Stellaris crashes on splash screen with error C0000005 (EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION)

[lliarin]

Launcher works fine, crash reporter appears shortly after pressing play button, just after splash screen appears.
In addition, the Settings.txt file in Documents\Paradox Interactive\Stellaris occasionally goes missing, leading to the launcher failing to start the game as it cannot access that file.

The same error code appears in every log file : C0000005 (EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION), An example is attached.

Stellaris has run on this PC in the past, but I have upgraded the graphics card since the last time it ran from a gtx660 to a 3080ti
Stellaris has never had mods installed on it on this PC.

Have Tried:
Installing C++ 2010 Redistributables, x86 and x64 (installer says its already installed)
Installing C++ 2015 Redistributables, x86 and x64
Installing Directx 2010 Redistributables
I have also uninstalled and reinstalled all the above, Including manually deleting the .dll files as mentioned in other posts.

I am running the most recent graphics card drivers, unless they have updated in the past couple days.

Launching in fullscreen, Borderless windowed, and windowed
Disabling Vsync
Run game and launcher in admin mode
Run game in compatibility mode for win 8, win 7
Added an exclusion to windows defender for Stellaris, have no other antivirus.

Reinstalling Stellaris X3
Clean reinstall of Stellaris X2 (uninstall from steam, scour all hard drives for anything related to Stellaris or Paradox, uninstall or delete everything I find, Run CCleaner to remove any registry changes)
Disabled all DLCs
Verified game files through steam (basically any time I reinstalled)
Stellaris has been installed both on my solid state C drive, and on a separate M.2 drive, same issues with both.

Remove any attached gaming controllers. (launching after this got me past the splash screen to a dark blue screen, which then froze until I alt f4ed it)
Also tried "Right click Stellaris on Steam > Properties > Controller > Disable Steam Input"
This progress only happened the once, all future launches were back to crashing on the splash screen.

I do not have FRAPS or the MSI Gaming App or Rivatuner installed.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[AndrewT]

That system.log does not look right. If you delete it and try this game again, does it make a new one? If so please attach that here.

What happens if you run stellaris.exe directly from File Explorer? Any error show up?

And please install and run the free utility Speccy. Send its output to a text file and attach that here, thanks.

 

[lliarin]

Thanks for the response.

I deleted the system.log file and reran Stellaris , It made a new one, but it looks about the same to me. Its attached

Running Stellaris directly from the file explorer has the same issue, gets to splash screen, then shows the crash reporter.
(this is regardless of compatibility mode, running as administrator, or if I start the launcher from the file explorer then Stellaris from that.
I have also tried enabling/disabling fullscreen optimizations.

I installed and ran Speccy, the output is attached.

 

[AndrewT]

You should not run stellaris.exe as Windows Admin, that causes issues of its own.

That system.log is still wrong! It should list all usable resolutions at the end. So I guess your issue is to do with the video system somehow. Let's try a clean reinstall:

- uninstall the nVidia driver and all other nVidia software
- reboot
- install May 2022 https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
- reboot again



Probably not related but I see you have malwarebytes installed but disabled. If you aren't using it I'd suggest a complete uninstall of it; use Ccleaner or revo Uninstaller to make sure it's 100% gone.


And if you search for Not Installed in that speccy output, you'll see numerous failed or "In Progress" Windows updates going back to 2020. If you run the Windows Update utility does it find anything to install? If so please do that and reboot.

 

[lliarin]

I uninstalled my video card drivers using the Display Driver Uninstaller third party utility. (Recommended to me in the past when I was having video card issues)
Installed the newest drivers at the link you provided. Both the removal of the old drivers and installation of the new drivers were done in safe mode.

I uninstalled Malware Bytes, as well as running ccleaner to get rid of any leftovers.

I ran windows update, which installed several new updates, but a couple keep failing on a regular basis. This is an issue I have had for a while, namely that update KB5011487 has consistently failed every time I try to install it.

I ran Stellaris as I usually would from steam, starting the launcher then pressing play. The splash screen appeared, then the crash reporter, as usual.
I deleted the system.log file before running Stellaris, the new log is attached, along with an updated Speccy output.

I recognize at this point that I should just reinstall Windows, but for various reasons I can't set aside the time to do so at the moment.
Any further suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[AndrewT]

I fear this one is beyond me, I am sorry. Like you I see nothing to do except a Windows Reset, or even clean wipe and reinstall.

Sorry about that!

 

[lliarin]

Thanks for the help. I will probably get around to a clean reinstall next weekend sometime. Hopefully that fixes things.