Shogun 2: Crashing: A definitive troubleshooting checklist. (On what does not work)

[Noobinati]

Shogun 2: not working for some magical reason™ edition

Hello there fellow dude who probably got this game free like me.
I'd like to start off with the obvious: yes I keep crashing in the splash screen.
Yes the cursor changes and then the game disappears abruptly like with the others with this issue- And no, there is no crash report to be found either.
Yes, the machine is fine enough to run this, i5+ a dusty old GTX970.
Benchmarking claims "user has aborted benchmark".
Let me at least help you others with the same issues with things I have tried that DIDN'T work, so you can save your time. Alternatively, you can try these things yourself to find a fix for any other type of problem or crash.

Most of these solutions were scoured from the depths of 5 year old forums, steam discussions now, and the current Total War Support-page.
Let's get right to business.

Windows:
-Windows compatability mode for 7,8, vista and xp.
-Launch in admin mode for the game and steam.
-Disable firewall restrictions on app.
-Check that antivirus does not quarantine or conflict with files.
-Launch with DX9 & 11, with all possible graphics settings.
-Reinstall DX, update DX.
-Ge-force settings- (spoilers, if you cant get past the start screen you cant change these in NVIDIA, you have to change it in the log or start settings that I repeat, wont work.)
-Unistalling and reinstalling all windows C++ graphic thingies.
-Updating Nvidia-drivers.
-Reinstalling Nvidia-drivers.
-Removing anything reading "chrome" in regedit. (Yes, someone claimed this would work, spoilers, it didn't, don't mess with regedit for nothing like me.)
-reinstalling adobe, uninstalling adobe, updating adobe.
-having an existential breakdown.
-morale restored
-Looking for crashlogs. No clues. Hope you have some. Could help a lot.
-Restarting the computer. After. Every. Single. Attempt. At these.

Added:
-Starting the game in big picture mode.
-Freezing the game in resource management, then continuing it.

Steam:
-Uninstalling and reinstalling the game.
-Reinstalling it 9 times in a row.
-verifying files. Every. Single. Reinstall.
-Opting out from beta-versions.
-Opting into the mac beta.
-opting out of Steam Beta.
-Installing mods from the workshop.
-Uninstalling all mods.
-Disabling cloud saves.
-enabling cloud saves.
-Disabling steam overlay.
-inserting a fist into the monitor. No fix.
-Starting the game through steam overlay, desktop icon, inside the folder, and the Total War game launcher included in the newer games.
-Buying DLC and launching it afterwards wishing for a Pay-to-Work miracle. No hope.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=273651127
-Messing around with script DOES NOT WORK. You can't fix it by inserting custom launch settings.

(DISCLAIMER: this game worked instantly on a rig set up IDENTICALLY to this one, with the same exact OS (W10) and the same exact specs)
(It appears that the game works perfectly for most, but for the few, it works dreadfully. And it additionally seems to be completely based on RNG)
(https://forums.totalwar.com/discussion/250856/i-fixed-the-crash-on-splash-screen-bug-try-this
Holy ♥♥♥♥, some guy got his working for two days BY INSTALLING MCAFEE FFS, DISHONORABLE DISPLAY)

Edit: 1 I've spent 40 minutes in total just booting the game. Every boot lasts around 30 sec.

THERE IS NO FIX, ONLY DESPAIR

Edit: 2 A clue found. As I tried to do CPU benchmarks I found something interesting: With a custom gfx script forcing the game to boot up on windowed mode, the game will be forced to boot up twice, even if the first benchmark crashes.This produces something interesting:
The game could not find two text files:
C:/Users//AppData/Roaming/The Creative Assembly/Shogun 2/First_Escape.log
and addtionally
gfx.log
If you add these manually, the game will forcefully delete them. The game additionally deletes the ones it creates and then fails. File integrity check does not add them.
I believe this is the root cause, but I have no fix.

Edit: 3 When booting up Shogun 2, and looking at the exe being performed in resource management tab, you can see that the game does not just crash:
It is being stopped by Windows itself, and then completely closed.
This would explain why the benchmark tool keeps telling you that the user has aborted the benchmark, even though you did nothing.

This is a W10 issue, although unique on some OS:s it seems...
I doubt as users there is anything we could to.

[lucas.hoedemaker]

I have the same problem on my windows 10 laptop.
Saw a thread were someone did a troubleshoot of compatabilty over SHOGUN.exe in the folder.
Didnt work for me but maybe for you?

[indianculture]

Same problem here. Sometimes it magically works when I open the task manager and then go back to the game.

[GranpaWoz]

I've had this problem since January, uninstall/reinstalled more times than I can remember, no joy.

[CountMRVHS]

Yep, got this problem too.

I actually started having this problem a few weeks... or months? ... ago. (Time is hard to track in the era of quarantine.) But I did get an error message: it'd say that the Steam servers were busy, which didn't make sense to me as I was offline.

Anyway, these days, no error message at all: just start up, choose directx (9 or 11, makes no difference), splash screen pops up, then disappears.

I was able to run this game, once upon a time, before I switched this PC to Windows 10. Maybe that has something to do with it. Who knows.

[CountMRVHS]

Also, add "try starting it in Big Picture mode" to the list of stuff that doesn't work, at least not for me.

[Elitewrecker PT]

Big picture was just for activating it.

[CountMRVHS]

Well, I'll be - starting the game while online worked.

I was able to start up, play several turns, and fight a battle.

Huh.

[Unmanned Ai Corgi]

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dude i thought i was going crazy and it was just me. I've tried all of your fixes as well and the game just hangs on the splash screen. I used to play this a lot and when it went free i decided to play it again with my friends. But now for some reason my game doesn't ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ work anymore lol. It's an odd issue for sure.

[Happyscientist]

Damn this is an entirely different problem then I get. Mine just crashes randomly and frequently ironicly I think the splash screen is the only time it HASNT crashed.

[Iceira]

Contact real support, because we other are tired of cleanup after CA and explan solutions..
https://steamcommunity.com/app/34330/discussions/0/1697174779851036384/

[Anton Gorki]

Hi all, same issue here but I started the game outside Steam. I failed too but it gave an error message:
"We have detected that your Steam installation has been corrupted and the game will now exit. This is usually due to an attempt to play a pirated co^py of the game, but may in some cases be caused by a virus or cheat program. If you own a genuine copy of Total WarTm: SHOGUN 2 or Total WarTM: Shogun 2 - Fall of The Samurai please exit the game, reinstall Steam, scan for viruses and disable any cheat programs you are running. If you do not own a genuine copy of... please purchase one from ..."

[Noobinati]

Good find Anton. This could be the root issue. However, I don't think a corrupted Steam is a probable cause to this, nor that the game thinks it's pirated.
A more probable cause to this is something that the game thinks is a virus or a cheat program on the background... I do have a suspicion that the cause might be some DRM or cheat prevention program from some other game running on the background... For example League of Legends anticheat runs on the background at all times, even outside the game being on.
I'll have to test this. The problem to be honest is, that a game this old could conflict with anything. Without a pinpoint location to a conflicting file it's like looking for a needle in a metaphorical virtual haystack.

[Happyscientist]

Originally posted by Iceira:

Contact real support, because we other are tired of cleanup after CA and explan solutions..
https://steamcommunity.com/app/34330/discussions/0/1697174779851036384/

pffft they just ignore you there too, ive tried with a different title (warhammer) and as far as I can tell no one at ca gives a rats ass.

[Anton Gorki]

Hi Noobinati,
indeed it would be difficult to identify what is causing this. However, we are many in this situation and we probably share a similar "pattern" of configuration/installed applications.
Some unsuccessful attempts:
- stopped Xbox Game bar,
- stopped Avast Antivirus,
- Switch off internet connections.
I'm on a Asus laptop (Nvidia GeForce) 740M with W10.
Still trying to stop some applications running in background.

[Muerte]

Originally posted by Happyscientist:

Originally posted by Iceira:

Contact real support, because we other are tired of cleanup after CA and explan solutions..
https://steamcommunity.com/app/34330/discussions/0/1697174779851036384/

pffft they just ignore you there too, ive tried with a different title (warhammer) and as far as I can tell no one at ca gives a rats ass.

Sad but true...
@Op If you own Rome 2 or Attila check them too. They are broken for me aswell.