Game wont launch

[Draging]

I bought this game on steam a few days ago but when I try to open it it gets to running and a second later it stops. I checked file validity and it says one file failed to validate in and will be reacquired but its never reacquired. I’ve tried to open it with -window like dev said before in the forum, I’ve tried turning of antivirus and reinstalling it but nothing helps.

[MeTaL Zee]

i have the same issue

[The Chickenmancer]

Sorry to hear that you are having trouble booting Castle Crashers on Steam. We just have a few questions for you that may help us find out what the problem may be.

Are you playing on Windows PC or MacOS?
Do you get an error code after the game fails to boot?
If not, when you get the black screen do you hear any audio?
Do you have any special characters, custom fonts or emojis in your Steam username? (If you do, please try and remove them, as we've had reports of this causing crashes)
Are you playing with any Bluetooth devices connected to your PC? (If you do, please try and remove them, as we've had reports of this causing crashes)
Are you playing with your keyboard language set to Chinese? (If you do, please try and change it to English and see if that helps)

Here are a few things that you can do that may fix the problem.

Make sure that all your operating system and graphics card drivers are fully up to date.

We've had some reports that Razer Cortex and/or Razer Synapse, can cause a black Main Menu screen and a subsequent black screen when trying to play, so please try to completely shut down these programs, by exiting them from the Windows taskbar.

One more thing, we've also had some reports that an app called Overwolf maybe causing some players trying to boot the game to crash. Try shutting it down completely and/or uninstalling the app.

Once you do that please try and boot Castle Crashers and see if that fixes the issue.

[Kaksik]

I have the same problem

[nato187]

Yeah I also have this problem:

Platform: Windows 11

Error code: "The application was unable to start correctly (0x000007b)"
*The error is only visible when trying to launch castle.exe directly, launching in steam will show Launching -> Synchronizing with cloud -> then fail silently (no black screen or window or audio)

My username has no special characters

Disconnected bluetooth and unplugged all dongles but error persists.

Keyboard language is set to Standard US International format + Removed Japanese language pack but error persists.

OS and Graphics driver is fully up to date.

No Razer devices or software on this machine.

---

Inspecting with process monitor shows a couple possible leads, I can share the log file privately if you reach out.

- [Process name] [PID] [Operation] [Path] [Result] [Detail]

- castle.exe	8484	RegQueryValue	HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\RaiseExceptionOnPossibleDeadlock	NAME NOT FOUND	Length: 80

- castle.exe	8484	RegOpenKey	HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Segment Heap	NAME NOT FOUND	Desired Access: Query Value

- castle.exe	8484	RegQueryValue	HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\ResourcePolicies	NAME NOT FOUND	Length: 24

- castle.exe	8484	RegQueryValue	HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\WMI\Security\[HASH CODE REDACTED FROM POST]	NAME NOT FOUND	Length: 528

- castle.exe	8484	RegQueryValue	HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\RaiseExceptionOnPossibleDeadlock	NAME NOT FOUND	Length: 80

- castle.exe	8484	CreateFile	C:\Windows\System32\wow64log.dll	NAME NOT FOUND	Desired Access: Read Attributes, Disposition: Open, Options: Open Reparse Point, Attributes: n/a, ShareMode: Read, Write, Delete, AllocationSize: n/a

- castle.exe	8484	RegQueryValue	HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Wow64\x86\castle.exe	NAME NOT FOUND	Length: 520

- castle.exe	8484	RegOpenKey	HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\StateSeparation\RedirectionMap\Keys	NAME NOT FOUND	Desired Access: Read

- castle.exe	8484	RegOpenKey	HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SafeBoot\Option	NAME NOT FOUND	Desired Access: Query Value, Set Value

- castle.exe	8484	RegQueryValue	HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\safer\codeidentifiers\TransparentEnabled	NAME NOT FOUND	Length: 80

- castle.exe	8484	RegQueryValue	HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem\LPGO	NAME NOT FOUND	Length: 20

- castle.exe	8484	RegQueryValue	HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\SafeDllSearchMode	NAME NOT FOUND	Length: 16

- castle.exe	8484	CreateFile	C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\CastleCrashers\WINHTTP.dll	NAME NOT FOUND	Desired Access: Read Attributes, Disposition: Open, Options: Open Reparse Point, Attributes: n/a, ShareMode: Read, Write, Delete, AllocationSize: n/a

- castle.exe	8484	CreateFile	C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\CastleCrashers\d3d9.dll	NAME NOT FOUND	Desired Access: Read Attributes, Disposition: Open, Options: Open Reparse Point, Attributes: n/a, ShareMode: Read, Write, Delete, AllocationSize: n/a

- castle.exe	8484	CreateFile	C:\Windows\System\d3dx9_43.dll	NAME NOT FOUND	Desired Access: Read Attributes, Disposition: Open, Options: Open Reparse Point, Attributes: n/a, ShareMode: Read, Write, Delete, AllocationSize: n/a

- castle.exe	8484	RegQueryValue	HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\bam\State\UserSettings\S-1-5-21-2633372051-3981493991-3465957925-1001\\Device\HarddiskVolume7\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\CastleCrashers\castle.exe	NAME NOT FOUND	Length: 40

---

Already tried:

- Verifying game files
- Tried using -window as a launch option in steam launcher
- Disabled file protection service from NordVPN
- Completely removing all .Net frameworks and reinstalling + reboot
- Repaired C++ redistributables 2012, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2022
- Followed Microsoft support advice to run DISM + sfc

    - `DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth`
    - `sfc /scannow`

- Re-ran the directx installer located in common/CastleCrashers/directx
- Reinstalled DirectX via Microsoft
- Updated Graphics card (Geforce RTX 3080) driver
- Manually downloaded the following DLL files and adding them to the root dir /common/CastleCrashers

    - dinput8.dll
    - dwmapi.dll
    - wow64log.dll
    - d3dx9_43.dll
    - d3dx9.dll

---

At this point I feel like I've exhausted all options and randomly installing dll files feel unsafe. The only things remaining is to do a complete reinstall of windows 11 which I'd like to avoid.

Hope we can find a solution as I've been looking forward to playing this game.

[Draging]

Originally posted by The Chickenmancer:

Sorry to hear that you are having trouble booting Castle Crashers on Steam. We just have a few questions for you that may help us find out what the problem may be.

Are you playing on Windows PC or MacOS?
Do you get an error code after the game fails to boot?
If not, when you get the black screen do you hear any audio?
Do you have any special characters, custom fonts or emojis in your Steam username? (If you do, please try and remove them, as we've had reports of this causing crashes)
Are you playing with any Bluetooth devices connected to your PC? (If you do, please try and remove them, as we've had reports of this causing crashes)
Are you playing with your keyboard language set to Chinese? (If you do, please try and change it to English and see if that helps)

Here are a few things that you can do that may fix the problem.

Make sure that all your operating system and graphics card drivers are fully up to date.

We've had some reports that Razer Cortex and/or Razer Synapse, can cause a black Main Menu screen and a subsequent black screen when trying to play, so please try to completely shut down these programs, by exiting them from the Windows taskbar.

One more thing, we've also had some reports that an app called Overwolf maybe causing some players trying to boot the game to crash. Try shutting it down completely and/or uninstalling the app.

Once you do that please try and boot Castle Crashers and see if that fixes the issue.

Im playing on Windows 11. It doesnt display any error code it doesnt open and steam shows it running for like a sec before it simply stops running. There is also no black screen or audio nor do I have any special characters in my username. I tried removing my headphones and uninstalled Overwolf but it didnt fix the issue. I alredy checked my drivers and system

[Draging]

Update:
After digging through the files for a while and with help of Process Monitor I figured out why the game wouldnt load. For some reason it installed file d3dx9_43.dll into SysWOW64 which is 64 bit but this file it installed was 32 bit so what has to be done to fix this is delete the original d3dx9_43.dll (only _43.dll not the other files such as _42.dll or _38.dll) and download 64 bit version and put this new working version into SysWOW64 as replacement.

You can get 64 bit version here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8109
-This will download a lot other .dll files as well but only take the one you need

[nato187]

Originally posted by Draging:

Update:
After digging through the files for a while and with help of Process Monitor I figured out why the game wouldnt load. For some reason it installed file d3dx9_43.dll into SysWOW64 which is 64 bit but this file it installed was 32 bit so what has to be done to fix this is delete the original d3dx9_43.dll (only _43.dll not the other files such as _42.dll or _38.dll) and download 64 bit version and put this new working version into SysWOW64 as replacement.

You can get 64 bit version here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8109
-This will download a lot other .dll files as well but only take the one you need

Yeah this was it. Nice find!

More specifically I had to download the 32 bit version of D3DX9_43.dll and insert it into SysWOW64

https://www.dll-files.com/download/86e39e9161c3d930d93822f1563c280d/d3dx9_43.dll.html?c=S2Q0eGJ5VktmQW1zYjZUdmc1NkFxUT09

DL At your own risk but dll-files.com is a pretty well trusted resource.

[The Chickenmancer]

Originally posted by Draging:

Update:
After digging through the files for a while and with help of Process Monitor I figured out why the game wouldnt load. For some reason it installed file d3dx9_43.dll into SysWOW64 which is 64 bit but this file it installed was 32 bit so what has to be done to fix this is delete the original d3dx9_43.dll (only _43.dll not the other files such as _42.dll or _38.dll) and download 64 bit version and put this new working version into SysWOW64 as replacement.

You can get 64 bit version here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8109
-This will download a lot other .dll files as well but only take the one you need

Thanks for updating us on your progress. We just wanted to know if you happen to own any of our other games on Steam prior to buying Castle Crashers (Alien Hominid Invasion, Alien Hominid HD, Pit People, Battleblock Theater)? If you do, have you experienced similar issues trying to boot those games?

[MeTaL Zee]

ok, i see where you want to go but can you explain in more detail what i need to put and where please

[The Chickenmancer]

Originally posted by MeTaL Zee:

ok, i see where you want to go but can you explain in more detail what i need to put and where please

After you extract it go ahead and double click it to run it.

At some point it will ask you where you want to put the extracted file. Go ahead and create a new folder on your desk top and label it anything you want as long as you can find it. Click Browse and find that folder and select OK.

After it has extracted all the files in the new folder, go to that folder and find DXSETUP and double click that to run it. Follow the instructions and it should find and update your DirectX. After it is done, try to boot Castle Crashers again. Please let us know if it worked or if you need further assistance.