Can't launch game after the November 9, 2021 update

[Lord Huntsman.4691]

Dear ANet,

 

When is this going to be resolved?  More to the point, with SOOOOOOO many people affected, why the hell haven't you rolled back to the last functional build?  QA team is slipping, big time.

 

Git gud,

The Community

[ThroneOfGWII.7801]

Same issue for me.

The workaround using 'windowed' mode(shorcut) worked but this has lead to sometimes crashing to desktop when mapping out.

Also half the time crashes if I alt tab out.

This didn't happen after the patch.

It started happening when I DISABLED 'direct X 11 beta'. (did it cause I noticed some issues like enemy Tells not showing up and just seeing my heath bar drop for no reason and wanted to test it without beta on which of course I can't test properly now )

So the work around in my case(without crashing to desktop) is ENABLING direct X 11 beta.

Used 'windowed mode' just to make the change in options and then restarted the client.

Running:

Windows 10 / 64Gig / AMD 3950x / 1070Ti / NvMe/SDD drives

Edited November 11, 2021 by ThroneOfGWII.7801

[Tony.8659]

The issue is having the same problems on their work PC's.  If so  then do not let it go live.  Just fix it, delay the update that's all. 😀 

Edited November 11, 2021 by Tony.8659

[SimulationOfLife.4657]

I've noticed people asking us to do or change all kinds of things on our computers. Now when I say I'm not a comp tech person, let me say that some people I know are. They advise you Not to mess with your comp for the most part, and let the game techs fix this issue. As one op said, our level of computer skills and our comp setups have probably not changed much, from since b4 the update. I think it best to listen to the techs.

Edited November 11, 2021 by SimulationOfLife.4657

[Lord Huntsman.4691]

Well, it will sometimes run and sometimes not.  It may run for me in admin mode, and other times it does not.  The behavior is not consistent, which leads me to believe that their login or backend servers are not all at the same patch/build level, either.  I don't know, but to say it is frustrating is a complete understatement.  I can't believe they haven't rolled back, yet.

 

At some point, they need to pull the plug, roll back, and resolve it completely.

 

Although it is simple enough, I'm NOT going to start jacking around with client folders, running repairs, and tweaking start-ups.  For all I know, those actions will complicate recovery.  I'm fine with waiting for something to get fixed before release (i.e. wvw alliance beta was pulled).  I'm NOT fine with having to deal with a broken system, when we all know the last build was functional.

 

ROLL IT BACK!  RIGHT MEOW!

[Witch of Doom.5739]

1 hour ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

No one said anything about messing with the Registry. If you want to avoid future conflicts between the game client and Windows, you should heed my advice. I mean well, by the way.

I know you didn't say anything about the registry, also that you mean well.  I have read some doozies about how to fix this issue on Reddit, etc., some ridiculously complicated.  I just think most of the fixes are more than what most people want to do.  Try Windowed mode, not full screen.  I also mean well !

[Erin.1948]

I know this issue started to be reported yesterday at some point but even then I was able to log in. Played till 1:30am without issues, then this morning, I tried and after login, click play and I hear the character selection music in the background but no picture. I can't ctrl, alt, delete or even alt tab as it freezes up and I just basically have to reboot. I even uninstalled then reinstalled the game because after the long list of suggestions and at least 1 suggestion I wasn't comfortable going into my system 32 folder and placing the d3d9.dll file from the system 32 folder to the guild wars 2 folder. I tried everything else and nothing has worked. Some say it has worked for them and others like me nothing has worked.  People in my guild are on as we speak and probably more are on but is it due to them not updating and trying to relog onto the game? 

[Lord Huntsman.4691]

Ya, I don't know what the deal is, either.  At this point, I cannot get the game to launch at all... period.  Yesterday, I had hit-and-miss success with running it in admin mode.  Today, it does not matter - no joy.  I have NOT changed the client whatsoever.  All my drivers, OS, and apps are up-to-date.

 

Windows 10 Professional, Version 21H1 (OS Build 19043.1348)

AMD FX(tm)-9590 Eight-Core Processor 4.72 GHz

AMD Radeon HD 7900 x 2 (crossfire linked)
RAM 16.0 GB

64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
I have SSD x 5 in a RAID-0 configuration (stripe set / no parity) and all my discs are healthy (yes, I ran a tool check)

 

[Sarpan.9074]

Had this problem last night. Updated my Nvidia driver and removed arcdps and got it working. Even worked later in the evening with the most updated arcdps. Tonight, back to locking up my computer. Removed arcdps and still no go.
I'm not messing around with my computer, though. The problem is on Anet's end with this update. They need to fix it, I don't need to be fiddling around with things that worked fine 48 hours ago.

[Hallow.7368]

1 minute ago, Sarpan.9074 said:

Had this problem last night. Updated my Nvidia driver and removed arcdps and got it working. Even worked later in the evening with the most updated arcdps. Tonight, back to locking up my computer. Removed arcdps and still no go.
I'm not messing around with my computer, though. The problem is on Anet's end with this update. They need to fix it, I don't need to be fiddling around with things that worked fine 48 hours ago.

They must of just changed something I was fine all day and yesterday, but literally just now opening up my gw2 radial immediately crashed every time I tried it. 

[Sarpan.9074]

5 minutes ago, Hallow.7368 said:

They must of just changed something I was fine all day and yesterday, but literally just now opening up my gw2 radial immediately crashed every time I tried it. 

This might help - I always launch from the icon pinned to my taskbar. I tried launching from the start menue and it worked. So I removed the old pinned icon and pinned the shortcut icon on the desktop, then launced from that new pinned icon. It worked. Try it.

 

[Nithmal.1462]

Posted a while ago the work around, and relaunching the game a few times doing the trick. Now, that no longer works. In fact, can no longer use my keyboard to access Task manager at all. Or, more accurately, I can. But I can no longer see what I am doing. So I push keys on faith. This is absurd.

[cargan.5689]

Not a tech  and only posting this as it cant break anything for people like me that didn't want to go in and start renaming folders or making changes that might mean when there is a fix then i have trouble getting things back to normal.

Have a system "gaming booster" that shipped with my mother board. Shuts down between 20 and 35 windows garbage programs. 

Have found that when i run GW2 windowed after cleaning up it works but when i dont  or the system has been on and idle for a few hours i am back to the crash at start invisible game problem.

 

May just be my system but i do wonder if there is one of the pieces of crap windows runs in background that you dont actually need is part of the problem. 

At least as it is a temp thing, windows loads all its bloat back at boot, it is something people might try with low risk that got me back in game. 

( not mentioning brand as i am unsure of the forum rules on promotion )

[Hallow.7368]

10 minutes ago, Sarpan.9074 said:

This might help - I always launch from the icon pinned to my taskbar. I tried launching from the start menue and it worked. So I removed the old pinned icon and pinned the shortcut icon on the desktop, then launced from that new pinned icon. It worked. Try it.

 

I just ended up uninstalling all my addons. I wasn't having trouble getting into the game just whenever I activated my radial it crashed when it wasn't doing so yesterday or all day earlier today. It's not the end of the world the game feels smoother with the built in dx11 than a 3rd party tool that has to translate every dx9 call into dx12. Only reason I was still even using dx912 was because radial just doesn't support dx11 yet, but I can get by without.

[Oodles.2981]

Have been having the same problem all day today. Read through the forum and changed to windowed mode and it's working now. Hoping for a complete fix in the near future.

[Coda.7093]

I noticed this as soon as I updated the game to this patch. While playing I saw the notification for the latest build so I logged off and updated it. The game has been crashing whenever I try to launch it since. I've sent error reports each time. It was working fine pre-patch. It's definitely something they broke on their end with the patch. I have no third party apps. I have spent way too much money on this game to not be able to play it. I expect access to it whenever I feel like playing it (when maintenance isn't going on). That's the bare minimum level of customer support you should expect from a paid mmo. It should have been fixed immediately or rolled back to the previous working build.

Edited November 11, 2021 by Coda.7093

[Sylvyn.4750]

1 hour ago, Erin.1948 said:

I know this issue started to be reported yesterday at some point but even then I was able to log in. Played till 1:30am without issues, then this morning, I tried and after login, click play and I hear the character selection music in the background but no picture. I can't ctrl, alt, delete or even alt tab as it freezes up and I just basically have to reboot. I even uninstalled then reinstalled the game because after the long list of suggestions and at least 1 suggestion I wasn't comfortable going into my system 32 folder and placing the d3d9.dll file from the system 32 folder to the guild wars 2 folder. I tried everything else and nothing has worked. Some say it has worked for them and others like me nothing has worked.  People in my guild are on as we speak and probably more are on but is it due to them not updating and trying to relog onto the game? 

Same here...worked for me fine yesterday after the patch, but not tonight...grr!

[adunck.2758]

Just updated, logged in.  I can hear the game music, I get a cute hand pointer, then it reverts to the standard mouse arrow, but no character selection screen....AND IT BRICKS MY ENTIRE UI!!!!  

 

So, I just got home and wanted to relax, but I see I'm not the only one frustrated.

Any word on actual fix instead of a random settings change experiment?

[Ashantara.8731]

2 hours ago, Lyssia.4637 said:

Mine game isn't installed on C:\Program Files.  (It's actually on my D:\)  It's on my antivirus's list of exceptions as well, and I double checked my antivirus as soon as all this started.  Still getting the problem.  😒

Has the whole Guild Wars 2 folder been added to the exceptions or just the Gw2-64.exe?

Other than that, perhaps you have limited user rights on your computer? Have you tried launching Gw2-64.exe as Administrator?

[SimulationOfLife.4657]

I'm in gw2 in windowed mode as I type this. The window feels off-shaky, IDK really, kind of like it wants to quit. I was almost afraid to minimize the window to type this, since I'm not sure it will come back up. Will update later. ( To the people who are being told by others that they need to do this or that to their comps, Wait. I'm told this is happening to too many people for it to be your computer. )

Edited November 11, 2021 by SimulationOfLife.4657

[Mogster.7429]

On 11/9/2021 at 11:02 AM, judge.8754 said:

What worked for me was renaming: 
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Guild Wars 2

and 

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Temp\gw2cache-

 

basicly it removes and rebuilds old cache and settings.

Thanks, this worked for me. I nuked the Guild Wars 2 folder in Roaming and any gw2cache folders in Temp and the game launched without a problem.

[Queen of Sheba.6395]

I tried and failed using a lot of the suggestions on this forum.  I even tried logging in on a second computer to try to kick myself out of the game in the first computer so I wouldn't have to reboot.  But both computers had the issue with only sound and no picture.  I didn't get an error with either one about being logged in twice.  So, knowing that there was a Microsoft update as well on Tuesday, I went into my Windows security and made an exception for the Guild Wars executable file, and I was able to log in and play.  I don't know if this will continue to work, but worth a try.

[mechanicalman.8645]

The only thing that's I've found to work has been doing a Repair Data Archive and waiting a few minutes and I can get into game.

 

ANET Where's the patch?!?!?!?!

[mechanicalman.8645]

19 minutes ago, mechanicalman.8645 said:

The only thing that's I've found to work has been doing a Repair Data Archive and waiting a few minutes and I can get into game.

 

ANET Where's the patch?!?!?!?!

it's worked the last 2 times i did it and didn't work upon launch after archive repair this time

 

[Kristi Hex.6738]

Angry Noises!!!  Arrrggg!

This is happening to me too.