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!

[Seks]

just to keep the info flowing. i just had this issue. it was in fact too many audio devices.

the primary issue is too many audio devices. when the game loads, at the point when the splash music would play when the RS pick is in the lower right corner of the white screen, the game would CTD (crash to desktop) instead of beginning the splash music. not sure if this is related but my rocksmith.ini file had: "ForceDefaultPlaybackDevice=" instead of a number picking a device. so i updated to "ForceDefaultPlaybackDevice=1". this didnt help.

disabling in devman did not help, i had to "uninstall device". in my case i had a total of 14 entries. 4 were recently added virtual devices for a project that didnt work out and i forgot to uninstall them. i now have 10 items in devman, and 1 disabled (it was a virtual cable), so 9 active items and the game fully loaded.

this is definitely a bug with the game. but only discovered too late for them to fix.i would love to see someone patch this bug out, cuz it really seems like a hardcoded array issue, which could be a super easy fix. either change one constant to a variable, preferably the function that will give you the total count of audio devices like with MMDevice: "pEnumerator->EnumAudioEndpoints(eRender, DEVICE_STATE_ACTIVE, &pCollection)->GetCount(&count);"

if i had to guess instead of enumerating over the whole list of detected devices they enumerate through the first 10, maybe due to a hardcoded array of size [9] thinking no normal user would have more than 10 audio devices (which seems like a huge oversight for programmers who dabble in music). if the real tone cable isnt detected in those 10 it crashes the code as it would go out of bounds searching. it doesnt make sense it crashing due to detecting an audio device for playback, cuz you would be able to fall back on any previously detected output device.

edit: i think the issue is popping up now due to the resurgance of virtual audio devices. like for SteamLink, or other virtual cables.

[tkpn]

私の場合は、Voicemeeter Bananaをinstallした結果
VirtualなSound Deviceが10個以上増えた状態で起動しなくなりました。

Voicemeeter Bananaをuninstallし、Sound Deviceから
VB-Audio VoiceMeeter VAIOをDeleteしたところで、起動するようになりました。

Sound Deviceの増減や変更でうまく起動しなくなるようです。

[mwailes]

This was the solution for me. I have a USB to HDMI box that I'm using to run a few additional monitors. Unplugging that from my computer got Rocksmith up and going. Once it loaded, I could plug the box back in and everything worked.

[Chaderlen]

Worked for me, many thanks! The total number of audio devices was 14, so I disabled some unused ones, and then it worked. Enjoy your award 😊

[BulletFever409]

This isn't working for me, I had 16 audio drivers under 'sound, video and game controllers' disabled a enough to get me down to 12 and now it's still not opening at all. Crashing as soon as the pick appears in the bottom right.

[YoureWithStupid]

I disabled my 3 Elgato devices and it worked like a charm. Thanks!

[Mazza]

Tried this method and now Rocksmith works !!!.

You have to disable Audio devices (Via Device Manager not the built in Windows settings) each time you reboot your system (Windows 11) and then the game will launch. I enabled each device and I believe that the game does have a hard limit of 15 Audio devices before it decides to not start.

I had to disable scaling in the game exe file as the screen was far too zoomed in.

[ComradeSebby]

I disabled devices one by one until they were all disabled and the game still won't launch. It auto-crashes

[Yoster]

Първоначално публикувано от ComradeSebby:

I disabled devices one by one until they were all disabled and the game still won't launch. It auto-crashes

You are likely dealing with a different issue. Can you outline when *exactly* it crashes?

[Yoster]

Bumping this thread given the recent influx of "won't start" threads.

[Dr. ScreamingSun]

YOSTER YOU ABSOLUTE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ LEGEND!!!!

I've always had to mess with this game crashing every couple months when I want to play it.... Device manager limit at 15 devices is confirmed!!!!!! I deleted bluetooth devices until i got to 15 and it absolutely started working

[᲼⁧⁧Somyst]

If you love this community, don't get hired by Ubisoft if they invite you, this is an extremely ridiculous problem, I formatted my computer due to lack of success in the endless attempts to make it work, and the real problem was simply the VoiceMeeter audio inputs, Ubisoft and its programmers are incompetent and deserve everything bad... thank you by the way!

[Cobra6]

Yoster, your solution looked very promising, but unfortunately it did not work for me. I disabled EVERY device, and nothing.

When I attempt to boot up RS2014, the green play button turns blue and says starting. After about 20 seconds, the button turns back to a green play button. I don't even get to the white startup screen, nor does my system tray display the Rocksmith application icon.

Any ideas?

[Ratamahatta]

you f*cking solved it!!!!!!!! my m*therf*cking HERO!!!!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!

[MAUMAU]

Първоначално публикувано от Arkanno:

The only sollution for me was installing the CDLC and then installing the Direct3d 9:
https://www.microsoft.com/pt-br/download/details.aspx?id=35

after I tried a lot of things, this solved my problem
thanks man
e viva o VR, em breve a massa estara toda no metaverso qndo os vestiveis substituirem os celulares