[Win10] Since logging into PDX account CK2 works only once, have to clean install after every launch

[Captain Carrot]

CK2 has been working without any problems ever since I first bought it, but I never logged in until I decided to do the Monarch's Journey somewhere around early-mid July. I launched the game, it was fine, played for a bit and closed it. When I opened it again, the loading progress got to Loading Graphics, instantly jumped to the end and crashed after a few seconds. The Microsoft C++ module installer said that I already have everything, and allowing it to replace the existing files did not fix anything. Neither did a simple reinstall. I updated my NVIDIA drivers and it worked, despite the last update being months-old (iirc) and the game working fine the day before. But the next day it crashed on Loading Graphics again. So I did a clean install. After this, the first time the launcher opened in the taskbar, but did not become active, and promptly crashed. I ran the game again and everything worked fine, although the launcher showed me the Privacy Policy and a CK3 ad, the game asked to pick a language and the main menu suggested the learning scenario. The next time though it crashed on Loading Graphics again. I did a clean install again and the sequence repeated itself. By now I've gone through this process multiple times (with slight variations on the first run, such as the launcher becoming active, but completely white, or not showing up anywhere at all; in both cases it still crashes though) and dared to resubscribe to 2 of my mods, although that did not change anything. I think at some point I also tampered a little with settings.txt, something about borderless/fullscreen, but that did not help. Also, the entire Documents\Paradox Interactive and E:\Steam folders are in the Avast exception list.

As I didn't find any info whatsoever on similar cases, I probably should mention another non-CK2 specific issue seemingly unique to me, even if I do not see how they might be connected. Some time after I attempted to make my Windows faster by tampering with some settings and the control panel, most installers stopped working and so did f.lux (although I noticed the latter problem only recently and haven't investigated it yet). However, I want to emphasize that after this started happening around February CK2 was still working fine until I logged in to my account.

Attached are DxDiag results taken at every step of the "install - launcher crash - success - graphics crash - uninstall" process and settings.txt right before uninstalling. Note that I didn't actually go past the main menu after the successful launch. I am prepared to do further testing.

 

[AndrewT]

As you say, this is not a known problem with this game. It's overwhelmingly likely this is a Windows or Steam problem.

I can see this happening if the game is unable to update settings.txt or other files in the Documents folder. You mention having excepted the game in Avast, are you confident that has "taken"? Add steam.exe to that too.

Another test of that is to place the attached userdir.txt file in the Steam CK2 folder where ck2game.exe is. That tells the game to write the user files right there instead of under Documents. If that helps the problem, then I thn Avast is still in the way somehow.

 

[Captain Carrot]

userdir.txt worked, thank you very much. I did still get a similar crash eventually and I am trying to figure out what exactly caused, since most of the time the game runs fine.

You mention having excepted the game in Avast, are you confident that has "taken"?

I am not sure what you mean by this, but here is the screenshot of all my Avast exceptions. CK2 is in C:\Steam Library 2\. At some point a number of Steam games had problems with Avast, so I went ahead and excepted whole folders to not clutter the list and to be safe in the future. I don't think I tested all of them after this, but at least some did work.

 

[AndrewT]

I don't know Avast at all, but the fact that userdir helped means that it, or any other AV service you may be running, are almost certainly the problem here.

In "blocked and allowed apps" are steam.exe and ck2game.exe allowed?