Game crashing? I think I found a universal fix

[Yoster]

So, a lot of you are dealing with an issue where this game insta-crashes on startup. I also had this issue recently, and, I thought, traced it to a program called "NVIDIA Broadcast." The general working theory here is that some audio devices 'conflict' with rocksmith.

Yesterday however, my rocksmith game stopped loading again, even without NVIDIA Broadcast installed. This lead me (again) on a chase.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I think I figured it out, once and for all.

It does not seem to have anything to do with a specific incompatibility. No, rather, Rocksmith seems to have a TOTAL device limit. I have tested this now with about 10 different configurations, I can *reproduce* the issue (and fix) on other computers as well.

The fix is this. Going to "Device Manager" - and expanding "Sound, Video and Game controllers" - you will find a list of devices. RS seems to have a seemingly hard limit on the amount of devices it can "see" here before it refuses to boot. In MY case, that limit seems to be about 15. If I add ANY single additional item here (a set of bluetooth headphones for instance) - RS will instantly not boot. Disabling ANY device (web cam, audio interface, onboard audio, doesn't matter) - will ALWAYS allow RS to launch again.

Note that disabling in the "audio control panel" will not work. It must be disabled from device manager.

On your personal system, I suggest you keep disabling items until you figure out what that "limit" is for your PC. But like I said, now that I'm approaching it with this "lens" - I can now apply this same thought to my other 3 PC's and bingo, business. In other words, it doesn't seem to have ANYTHING to do with the SPECIFIC accessory. For instance, I can have my Oculus hooked up just fine. No issue. And my camera. Etc etc. But, if any combination of those add up over 15 total enabled devices, it's like flipping a switch. No-launch.

In my specific case, I have 4 NVIDIA related devices enabled (including NVIDIA broadcast now!), about 6 Sound Blaster related devices, the Rocksmith tone cable, an audio interface, and a few virtual devices. I keep my bluetooth devices (things I hardly ever use anyway) disabled along with onboard audio (since I'm using a dedicated sound card) to stay under my "limit."

I'd like someone else to test this theory and let me know if it works for you!

[Yoster]

Yes that's a good overall idea, but in this case I believe I've pinpointed it. Which in the world of multi devices is good to know vs random hunting and pecking. I would absolutely bet that your steering wheel had nothing to do with it, but rather a limit or perhaps even USB IRQ limit. Steering wheels pull about 3-4 "spots" on the device list in device manager, which I bet anything was pushing you over the limit.

[Roflgar]

Nailed it. Thank you for sharing this find. I have an Elgato Wave 3 mic and it creates quite a few virtual devices. As soon as I unplugged it, I am back in business!

[aitorbk]

My issue is they updated it to promote RS plus and with the updated version it simply instacrashes

[GunsAndNoses]

Thank you so much, it worked

[Yoster]

Glad it worked for two of you!

Aitorbk - did you try the solution above? Are you even getting a 'white screen' before it crashes?

[Mike Wazowski]

I deleted these files D3DX9_42.dll avrt.dll xinput1_3.dll and it started working
I wasn't getting any screen or pop up. the play button would turn blue and revert to the green play button.
Credit to u/ZagatoZee

now i'm trying to make my 3rd party cable work

[Fedalar Gohzio Primus]

Originally posted by MikeHdzWazowski:

I deleted these files D3DX9_42.dll avrt.dll xinput1_3.dll and it started working
I wasn't getting any screen or pop up. the play button would turn blue and revert to the green play button.
Credit to u/ZagatoZee

now i'm trying to make my 3rd party cable work

This worked for me thanks, only had the dx file

[Beatlejuice]

I'm trying to follow the suggestion on disabling all of the the not required audio devices. I could not get it to work at all. I'm running a 12600K so I don't believe my thread/core count is an issue. Think I've got 16 threads total including E cores. I've removed my 42.dll file but the others, xinput1_3.dll I can't locate. Am I not understanding something? My old laptop ran this fine, but now I've traveled with my desktop and can't get it to run since about 6 months ago.

[Beatlejuice]

Update, it wasn't enough for me to disable the audio devices. It seems unplugging my Razer X microphone both allowed the game to start and in 1 previous time it launched, I had bad frame rates. It solved both problems.

[Spicy Groggy]

None of these options from any thread have been working for me :-\

Only had about 5 devices under sound and controller set up but disabled all except the rocksmith and my audio. Nothing.

Deleted the DLL files except for one (avrt.dll), I am unable to no matter what. It's linked to dwm.exe (desktop window manager) and that is impossible to close without it auto reopening.

I have an AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core Processor idk if that information is useful in this scenario

[martin.schillaci]

Originally posted by Yoster:

So, a lot of you are dealing with an issue where this game insta-crashes on startup. I also had this issue recently, and, I thought, traced it to a program called "NVIDIA Broadcast." The general working theory here is that some audio devices 'conflict' with rocksmith.

Yesterday however, my rocksmith game stopped loading again, even without NVIDIA Broadcast installed. This lead me (again) on a chase.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I think I figured it out, once and for all.

It does not seem to have anything to do with a specific incompatibility. No, rather, Rocksmith seems to have a TOTAL device limit. I have tested this now with about 10 different configurations, I can *reproduce* the issue (and fix) on other computers as well.

The fix is this. Going to "Device Manager" - and expanding "Sound, Video and Game controllers" - you will find a list of devices. RS seems to have a seemingly hard limit on the amount of devices it can "see" here before it refuses to boot. In MY case, that limit seems to be about 15. If I add ANY single additional item here (a set of bluetooth headphones for instance) - RS will instantly not boot. Disabling ANY device (web cam, audio interface, onboard audio, doesn't matter) - will ALWAYS allow RS to launch again.

Note that disabling in the "audio control panel" will not work. It must be disabled from device manager.

On your personal system, I suggest you keep disabling items until you figure out what that "limit" is for your PC. But like I said, now that I'm approaching it with this "lens" - I can now apply this same thought to my other 3 PC's and bingo, business. In other words, it doesn't seem to have ANYTHING to do with the SPECIFIC accessory. For instance, I can have my Oculus hooked up just fine. No issue. And my camera. Etc etc. But, if any combination of those add up over 15 total enabled devices, it's like flipping a switch. No-launch.

In my specific case, I have 4 NVIDIA related devices enabled (including NVIDIA broadcast now!), about 6 Sound Blaster related devices, the Rocksmith tone cable, an audio interface, and a few virtual devices. I keep my bluetooth devices (things I hardly ever use anyway) disabled along with onboard audio (since I'm using a dedicated sound card) to stay under my "limit."

I'd like someone else to test this theory and let me know if it works for you!

It works for me, thanks, i just have to turn off the bluetooth.

[setsuna]

Originally posted by MikeHdzWazowski:

I deleted these files D3DX9_42.dll avrt.dll xinput1_3.dll and it started working
I wasn't getting any screen or pop up. the play button would turn blue and revert to the green play button.
Credit to u/ZagatoZee

now i'm trying to make my 3rd party cable work

Thank you so much for the fix. It worked for me

[Yoster]

Re: Beetlejuice - it's not enough to just disable it in audio settings. You need to hard disable it from PC device manager. This is exactly why it worked when you physically unplugged it - you are removing the USB IRQ requests for that device (which also happens when you disable from device manager)

Glad it's working for everyone else!

[Yoster]

Originally posted by Spicy Groggy:

None of these options from any thread have been working for me :-\

Only had about 5 devices under sound and controller set up but disabled all except the rocksmith and my audio. Nothing.

Deleted the DLL files except for one (avrt.dll), I am unable to no matter what. It's linked to dwm.exe (desktop window manager) and that is impossible to close without it auto reopening.

I have an AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core Processor idk if that information is useful in this scenario

Have you ever been able to run the game in the past?

[Yoster]

Originally posted by MikeHdzWazowski:

I deleted these files D3DX9_42.dll avrt.dll xinput1_3.dll and it started working
I wasn't getting any screen or pop up. the play button would turn blue and revert to the green play button.
Credit to u/ZagatoZee

now i'm trying to make my 3rd party cable work

Good solution! But a solution to a different problem. The fix in this post is specific to people who can get to the Rocksmith white load screen, but then CTD.