EasyAntiCheat BROKEN

[Old Atrocity]

My PC either freezes on the INITIALIZING screen or alternatively says 'EasyAntiCheat is not installed'.
Have reinstalled the game twice, made sure everything is exempt from my anti-virus, tried to manually install EAC, nothing seems to work.
Completely unable to play the game. I don't want to play offline either so I won't consider that a fix.
Mad that this has happened now when I had no issues playing the game before.

[Nafiganza]

Originally posted by Old Atrocity:

This is so ridiculous because the kind of people who mod and cheat at games like this are obviously more clued up than me and can just find ways around EAC, whereas I can't even play the game I paid good money to play for no good reason at all.

That's exactly what I think about any multiplayer game where you have to use some kind of anti-cheat software.

The people who want to cheat won't let these stupid programs stop them and the people who don't want to cheat have to deal with the crap. This has been a problem with Destiny 2 for a while now, the anti-cheat program even causes Windows blue screens.

This is ridiculous because in all these games you still have to deal with cheater

[Nafiganza]

Originally posted by Old Atrocity:

Originally posted by chaoticWolf17:

I think I misunderstood your original post. I though you meant that EAC was freezing when you started the game. When you say your game is freezing online do you mean freezing so you have to force quit the game? Or do you mean sudden freezes that last for like a half a second?

If it's the first, maybe check to see if your drivers are up to date. If it's the second I've had that problem since the game launched and have never been able to fix it.

I mean the game won't even start. My entire PC freezes on the popup window for 'EAC Initializing' and I have to reboot.
I managed to start the game once in offline mode, but now even that doesn't work.
Reinstalled the game three times. All background processes possible closed.
Anti-virus (Norton) exceptions, Anti-virus off completely.
All drivers up to date obviously.
I played the game with no issues at all about a year ago, for 40+ hours.
Now I come back to play in time for the DLC and the damn thing won't even start.

if nothing else works and it doesn't start, try the mod: "Anti-cheat toggler and offline launcher" by nexus mod

[chaoticWolf17]

Originally posted by Old Atrocity:

Originally posted by chaoticWolf17:

I think I misunderstood your original post. I though you meant that EAC was freezing when you started the game. When you say your game is freezing online do you mean freezing so you have to force quit the game? Or do you mean sudden freezes that last for like a half a second?

If it's the first, maybe check to see if your drivers are up to date. If it's the second I've had that problem since the game launched and have never been able to fix it.

I mean the game won't even start. My entire PC freezes on the popup window for 'EAC Initializing' and I have to reboot.
I managed to start the game once in offline mode, but now even that doesn't work.
Reinstalled the game three times. All background processes possible closed.
Anti-virus (Norton) exceptions, Anti-virus off completely.
All drivers up to date obviously.
I played the game with no issues at all about a year ago, for 40+ hours.
Now I come back to play in time for the DLC and the damn thing won't even start.

Okay so that goes back to my original reply. I had that same problem a while back because Windows added a security feature to 13th an 14th gen Intel cpu's that conflicts with EAC. Do you have a 13th or 14th gen cpu?

[Boss]

Hey so I had this same problem with the PC freezing when easy anti cheat was launching. What I realised caused it was my anti-virus (norton) software interfering with easy anti-cheat when virtualisation technology is turned on. Hence if you have anti-virus software you can try either uninstall the anti-virus software and run the game or if you want to keep the anti-virus and run the game at the same time you can disable virtualisation technology in your BIOS. I did the second option and the game boots now no problem.

[Noop]

If you replace the game protected exe in your game files with the elden ring exe you can start the game offline without anti-cheat.

[Old Atrocity]

Originally posted by chaoticWolf17:

Originally posted by Old Atrocity:

I mean the game won't even start. My entire PC freezes on the popup window for 'EAC Initializing' and I have to reboot.
I managed to start the game once in offline mode, but now even that doesn't work.
Reinstalled the game three times. All background processes possible closed.
Anti-virus (Norton) exceptions, Anti-virus off completely.
All drivers up to date obviously.
I played the game with no issues at all about a year ago, for 40+ hours.
Now I come back to play in time for the DLC and the damn thing won't even start.

Okay so that goes back to my original reply. I had that same problem a while back because Windows added a security feature to 13th an 14th gen Intel cpu's that conflicts with EAC. Do you have a 13th or 14th gen cpu?

I have a 10th Gen cpu (i7 10750H)
Currently doing a clean install after deleting all registry items relating to Elden Ring and EAC.

Originally posted by Boss:

Hey so I had this same problem with the PC freezing when easy anti cheat was launching. What I realised caused it was my anti-virus (norton) software interfering with easy anti-cheat when virtualisation technology is turned on. Hence if you have anti-virus software you can try either uninstall the anti-virus software and run the game or if you want to keep the anti-virus and run the game at the same time you can disable virtualisation technology in your BIOS. I did the second option and the game boots now no problem.

Thanks, I have tried running to game with Norton completely disabled and it made no difference so I'm not sure it's an anti-virus or firewall issue.

[Emerald Lance]

What OS are you using? Windows 7 is incompatible with Elden Ring because EAC doesn't work on it. Apparently there's a "fix" for EAC on W7, but I don't know anything about that. Aside from EAC, Elden Ring itself may also run into issues on W7.

Do you have fast boot enabled in your Windows settings? If there's even a signature of a possible cheat vector in your working RAM, then EAC will not boot, even if that vector is no longer open. Windows fast boot works by taking a snapshot of your RAM before shutting down, then restoring that snapshot once it boots again. In other words, the RAM is never flushed. If the RAM isn't properly flushed between boots, false positives can pile up, and EAC could potentially keep the game from launching. Fast boot is enabled on Windows 10 by default; if it's enabled for you, turn it off and reboot your machine to see if that works. Honestly, I strongly recommend keeping it off, even if it doesn't solve your immediate issue. (Expanding on that, make sure you restart your machine regularly.)

[Old Atrocity]

Originally posted by Emerald Lance:

What OS are you using? Windows 7 is incompatible with Elden Ring because EAC doesn't work on it. Apparently there's a "fix" for EAC on W7, but I don't know anything about that. Aside from EAC, Elden Ring itself may also run into issues on W7.

Do you have fast boot enabled in your Windows settings? EAC will not launch if it detects any activity that it identifies as a possible cheat vector, even if that vector is no longer open. Windows fast boot works by taking a snapshot of your RAM before shutting down, then restoring that snapshot once it boots again. In other words, the RAM is never flushed. If the RAM isn't properly flushed between boots, false positives can pile up, and EAC could potentially keep the game from launching. Fast boot is enabled on Windows 10 by default; if it's enabled for you, turn it off and reboot your machine to see if that works. Honestly, I strongly recommend keeping it off, even if it doesn't solve your immediate issue. (Expanding on that, make sure you restart your machine regularly.)

Windows 10. I will have a look into disabling it, thanks for the tip.

[Old Atrocity]

Nope. The same issues continue.
Freeze on EAC Initialization screen, or saying EAC is not installed, nor will the game launch in offline mode.

[chaoticWolf17]

Unless they added that feature to earlier CPU’s I guess that isn’t the problem. Do you have any other games on your system that use EAC?

If you do, uninstalling EAC manually and uninstalling Elden Ring won’t remove it. You have to uninstall every game on your system that uses it. It will remove itself when you uninstall the last game that’s using it. That’s the only way I was able to resolve the conflict when I had this issue.

[Old Atrocity]

Originally posted by chaoticWolf17:

Unless they added that feature to earlier CPU’s I guess that isn’t the problem. Do you have any other games on your system that use EAC?

If you do, uninstalling EAC manually and uninstalling Elden Ring won’t remove it. You have to uninstall every game on your system that uses it. It will remove itself when you uninstall the last game that’s using it. That’s the only way I was able to resolve the conflict when I had this issue.

Thanks, I have just looked through the list of all Steam games that use EAC and I have never played a single one besides Elden Ring.
My only hope now is that this issue has been caused by a recent patch and will be fixed soon, I have tried everything my end.

[Old Atrocity]

Bumping this because the issue persists and why the hell not.

[Daedra]

Just replying here because i'm having the same issue. I see some people can play online and others can't. I cannot launch the game in online mode without getting "Unexpected_Kernel_Mode_Trap" blue screen code. The only work around i've found is playing offline disconnected from the internet. I have a good PC and i could play elden ring just fine before - so i know it's not because of anything on my side. Windows 11, drivers fully updated, i've reinstalled the game - still cannot play online. Really really weird

[Noumena]

like Yhrom, I too am having the same issue with the "Unexpected_Kernel_Mode_Trap" BSOD. Frustrating as it is...offline play is the only option.

[Majrick]

Originally posted by Old Atrocity:

Nope. The same issues continue.
Freeze on EAC Initialization screen, or saying EAC is not installed, nor will the game launch in offline mode.

Identical, except I did get into DLC when problem commenced but only for 50 mins. Now rig freezes on initialising and can only unplug. 3 reinstalls and verify files comes back “all correct”. Cutting losses after 900+ hrs. All other Souls games still function so no beef as I enjoyed the experience, yet it seems there is a distinct problem with EAC and ER.