Stellaris launcher fails to launch

[CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate]

Since 2.6.2 the stellaris launcher is failing to launch forcing me to run the Stellaris.exe file directly. Nothing I do seems to fix this, including running it under administrator rights, deleting and reinstalling the game, or anything.

[Fractionated Heparin]

Do you use mods? Some mods can cause the crash and probably need to be updated, in that case you can try running the game without mods and see if it still crashes.

[CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate]

All mods removed, still failed to launch. Mods consisted of adviser voice packs.

[Meewec]

to be clear, is it the launcher not starting or the launcher not starting the game?

[CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate]

Originally posted by Meewec:

to be clear, is it the launcher not starting or the launcher not starting the game?

Launcher not launching. I do not get a launcher showing up, steam says the game is launching for a second, then goes back to not loading.

As I said, I can run stellaris.exe to bypass the launcher and play the game manually, but I cannot turn on or off DLCs, because no launcher.

[Meewec]

you can try this
https://steamcommunity.com/app/281990/discussions/0/1751275054054015505/

i should probably bookmark that so it's not lost the next time someone has this issue.

[Dr. Loan Lee]

Make sure the launcher or dowser.exe has admin rights

[FerrusPugnum]

Originally posted by Meewec:

you can try this
https://steamcommunity.com/app/281990/discussions/0/1751275054054015505/

i should probably bookmark that so it's not lost the next time someone has this issue.

to clarify some points in that fix. I run the games on my D drive and some ran on my removable E drive for months after I fixed the launcher issue. There may be a few that moving to C works but it is not the real fix. As stated above giving dowser.exe run as admin rights for ALL users and the launcher as well plus running in windowed mode works for many people.

Don't waste a lot of time moving files and game directories around. if you games from Paradox run from the game .exe file location is not the issue.

[CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate]

Yeah, I'm not moving this to my C drive, sorry. That's for my OS and my OS alone. If that's their fix, they need to rethink their life choices.

[Dr. Loan Lee]

Originally posted by CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate:

Yeah, I'm not moving this to my C drive, sorry. That's for my OS and my OS alone. If that's their fix, they need to rethink their life choices.

If works fine outside of C:, I run Stellaris from my fourth HD

[CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate]

Found more time to dig into this issue, turns out the launcher isn't even installing anything. Just empty directories where it should be. No amount of administrator rights will fix that one. Going to Paradox and requesting that they figure out why their installer is failing to install without even a log message to say why. (repeatedly tried installing for several hours)

[Meewec]

Originally posted by CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate:

Found more time to dig into this issue, turns out the launcher isn't even installing anything. Just empty directories where it should be. No amount of administrator rights will fix that one. Going to Paradox and requesting that they figure out why their installer is failing to install without even a log message to say why. (repeatedly tried installing for several hours)

the launcher never installed anything. steam installs stellaris and the launcher. the only thing that ever happens in the launcher is it sometimes updates

[CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate]

Originally posted by Meewec:

Originally posted by CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate:

Found more time to dig into this issue, turns out the launcher isn't even installing anything. Just empty directories where it should be. No amount of administrator rights will fix that one. Going to Paradox and requesting that they figure out why their installer is failing to install without even a log message to say why. (repeatedly tried installing for several hours)

the launcher never installed anything. steam installs stellaris and the launcher. the only thing that ever happens in the launcher is it sometimes updates

This is incorrect. The launcher is an .msi program which is run when Steam detects that it is not installed. This is an installation program which fails to install correctly on my system. I have debugged it and it doesn't install anything. My virus program is stopping it because of Install Shield violations, but even if I turn it off, it fails to install.

Something is wrong with the installer, and that is what my problem is. They need to fix it as it's not working right. There is no launcher installed on my system to run at all.

[FerrusPugnum]

look for the file dowser.exe now in the game directory i think.. if it is there give it admin rights. the launcher has caused low level system security violations from day one. Paradox knows this and never answered the question as to what exactly it is doing. That file and the launcher.exe admin rights may give you a fix. you might have to do the same for the .msi program if its being blocked at least until it installs the launcher.

[CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate]

Originally posted by FerrusPugnum:

look for the file dowser.exe now in the game directory i think.. if it is there give it admin rights. the launcher has caused low level system security violations from day one. Paradox knows this and never answered the question as to what exactly it is doing. That file and the launcher.exe admin rights may give you a fix. you might have to do the same for the .msi program if its being blocked at least until it installs the launcher.

It doesn't matter if I do that or not. The launcher doesn't exist. The fact is I already did that, I said that in the original post. It can't actually run the launcher though. As for the .msi it is not a program. A .msi is not a program at all. It is a description file that the Windows Installer program decodes and uses to unpack and install another program. It also automatically requests administrator rights. It is trying to have it do something it should not be doing though on my version of windows, and Windows itself is preventing it. This is why it fails to install.

[FerrusPugnum]

It is triggering a low level security flag detected as you said by your Install Shield.

One way to try and get around it is to make sure you give run as admin access to All USERS by right clicking on the program and at the bottom of the requester select it for all. i spent a few days going back and forth with Paradox who blame your system for the errors when in fact it causes the error by trying to access secure areas.

You may have to give it an exception with your firewall program as well.

If that is the kind of error you are getting , you give it access or don't use the launcher at all. Play vanilla.

C:\Users\....\AppData\Local\Programs\Paradox Interactive\launcher-v2.2020.4

it is under programs first and not local\paradox interactive... throws you off looking for it.

Dowser.exe is in the game directory or should be.

There are driver errors but what you describe is what I had at the start and after a major update for all of my Paradox games. I found and corrected it and they all run fine with the launcher.

And Paradox tech people do tell you to try and run the .msi file directly to see if it works.

There are other complied utility programs that use the .msi extension and are used to install items on your systems.