on Win11 (and I added those files as exclusions).
Click to expand...
Specifically under the Ransomware-Apps Allowed Through list?



IF dxdiag.txt fails to attach here, rename it to dxdiag.log , or zip it up.
 
No - because I'd previously disabled the "Controlled folder access" function entirely. I re-enabled it, added steam.exe, battletech.exe and battletechlauncher.exe to the exception list and got the same result.

This game has worked fine for me for years on the current hardware - initially on Win10 which was upgraded to Win 11 probably a year ago, and just fine since then until recently. There haven't been any Paradox updates for a while (you are one of my favorite studios, I'm listening).
 
StarfishPDX said:
There haven't been any Paradox updates for a while
Click to expand...
That's because this game ceased development more than 5 years ago
forum.paradoxplaza.com

Campaign complete: Thank You!

Cheers, y'all!
forum.paradoxplaza.com forum.paradoxplaza.com

Of course this problem can't be a game bug as such ! There is some external cause to this, although we are not yet seeing any signs as to what or where.


Looking at my log file where yours stops, there's nothing particularly significant at that point. So no help there!


One common factor between you two affected users in Windows 11; perhaps some recent update to it has triggered this. The OP has build 22631 which is 23H2 (NOT the notorious 24H2 that's causing problems all across the industry). What build of Win11 do you have?

If you're not sure, 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. IF dxdiag.txt fails to attach here, rename it to dxdiag.log , or zip it up.


And Please install and run the free utility Speccy. Send its output to a text file and attach that here please.
https://www.ccleaner.com/speccy/download
 
That's what I meant about no recent updates - it's very unlikely to be an issue with the game itself because the build hasn't changed and it worked fine for years.

Running Win 11 Pro : Version 10.0.26100 Build 26100
DxDiag attached
 

Attachments

  • DxDiag250529.log
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StarfishPDX said:
Running Win 11 Pro : Version 10.0.26100 Build 26100
Click to expand...
That is indeed the problem Win11 24H2 build I referred to above! But as the OP sees this issue with 23H2 that can't be it in and of itself.

That will however account for the LiveKernelEvent and BSoDs we see in that dxdiag. Have you seen those happen, do they relate to this game or something else?

Did youi happen to record the text on those BSoD screens? If not you should be able to see it in your Windows Event Viewer.


And Please install and run the free utility Speccy. Send its output to a text file and attach that here please.
https://www.ccleaner.com/speccy/download
 
I think the BSODs were related to active content / live streaming functionality in the Discord App, but I'm not certain. They were not related to Battletech and seemed to occur unpredictably... aka with an application I have running at all times in the background. I haven't seen them since I disabled that Discord feature, but I changed other things at the time as well.

I opened event viewer, noted the current counts, then started up Battletech. Game starts to load then it hangs up, and does not increment any of the Event Viewer counts. I then force-quit the game via Steam and similarly, no additional counts.

I'm thinking we're at the mercy of the Beast of Redmond (Microsoft) on this one. I can try to periodically start the game in the future hoping that whatever issues they've introduced get resolved by them in a future release. It's going to be difficult to find a solution without them though, and I feel like we've made a solid attempt at checking what's within our domain to potentially address.
 
Well, given we have one case each in Windows 11 23H2 and 24H2, I'm not particularly confident of a fix coming out of MS! But I agree, we seem to have run into a wall here on this problem.

But by all means keep Windows up to date as new patches are released, here's hoping!
 
Update @ +1 month: I checked / updated to current windows release, restarted PC, cleared a few memory resident apps out, same result. Issue not yet resolved (probably not resolved by Microsoft).
 
BINGO! I used affinity to set battletechlauncher.exe to a single processor (#01) and it loaded the application without any error (it is also set to Win7 compatibility mode and run as admin). Once loaded, Battletech.exe seems to function fine - and I can see it utilizing multiple CPUs without needing to have any affinity set. The issue appears to be a change in how Windows managed multiple CPU support which negatively affected the launcher app.
 
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StarfishPDX said:
BINGO! I used affinity to set battletechlauncher.exe to a single processor (#01) and it loaded the application without any error (it is also set to Win7 compatibility mode and run as admin). Once loaded, Battletech.exe seems to function fine - and I can see it utilizing multiple CPUs without needing to have any affinity set. The issue appears to be a change in how Windows managed multiple CPU support which negatively affected the launcher app.
Click to expand...
Great! You can probably use more than one core though, the key seemed to be to NOT use the first and last ones, for some reason. I know of no reason why it needs any compatibility mode or Admin though.

But what launcher app do you mean? This game does not use the Paradox launcher.
 
When I launch the app from Steam it loads battletechlauncher.exe which is where the problem was occurring. That launcher then triggers battletech.exe which is the game executable. In my case the launcher is restricted just to CPU #1 (second in the list after #0). It worked on the first try, and I've never experimented with other settings. I set no CPU dependencies for the game exe, and I can see it in the task manager cycling thru various CPUs as the OS load balances.
 
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