Rockstar Launcher won't open.

[JV]

Every solution I've tried online for this won't work, so I might as well make a topic here. Nothing else is working. The games did work fine before I reformatted all my SSDs and reinstalled Windows 11 but now nothing works.

Basically, neither GTAV or RDR2 will work because the Rockstar Launcher won't open. I start the launcher and all it does is run in the background, but nothing actually shows up. I can see the Rockstar Launcher running in task manager(and it's actually using a lot of CPU resources) but it never actually starts. I can't even turn it off using "end process". If I try to open the launcher again it will say "launcher already running". I have to reboot my PC to turn off the launcher. Attempting to run a R* game from Steam or Epic Games Store or by directly clicking the Rockstar Launcher will be the same thing. The launcher won't do anything except run in the background and the only way to close it is to restart my PC.

A lot of the solutions online involve modifying something in your documents folder, but there is nothing there. The only "Rockstar Games" folder I have is in user/local/application data.

So, anyone got some weird solution that actually worked?

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Uninstall Rockstar Launcher and SocialClub Runtime.

Then go to these folders...
Documents
and
%LocalAppData%

Delete folders; Launcher and SocialClub within the Rockstar Games folder.

Go to the official Rockstar SocialClub website and download + install latest Rockstar Launcher. When asked to launch it at the end of the installer, untick that box.

Set Steam Client (Steam.exe) and Rockstar Launcher (Launcher.exe and LauncherPatcher.exe) properties to Run As Admin for All Users.

Ensure neither are in OS STARTUP.

Restart Windows OS.

Launch Steam.

Launch the Rockstar Launcher.

Enter login info and tick boxes enabled (yellow) for Remember Me + Auto

Once the R* Launcher loads up click Settings. Enable Hibernate while game is running. Click Games and then RDR2 on the left and click launch. However for GTAV, always launch that from Steam if it's owned/installed through Steam.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Doesn't matter or have anything to do with where Steam Client is installed.
In fact I always myself put Steam @ "c:\Steam" ever since Win8 so that UAC has no effect on it or dislikes of it being set to Run As Admin.

Maybe try it again and install Rockstar Launcher @ "c:\Rockstar" as well and see if this helps. If you have UAC enabled, try changing the setting for it and drop it down one notch so that it does not display UAC using an Overlay.

What anti-virus do you use?

Try adding such folders to the AV's suite exclusion listing.
Such as:
C:\Steam
C:\Rockstar
D:\SteamLibrary

and some such like that to have your AV not do any real-time scanning on those folders and sub-folders; as it's a constant waste of CPU + RAM + Disk Usage to have it always scanning those places used exclusively for Games.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

IDK, you have something on your PC that's screwing it all up.

[Ultrabot]

Do you have port forwarding enabled on your router?

If you aren't sure, Google the name of your router and how to enable port forwarding. Should be on by default

[Bad 💀 Motha]

I don't see what that has to do with the application EXE just running in the background but never shows up on-screen.

[Ultrabot]

He's wiped and reinstalled his entire PC already and it's still doing it. Sometimes these "launchers" won't work if they cant map the ports. They don't seem to do much "launching" but they do plenty of spying.

I don't have any other ideas without looking at it.

[Faye·Valentine]

Me too.Don't know how to do.....sad

[Biker G]

I've had the same problem.
Rockstar support fixed it with this response after i send video of the crash on Startup.

Hello,

Thank you for providing us a video clip which we have asked you for.

First of all please accept my sincere apologies for the late response. We are currently processing a very high number of inquiries, therefore, we would like to apologize for the long wait and for the inconvenience caused. Going forward, we would like you to create a new Windows account with the admin rights using the article below in order to try to solve the reported issue:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/create-a-local-user-or-administrator-account-in-windows-20de74e0-ac7f-3502-a866-32915af2a34d#WindowsVersion=Windows_10
Once the new account is created, please restart your PC, login to the new Windows account and then check if the issue still persists.




hope this helps

[iLPanzer [MLT]]

mines not running at all!!!

[Biker G]

BTW my problem was with RDR2

[Ultrabot]

Originally posted by JV:

I have a Technicolor router that seems like it can only be modified through the eero app. I opened IPV4 Reservations and Port Forward. I selected my computer, and added port forwarding for 1935, 443, and 80 since a guide suggested it. I selected TCP & UDP for them all. I honestly have no idea what that even means or does, but it didn't change anything.

I have to go to work for 9 hours, I'll work on this later. BTW, it was working before I reformatted, I'm not sure what would have changed.

should do it automatically. no reason a fresh install should have this problem.
I Assume you've already a tried a fresh install of the game, how about the rockstar stuff?

windows key + x
apps

uninstall the rockstar launcher and social club
go to their site, download it, and install

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Well here is also an issue that has plaqued various softwares over the years; Your Windows User Account spelling matters.

Some apps simply won't install and/or work correctly if you have certain characters within the user account name.

ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS install WinOS off-line and use Local User Account. Create user names without spaces or ANY special characters of any kind. Once the ACTUAL account is created, you can change the Display Name later on. But softwares look at the original user account name. So if you are using say; Microsoft or Goggle account as your WinOS login and thus have created a user account using that login name; this could be a real problem. Never use a login at all for WinOS, period. That's really the dumbest thing I see average PC users doing. You can login AFTER you've create a local user account and then everything actually works better this way.

This can even be a problem for some configs after selecting a non-English language during your WinOS installer. As many other languages will use certain special characters by default. It is best practice that unless you are using the Chinese WinOS, always install WinOS using UK or US English. Once the OS completes the install and you've reached the Desktop, you can change the display language to basically anything you want. If for some reason it's not an option right away, you can download + install extra Language Packs for WinOS.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

I remember years back into Win98 or XP running into such an issue and ever since then I've ensured to create my Windows User Account using such rules in-mind, to avoid such issues.

[RaftAssassin]

Having this problem I know it’s a year after the fact did anyone find a solid fix?? I’m on windows 10 just reset the pc everything was fine until I did that it keeps infinite loading on the R* logo if I try to close the game through steam it won’t let me basically same issues it seem you guys were having hopefully someone can help tried just about everything that was said Ik this thread

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Load up the Launcher by itself, not from launching a game from Steam.

Desktop Shortcut (Rockstar Games Launcher) > right click it > click on Run As Admin

See how it does. If it's out of date, it should have a small black box w/ R* logo and an orange loading bar to initiate that it's downloading+applying an update.

If you did WinOS Factory Reset you might be missing the require Microsoft Visual C++ Runtimes Redist Package 2015-2022