Vic3 and associated DLC ownership related issue

[Risingchaos]

Hello there kind strangers!

I have seen other people complain about the very same issue I am about to describe soon, there are threads on the Steam forums, Reddit, and even here on the Vic3 forums as well, and I even attempted to reach out to the Vic3 twitter account, but I received no reply since then (not in a PM, but publicly via a reply to their post)

The problem at hand is as follows: People that have purchased the Deluxe Edition of the game (as far as I can tell, there might be others that have bought the DLCs stand-alone) have experienced an issue with the game not unlocking their DLCs, even though both Steam and the PDX launcher seems to agree that their account (both Steam and PDX) do in fact own both the game and every released DLC. This problem has arisen the same time the 1.4 update was released (as I was told, I didn't have the game downloaded at the exact time the patch was released)

I tried some things that I though could help, such as unlinking and relinking my steam account to the PDX account, logging out and logging in again in the PDX launcher, inside the game (Vic3), restarting Steam, restarting my PC.

Today, just before writing this message I have seen something new that I haven't seen before: the "accounts.paradoxplaza" webpage lists Vic3 and all of it's DLCs released under the Deluxe edition as part of my inventory, but the "forum.paradoxplaza" webpage does not (Right now I won't provide screenshots of the separate pages, but if they are necessary in some way I will attach them to a reply). So in my eye the origin of the problem seems to be some sort of internal disagreement inside the Paradox server/servers.

It would be really nice if this issue could be taken care of, because this way the affected individuals can't experience the true glory of the released DLCs.

Thank you for reading this message, and thank you in anticipation!

 

[AndrewT]

The forum icons for this game have not yet been created and implemented, so no one has them. That is nothing to do with your DLC availability issue.

Can we see screenshots of what's in your Steam Manage My DLCs page for this game, then the DLC tab in our launcher, thanks.


If they are all enabled in both places, Please do a full clean re-install:

- move any valued save games elsewhere
- "uninstall" in Steam-Vic3
- manually delete both the Steam/SteamApps/common/Victoria3 AND Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3 folders
- re-install game in Steam, run a Steam Verify when done.
- add Victoria3.exe to the exceptions list of your antivirus app; ESPECIALLY if you have Windows Defender, add it to the Ransomware "Apps Allowed Through" list.
- start the game with no mods active and test

In particular make sure there are no files or folders left under either the Steam Victoria3 or Documents Victoria3 locations, before installing again.

 

[Risingchaos]

Thank you for reaching out! I will try to follow the steps you have listed, and will reply once again whether or not they fixed the issue or not.

Here are the screenshots that you requested, I will list them by their name, and they will be attached to this reply:

• PDX Plaza item ownership page.PNG
• PDX Forum Owned Items.PNG
• PDX Launcher DLC page.PNG
• Steam DLC page.PNG

 

[Risingchaos]

So, I followed the steps as mentioned, totally reinstalled the game and reset the VIC3 folder from the documents folder, but the issue still persists. I can attach some screenshots of what it looks like in game.

I will try to maybe delete and reinstall the PDX launcher as well along with the game.

Thanks for your help so far, you've given me hope.

Edit: It didn't seem to do the trick. Well, regardless, I'll be waiting for the release of future patches and hotfixes, maybe the issue will sort itself out with time.

 

[AndrewT]

According to this thread

Purchased DLCs not recognised by game

Tried to open the game today and none of my purchased DLCs are recognised as purchased by the game when it launches. Checked the launcher, all DLCs are showing as purchased and enabled. Tried relaunching the game, logging out and re-syning the...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

this was caused by an AV app, I've asked that poster which one.

Meanwhile, which AV app do you use? Add these files to all its exceptions lists:

Victoria3.exe (in the Steam Vic3-binaries folder)
dowser.exe (in the Steam Vic3-launcher folder)
C:/users/{UserName}/AppData/Local/Programs/Paradox Interactive/launcher-v2.2023.11/paradox launcher.exe
C:/users/{UserName}/AppData/Local/Programs/Paradox Interactive/bootstrapper-v2.exe

 

[Risingchaos]

Meanwhile, which AV app do you use?

I use the basic Windows Defender that comes with Windows 10

Add these files to all its exceptions lists:

Victoria3.exe (in the Steam Vic3-binaries folder)
dowser.exe (in the Steam Vic3-launcher folder)
C:/users/{UserName}/AppData/Local/Programs/Paradox Interactive/launcher-v2.2023.11/paradox launcher.exe
C:/users/{UserName}/AppData/Local/Programs/Paradox Interactive/bootstrapper-v2.exe

Just to be sure, I added the whole Vic3 game folder plus the AppData/Local/Programs/Paradox Interactive folder to the exceptions list.... And that did it for me as well. It works, every DLC is unlocked. It's mind-boggling. I have no idea why that worked, but it really did fix the issue.

Thank you very much for your help, I appreciate it a lot, and I'm sure the rest of the affected users will be thrilled to use this solution as well! Have a good one chief!