Assassin's Creed Unity Stuck on Splash Screen

[itscooldani]

Hey everyone, I'm having a lot of trouble getting AC Unity to even open. It just gets stuck on the splash screen, and can only be closed via the task manager.

I'm aware that there are a few similar thread[forums.ubisoft.com]s about this or similar issue[forums.ubisoft.com]s with AC Unity or Syndicate, but they're either not super detailed or I have tried everything suggested in those threads. Alternatively, they suggest to create a support ticket with Ubisoft, which I have also done (ticket 12932782). I'm going through detailed support with one very helpful agent (Ubi-Elite), but everyone else I've spoken to so far has been pretty unhelpful.

I'm opening this thread because it seems like a common issue with these games, and I want to catalogue everything I have tried, and ask if anyone has any ideas about things that might be causing or things I haven't tried to fix the issue. I'm open to anything short of buying a new PC at this point.

My System:

• My system is a 2017 Macbook Pro running Windows 10.
  
• My GPU is a AMD Radeon Pro 560
  
• My CPU is an i7-7820HQ
  
• I have 16GB of RAM

Things I have tried:

• Reinstall
  
• Clean boot
  
• Verify game files
  
• Install from DVD vs install from download
  
• Reinstall support software provided by game
  
• Reinstall all MS VCC redistributables from 2010 to 2015
  
• Reinstalled graphics drivers
  
• Installed third party graphics drivers
  
• Running ACU.exe as admin
  
• Running UPlay as admin
  
• Disabling fullscreen optimisation
  
• Running in compatibility mode for both Windows 7 and 8
  
• Disabling Uplay, Steam, Discord, etc overlays
  
• Putting UPlay in offline mode
  
• Disabling cloud save
  
• Changing system resolution
  
• Changing system DPI
  
• Running a system file check
  
• Creating a new admin user and trying to run the game from that account
  
• Forwarding ports 443 and 14000
  
• Turning off my VPN
  
• Disabling GPU management software

Things that might be relevant:

• Everything is installed on the C drive.
  
• The only errors in my MS info log relating to ACU.exe are two "RADAR_PRE_LEAK_64" issues. The timings to not align with when I have experienced the issues, and from what I can tell this error is a notification of a report being sent to Microsoft, and not an actual error per se.
  
• There was an error in the UPlay launcher.log, saing "ChannelsGet.cpp (65) Failed to get channels.", which did align with when the freeze was happening. This was fixed by updating to the third party drivers.
  
• My internet connection has been very stable, but UPlay is giving me hints that it's having trouble connecting to whatever services it needs to connect to. Theres a warning at the bottom of the UPlay saying it will try to reconnect, and cloud saves usually fail to sync.
  
• I've heard multiple people at Ubisoft say to me "it's just Bootcamp", but they can't actually tell me what about Bootcamp isn't working, which makes me think they're just latching onto that because they have no real idea and can't be bothered investigating it further. If you think my Bootcamp setup is the problem, please be detailed in why you think it is causing this specific issue because:
  
• Every other modern game I have tried to run on this system runs perfectly with high graphics settings. This includes Dishonored 2, Battlefield 5, PUBG, etc.

IMPORTANT UPDATE:
I have just downloaded and installed Assassin's Creed Syndicate through Steam, and it opens perfectly fine. This is not an issue with my PC, specifications or setup.

I don't really want to post my DXdiag or msinfo out of privacy concerns, but if you have specific things you want me to look for in them I can. Happy to post UPlay logs as well, but I haven't seen anything interesting in those.

[itscooldani]

I have now also tried: I repartitioned my SSD, created a new volume, and installed ACU on that instead of C.

[itscooldani]

Another update:
I looked at the ACU.exe process with a tool called Process Monitor, and I saw what looked like errors with the audio device. So I disconnected my audio interface from my laptop, and now the splash screen doesn't freeze, but closes after a couple of seconds.

[itscooldani]

I've managed to get it to work by (sort of) following the instructions here[forums.ubisoft.com]

I copied the sounddata folder to an external USB drive, and symlinked it from there. Now the game works fine.

I would like to take a minute to just mention how absolutely horrible the tech support at Ubisoft is.

I spoke with multiple people, provided logs, investigated myself, provided more logs, mentioned theories about why I think it might be an issue with the sound folder based on viewing the exe in Procmon, but every time they just say "its bootcamp, its not supported" or "your GPU isn't powerful enough".

They could never tell me what about Bootcamp was causing the issue, and kept giving me straight up false information about how bootcamp works (it's not a virtual environment, its essentially a disk partitioning tool and some driver scripts). They kept repeating this false information and ending the chat.

Even when I told them I had fixed it and asked for help to get it working with the sounddata folder in the right place, they STILL blamed bootcamp and said they couldn't help me.

I am beyond furious with them. Yes it's a frivolous issue to get upset about, it's just a game. But no company should be able to get away with taking people's money and then lying to them about why their product doesn't work, and blaming them for the issues. I'm a petty, entitled white man, but even I deserve to have my problems heard and taken seriously.

The only person who seriously attempted to help me was Ubi-Elite. I'm pretty sure I spoke to everyone else at Ubisoft's support live-chat, and they were the only one who wasn't immediately dismissive of me, and actually listened when I mentioned things I thought could be the issue.

[Cyanide Salesman]

Dude I know this is 4 years late but if you never figured it out AC Unity is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stupid and needs to be installed to whatever your boot drive is. I only solved his after backtracing everything over the last like month. Hope it helps man

[Ubi-WheelyDuck]

Originally posted by Cyanide Salesman:

Dude I know this is 4 years late but if you never figured it out AC Unity is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stupid and needs to be installed to whatever your boot drive is. I only solved his after backtracing everything over the last like month. Hope it helps man

Hey there,

Thank you for taking the time out to share what helped you.

I will now lock this thread since it is an older one.

If ever we can help in the future, just let us know.

- Ubisoft Support