Game stuck on title loading screen

[LaCampanella03]

Hey there. I’ve been facing this problem recently, and due to an issue that I can’t identify since the game was working perfectly fine just before this. I’ll try my best to describe the issue I’m facing at the moment.

I launch the game through the launcher by pressing ‘Play’ (and in borderless full screen, with no mods whatsoever). Great. Following this, the game simply freezes or doesn’t load any further from the ‘EUROPA UNIVERSALIS IV’ title screen which appears immediately after the game launches.

I have done the good old clean reinstall as well as verification of the integrity of game files several times. I have deleted the save games folder in case a corrupted save file was the culprit.

Now for the anti-virus permissions. I have allowed the following through controlled folder access: eu4.exe, Paradox Launcher.exe and bootstrapper-v2.exe.

I have updated my graphics drivers as well.

This is quite frustrating since there simply seems to be no solution to this as I’ve followed any and all steps to be found on the paradox forums.

I wonder if anybody else is facing this peculiar problem.I would really really appreciate some help or advice on this! Thank you.

 

[FishieFan]

What does task manager look like whilst game is running?

 

[AndrewT]

Does it also happen if you run eu4.exe directly from file explorer?

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/EU4/settings.txt and pdx_settings.txt .
From your Documents/Paradox Interactive/EU4/logs/ folder, attach here system.log , error.log .

 

[LaCampanella03]

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, the problem persists even if I launch the game through eu4.exe.

Here are the necessary files.

 

[LaCampanella03]

What does task manager look like whilst game is running?

I'm not the tech savvy person unfortunately, I really wouldn't know how to describe the processes going on as the game runs. Is there anything in particular that I should look out for?

 

[FishieFan]

I'm not the tech savvy person unfortunately, I really wouldn't know how to describe the processes going on as the game runs. Is there anything in particular that I should look out for?

Ctrl alt delete, task manager, click further details, screenshot

 

[AndrewT]

Update that nVidia driver to Feb 2023

Download The Latest Official NVIDIA Drivers

Download the latest official NVIDIA drivers to enhance your PC gaming experience and run apps faster.

www.nvidia.com

THEN Right click on eu4.exe , properties, compatibility. Tick "disable fullScreen optimisations" untick every other box in that dialog, Apply and exit.

Edit that settings.txt to say:

refreshRate=60
fullScreen=yes
borderless=no

vsync=no

Then in the launcher Game Settings menu, select fullScreen display mode.


Does that help?

 

[LaCampanella03]

Update that nVidia driver to Feb 2023


THEN Right click on eu4.exe , properties, compatibility. Tick "disable fullScreen optimisations" untick every other box in that dialog, Apply and exit.

Edit that settings.txt to say:


Then in the launcher Game Settings menu, select fullScreen display mode.


Does that help?

Hey! Thank you so much for the helpful reply. I was able to successfully launch my game and play it without any issues with the title and loading screens. I apologise for replying so late to the thread.

However, when I arrive at the screen where I choose my country, all the country shields/flags are blacked out. I have scoured the internet for the common solution of tinkering with the gfx folder and uninstalling/verifying the integrity of my files, but alas, it doesn't work. Could you kindly help me find a solution to this, as I am able to launch the game without any issues. The blacked out country icons are quite annoying after being able to finally get past the loading screen issue. Thanks!

 

[grotaclas]

I have scoured the internet for the common solution of tinkering with the gfx folder

With which gfx folder did you tinker? Messing with the gfx folder in the game installation(something like steamapps/common/Europa Universalis IV/gfx) can cause this problem. To fix it, verify the integrity of game files (to restore the previously mentioned folder) and delete "Documents/Paradox Interactive/Europa Universalis IV/gfx" and make sure that eu4 has permission to recreate that folder and that there is enough space to write all the flags there(for me it uses 73 MB with the current game version).

Disclaimer: I'm not working for Paradox. I'm just trying to help people.

 

[LaCampanella03]

With which gfx folder did you tinker? Messing with the gfx folder in the game installation(something like steamapps/common/Europa Universalis IV/gfx) can cause this problem. To fix it, verify integrity of game files (to restore the previously mentioned folder) and delete "Documents/Paradox Interactive/Europa Universalis IV/gfx" and make sure that eu4 has permission to recreate that folder and that there is enough space to write all the flags there(for me it uses 73 MB with the current game version).

Disclaimer: I'm not working for Paradox. I'm just trying to help people.

Hey grotaclas! I did all of what you said. Unfortunately the problem still persists. I am at my wits end about how to go about this.

 

[grotaclas]

Hey grotaclas! I did all of what you said. Unfortunately the problem still persists. I am at my wits end about how to go about this.

Did eu4 manage to recreate the folder "Documents/Paradox Interactive/Europa Universalis IV/gfx/flags" after you deleted it? And does it contain the following files?
flagfiles_0.tga flagfiles_1.tga flagfiles_2.tga flagfiles_3.tga flagfiles_4.tga flagfiles_5.tga flagfilescolor.txt flagfiles.txt

The first file should look like this if you don't use any mods(I converted it to png, because the forum doesn't allow attaching of tga files):