Game Freezes on Exit

[Grimaldus300]

Hello everyone,

I’m facing an issue with Europa Universalis 4 on Steam. After reinstalling the game on my PC (following a full format) the game freezes whenever I try to exit.

Here’s what happens:

• If I select "Exit Game" from the main menu, the game freezes or gets stuck on a loading screen.
  
• If I load a saved game or start a new one and then try to exit, the game also freezes, with the cursor turning into an hourglass. Windows eventually shows a "program not responding" message.

Here’s what I’ve tried so far:

Verified game files on Steam.

• Updated all drivers and Windows to the latest version.
  
• Disabled any antivirus or third-party software.
  
• Formatted my PC again and reinstalled only the game, but the issue persists.

The game works fine during gameplay, but this issue discourages me from playing. Has anyone experienced something similar or found a solution? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

[grotaclas]

Does it help if you change the display mode to borderless fullscreen in the launcher like in the following screenshot?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2708648091

[Grimaldus300]

Originally posted by grotaclas:

Does it help if you change the display mode to borderless fullscreen in the launcher like in the following screenshot?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2708648091

Thanks for the suggestion! I tried switching to borderless fullscreen in the launcher, just like in the screenshot, but it didn’t work. The issue is still the same.

[grotaclas]

Do you maybe have the epic client installed? For some reason, epic overlay is used by the steam version of the game when it is installed. And the epic overlay has caused crashes and freezes for some people. If you have the epic client, but you don't play any games on it, you could try if it helps to uninstall it.

You could also check if there are other overlays (e.g. discord) and deactivate them. If you have geforce experience, you could try to deactivate any optimizations which it applied to eu4, because they often cause problems. Or maybe uninstall the geforce experience completely.

You could also check if eu4 creates a new folder in "Documents/Paradox Interactive/Europa Universalis IV/crashes" when it freezes. If it does, have a look at the exception.txt in that folder or post its contents here. It might give have some information about the source of the problem

[Grimaldus300]

Originally posted by grotaclas:

Do you maybe have the epic client installed? For some reason, epic overlay is used by the steam version of the game when it is installed. And the epic overlay has caused crashes and freezes for some people. If you have the epic client, but you don't play any games on it, you could try if it helps to uninstall it.

You could also check if there are other overlays (e.g. discord) and deactivate them. If you have geforce experience, you could try to deactivate any optimizations which it applied to eu4, because they often cause problems. Or maybe uninstall the geforce experience completely.

You could also check if eu4 creates a new folder in "Documents/Paradox Interactive/Europa Universalis IV/crashes" when it freezes. If it does, have a look at the exception.txt in that folder or post its contents here. It might give have some information about the source of the problem

Thanks for the suggestions, although I have the Epic client installed, the problem was already happening before I had it. The game doesn’t generate a crash report in the "Documents/Paradox Interactive/Europa Universalis IV/crashes" folder.

For now, the only solution I’ve found is to launch the game from another Windows user account. When I do that, it no longer freezes on exit.

[grotaclas]

Originally posted by Grimaldus300:

For now, the only solution I’ve found is to launch the game from another Windows user account. When I do that, it no longer freezes on exit.

This sounds very much like there is another software which interferes in some way. If it isn't the epic overlay, it could be some other overlay or some kind of software which tries to "optimize" eu4

[Grimaldus300]

Originally posted by grotaclas:

Originally posted by Grimaldus300:

For now, the only solution I’ve found is to launch the game from another Windows user account. When I do that, it no longer freezes on exit.

This sounds very much like there is another software which interferes in some way. If it isn't the epic overlay, it could be some other overlay or some kind of software which tries to "optimize" eu4

Sorry, you were right—it turns out the problem was indeed caused by the Epic launcher and its services. Do you know how I can fix this or what I should do to prevent it from interfering with EU4?

[Grimaldus300]

Originally posted by grotaclas:

Originally posted by Grimaldus300:

For now, the only solution I’ve found is to launch the game from another Windows user account. When I do that, it no longer freezes on exit.

This sounds very much like there is another software which interferes in some way. If it isn't the epic overlay, it could be some other overlay or some kind of software which tries to "optimize" eu4

After further testing, I wanted to share some updates:

1. I always launch Europa Universalis IV from the PLAY button in Steam.
2. Before starting the game, I’ve made sure that all Epic-related processes and services are completely closed.
3. Through testing, I discovered that the only ways to avoid the game freezing are:
- Uninstalling the Epic Games Launcher and its services.
- Creating a new Windows user account where the Epic Launcher has never been used.
4. The only issue I experience during gameplay happens when I press "Exit Game": the game freezes, and I can only close it by ending the process through Task Manager or logging out of Windows.
5. When I launch the game, a process named EOS Overlay Renderer (the only one related to Epic Games) starts automatically. When I press "Exit Game", this process ends, but the "Europa Universalis IV" process continues running. Clicking anywhere on the screen then causes Windows to mark the process as unresponsive, and I need to manually terminate it.

If you have any additional insights or solutions based on this information, I’d greatly appreciate your help.

Thanks again for your guidance!

[grotaclas]

I don't know the root cause for the issues with the epic overlay and last time I checked, there was no official way to disable the overlay. But you could try to search for other ways to disable the overlay. IIRC you can prevent it from loading by deleting some of its files.

[Rooter]

Interesting discussion.
I was recently experiencing this fail to exit in games other than EU4, Factorio for example.
It was recently fixed after a AMD driver update.

[Grimaldus300]

Hi everyone,

After trying several options and contacting Epic, Steam, and Paradox, I found the solution to the issue:

Make sure everything related to Epic is fully closed before launching the game (not even running in the background).
Link EU4 to your Epic account using the option in the bottom-right corner of the game's start screen.
By doing this, the game no longer freezes when I exit.

Thanks to everyone who offered help!