PC hard-crashing: "Lari Launcher" ... the app from hell?

[Elvis]

I'm currently troubleshooting unexplained crashes on my system - they seem to be very much related to BG3 since when the PC crashes, it's always while playing the game. But I have played quite a lot lately, so this might just be coincidence...

.... or so I thought until I looked up Windows' Reliability Monitor. Turns out I have critical entries every single day for the past 7 days ... and "Lari Launcher" crashing is always listed as a "critical event" on every single day - sometimes even more than once per day.

And we're not talking CTDs or something mildly annoying like that. We're talking the PC freezing up *hard* with a long push on the power-button being the only way to get it to shut down. Even the reset-button doesn't work any longer.

Going by the time-codes, there doesn't seem to be a direct corellation between the launcher crashing and my system hard-freezing on me - but it *is* rather worrying that this thing can't seem to run without causing a critical Windows error at some point.

PLUS: I have bypassed/disabled it in Steam since Aug 25th (when that patch came out that gave me tons of CTDs), but I guess the launcher must still be running no matter what you set your launch paramters in Steam to.

I can't remember playing any game on this PC that crashed the computer this regularly and this hard - and I do play other stuff besides BG3. I also stress-tested the hell out of this PC and everything went smoothly.
So, at this point, I'm very much inclined to believe that BG3 and/or its launcher is/are at fault here.

Anyone else having similar experiences?
S.

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Elvis:

PC hard-crashing: "Lari Launcher" ... the app from hell?
I'm currently troubleshooting unexplained crashes on my system - they seem to be very much related to BG3 since when the PC crashes, it's always while playing the game. But I have played quite a lot lately, so this might just be coincidence...

.... or so I thought until I looked up Windows' Reliability Monitor. Turns out I have critical entries every single day for the past 7 days ... and "Lari Launcher" crashing is always listed as a "critical event" on every single day - sometimes even more than once per day.

And we're not talking CTDs or something mildly annoying like that. We're talking the PC freezing up *hard* with a long push on the power-button being the only way to get it to shut down. Even the reset-button doesn't work any longer.

Going by the time-codes, there doesn't seem to be a direct corellation between the launcher crashing and my system hard-freezing on me - but it *is* rather worrying that this thing can't seem to run without causing a critical Windows error at some point.

PLUS: I have bypassed/disabled it in Steam since Aug 25th (when that patch came out that gave me tons of CTDs), but I guess the launcher must still be running no matter what you set your launch paramters in Steam to.

I can't remember playing any game on this PC that crashed the computer this regularly and this hard - and I do play other stuff besides BG3. I also stress-tested the hell out of this PC and everything went smoothly.
So, at this point, I'm very much inclined to believe that BG3 and/or its launcher is/are at fault here.

Anyone else having similar experiences?
S.

Thankfully you can skip the launcher and improve your PCs stability by doing so
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3015166965
I recommend method C for you personally

[Elvis]

Originally posted by アンジェル:

Thankfully you can skip the launcher and improve your PCs stability by doing so
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3015166965
I recommend method C for you personally

As I've stated in my OP:

PLUS: I have bypassed/disabled it in Steam since Aug 25th (when that patch came out that gave me tons of CTDs), but I guess the launcher must still be running no matter what you set your launch parameters in Steam to.

"Bypassing" it doesn't seem to matter though on some level. Since I disabled it, the launcher doesn't visibly pop up when I start the game ... but some version of it must still be running or otherwise I wouldn't be getting those daily crash-reports of it.


S.

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Elvis:

Originally posted by アンジェル:

Thankfully you can skip the launcher and improve your PCs stability by doing so
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3015166965
I recommend method C for you personally

As I've stated in my OP:

PLUS: I have bypassed/disabled it in Steam since Aug 25th (when that patch came out that gave me tons of CTDs), but I guess the launcher must still be running no matter what you set your launch parameters in Steam to.

"Bypassing" it doesn't seem to matter though on some level. Since I disabled it, the launcher doesn't visibly pop up when I start the game ... but some version of it must still be running or otherwise I wouldn't be getting those daily crash-reports of it.


S.

That happens only if you never restart your PC, though.

[Elvis]

Originally posted by アンジェル:

That happens only if you never restart your PC, though.

Err.. nope.. that's not it, either... PC gets restarted plenty and both Win11/BIOS quick start and hibernation are switched off on my system.

Thing is... it *was* the launcher, I think. Or more precisely, it was the method I was using to bypass it. The "skip launcher" command wasn't working - or it was only working "superficially", since the launcher didn't visibly open up any longer, but apparently still was running (and crashing) in the background.
I've switched to method C now from the post you linked and that actually did the trick of completely preventing the launcher from starting up. Launcher doesn't get triggered any longer (neither "visibly" nor in the background) and so it can't crash and cause problems.

I just finished a 3 or 4 hour session without issue and there were no events logged WRT the Larin Launcher - plus my PC didn't crash/freeze, either. Could've been just luck, but I'm feeling cautiously optimistic.

Other things I did, BTW, were to throw out a ton of other stuff that had triggered critical errors in the log in the past two weeks. Including all RGB-related stuff (MSI Mystic Light, Gigabyte Fusion). I also stopped using Open RGB and deactivated Samsung Magician.

Lastly, I disabled saving to the Steam cloud for BG3, since that regularly failed and gave me lots of sync-error messages in Steam. I only use BG3 on this one machine, so I don't need to have my save-games in the cloud.

Some of the errors I found in the Event-Logger are still popping up there though - despite me having updated pretty much all the drivers that could've been at fault (chipset, Intel LAN-adapters). But so long as these errors don't cause any crashes, I'm prepared to leave well enough alone.. :)

S.

[Elvis]

If anyone's having similar issues: It's been two days now since I disabled the launcher "for real". Using

Path to your Steam-library\steamapps\common\Baldurs Gate 3\bin\bg3.exe" %command%

in BG3 launch options in Steam (bg3.exe for Vulkan, bg3_dx11.exe for DirectX11). BTW: The examples in the linked article are missing the "3" from both file names ("bg.exe" when it should be "bg3.exe"), so copy-pasting them won't work.

Two 4 hour+ sessions with zero issues/crashes and Windows Reliability Monitor now has zero entries for me besides normal stuff like update-history events. No more scary red critical error entries in there.

Seems pretty clear that the lauchner is what messed things up for me.

Another interesting observation from the Reliability Monitor's timeline is that this seems to have started with the August 25th patch. On that day, my system's reliability took a huge nose-dive and since then there were at least one, more commonly two or even more, red entries/critical errors caused by the launcher-app. Plus the semi-regular, near daily, hard freezes I've talked about in my OP. That patch also gave me tons of "regular" CTDs during gameplay - those stopped with a hotfix published on Aug 26th, but the hard crashes/freezes didn't go away until I actually disabled the launcher.

According to some folks who took a look at my Windows error-codes over on a German Windows/IT-board, the launcher seems to have some sort of conflict with Windows .NET framework. At least on my system it does.



S.

[Zebedee]

Ta for this thread. Pinpointed some unexplained crashes (straight to desktop) to the larilauncher. And, as with OP, event viewer is throwing out errors linked to issues with .NET. Have run diagnostic/repair program on .NET but looks like totally disabling larilauncher is the way forward. (NB: I was already bypassing launching the game through it.)

This is with Win 11 23H2, OS Build 22635.2850.

edit; other possibility is that it might be linked to Asus chipsets, as this seems a particular link shared by many of us having this. My B550 board is using latest chipset drivers and bios though so *shrug*.