[SOLVED] I suddenly can’t open the game anymore

[Fahrenheit]

I bought Elden Ring at launch and the game has been running perfectly fine for 300 hours. The last time I was able to run it fine was one week ago until yesterday, it refused to open. Not a single box of error information showed up on the screen when I pressed "Play" on Steam, not even the EAC splash screen which always popped up before a black screen into the game.

What I did was:
- Verified game cache on Steam (nothing was missing or corrupted).
- Installed the latest GeForce driver.
- Updated Steam client (which was already up-to-date)
- Deleted current save game and either started without a save or replaced it with an older save.
- Moved the game files to a different disk.
- Restarted Steam and my computer multiple times.
- Turned on/off Steam cloud saves.
- Ticked off Steam in-game overlay and VR-related properties.
- Reinstalled the game.
- Ran Steam offline.
- Ran the game via EAC.exe and the game executable inside the game directory as administrator.

None of those above fixed the problem.

My computer exceeded the recommended system requirements for Elden Ring so that is definitely not the issue.

Anybody got any advice please?

Edit: Windows update messed up EAC. Reset PC did the trick. Credit goes to dark-breed

[Einstine]

As an A/B test, have you tried;
1) Running the game in offline mode? (Setting in game)
2) Running the game 100% offline without the EAC? (There is info online on how to do this as anyone using xxx engine, widescreen etc. has to run this way to avoid bans.)

It doesn't matter if you want to play online. This is basic troubleshooting and I did not see in your original post you had tried this.

[Fahrenheit]

Escrito originalmente por Deathwing Zero:

I have one other suggestion. Try running the game without EAC. Just to see if it really is EAC crashing. It most likely is, to be honest, but it's worth verifying. If you don't know how to disable EAC then do this:

In the game folder (steamapps/common/ELDEN RING/Game) create a text file called steam_appid. Open the text file and type 1245620 and save the file. Then run eldenring.exe. Don't open the game through Steam, though you still need to have Steam running.

This will run the game without EAC, and will force you into offline mode. Not saying you have to play this way, just checking what happens. If it still crashes or refuses to launch, check your Event Viewer again.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, it actually runs but offline like you said. I'll check csand's suggestion

[Fahrenheit]

Escrito originalmente por Sgt. Thundercok:

As an A/B test, have you tried;
1) Running the game in offline mode? (Setting in game)
2) Running the game 100% offline without the EAC? (There is info online on how to do this as anyone using xxx engine, widescreen etc. has to run this way to avoid bans.)

It doesn't matter if you want to play online. This is basic troubleshooting and I did not see in your original post you had tried this.

Yeah, Deathwing Zero's suggestion worked offline. So definitely EAC's issue

[Fahrenheit]

Escrito originalmente por Boutus:

See if this can help you, it has a step by step instruction for EAC crashes/failures.

https://errorfixer.co/how-to-fix-elden-ring-easy-anti-cheat-launch-error/

I tried these but still no good. Thank you though

[Fahrenheit]

Escrito originalmente por RoofusGoofus:

I assume you have verified that no updates are present for windows, graphics, and software?

Yep, all are up-to date

[Fahrenheit]

Escrito originalmente por csand:

Escrito originalmente por 𝔴𝔬𝔩𝔣𝔤𝔞𝔫𝔤:

well, no choice I guess. Another redownload

Hey man

Delete the EASYANTICHEAT_EOS folder in program files and also the one in steam. Verify Elden ring files. When you run the game from steam after that you should get a UAC prompt. Approve it and it will reinstall the files in program files and the system service related to them.

FYI program files (x86)\EASYANTICHEAT_EOS is the EAC instance related to elden ring

Yeah it didn't work. Really frustrating this lot. The anti cheat folder in Program Files is only generated when I start the game via start-protected-game.exe. Other than that, still full circle of nothingness. So far, only Deathwing Zero's suggestion worked for me, but that means i can only play offline from now on which is really dumb

[Deathwing Zero]

Have you checked for any Windows Updates? Other than that, the only suggestion I can think of to offer, barring a full re-installation of Windows, is to run DISM and see if it finds anything.

To do so:
Open the start menu and type cmd, on the list it should show Command Prompt, right click that and click run as administrator.
In the window that pops up type (or paste) then press enter:
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth

Let it run, it'll check the Windows image for errors. It won't repair any, we'll do that if it finds anything.

[Fahrenheit]

"No component store corruption detected". Damn, do I really have to re-install windows?

[Deathwing Zero]

Only as a last resort. I prefer to avoid that if at all possible, personally. In the interim, I've thought of another thing to try but I very much doubt it'll fix the issue.

Press Windows + R, type %appdata% and press enter. RENAME any folder in the window that pops up that has anything to do with Epic or EasyAntiCheat. You could delete them, but in the event it breaks something or some other game, err on the side of caution.

You could also try installing the Epic Games Launcher, as this has fixed some peoples problems in the past. So has removing it though, so, who knows.

Failing that, we could try doing a deeper scan with DISM using
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth
though I doubt anything will be found.

[Fahrenheit]

Escrito originalmente por Deathwing Zero:

Only as a last resort. I prefer to avoid that if at all possible, personally. In the interim, I've thought of another thing to try but I very much doubt it'll fix the issue.

Press Windows + R, type %appdata% and press enter. RENAME any folder in the window that pops up that has anything to do with Epic or EasyAntiCheat. You could delete them, but in the event it breaks something or some other game, err on the side of caution.

You could also try installing the Epic Games Launcher, as this has fixed some peoples problems in the past. So has removing it though, so, who knows.

Failing that, we could try doing a deeper scan with DISM using
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth
though I doubt anything will be found.

Thanks, I’ll try it again when I wake up

[Fahrenheit]

I appreciate everyone’s help,m. I’ll just have to live with offline play for now

[Fahrenheit]

Escrito originalmente por csand:

Escrito originalmente por 𝔴𝔬𝔩𝔣𝔤𝔞𝔫𝔤:

I appreciate everyone’s help,m. I’ll just have to live with offline play for now

Ah man. Sorry to hear that. I hope Bandai can help. If I had access to your pc I could probably do a lot better but that's not really realistic, lol.

I mean, you could do nuclear and try a fresh install

If only this is the latest patch’s doing so I could blame Fromsoft haha, who knows

[Friends with Benedicts]

Escrito originalmente por 𝔴𝔬𝔩𝔣𝔤𝔞𝔫𝔤:

I solved the problem. It's due to the newest Windows update so I had to reset my PC to the original version and now I can play online normally again. Credit goes to @ dark-breed. Hope this helps anyone with the same issue

Just quote this to OP and add [SOLVED] before the title

[dark-breed]

to explain it a little bit deeper, it was caused by a preview build update of windows 11 that updated the kernelbase.dll involved into the EAC crash and the EAC of the game did not got a update to except the new kernelbase.dll as a original file.

So to prevent this problem in the future i recommence to deactivate preview build updates under Windows 11.

[Friends with Benedicts]

Escrito originalmente por Friends with Benedicts:

Escrito originalmente por 𝔴𝔬𝔩𝔣𝔤𝔞𝔫𝔤:

I solved the problem. It's due to the newest Windows update so I had to reset my PC to the original version and now I can play online normally again. Credit goes to @ dark-breed. Hope this helps anyone with the same issue

Just quote this to OP and add [SOLVED] before the title

Oh ♥♥♥♥ it wasnt solved... I guess I left the post open so I didnt notice the several other replies it had? Im sorry