Launcher.exe closing after 5 seconds, no error message
 

I've browsed here and through other forums for solutions to this really annoying issue but I've found none at all.

The plot is: rusty mug-flier buys the Russian version (physical copy), installs Steam and Cliffs of Dover, ran the additional installers (only decided to do so after reinstalling it once; all told me everything was up to date, but reinstalled/repaired them anyway, no change in behaviour by our lovely stray exe), glances in amusement at the rather cool artwork in the box cover, stares deeply into RAF roundels eyes and, after a second's hesitation, clicks on it. Steam window shows up claiming it's preparing to launch Il-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover (tear stars forming upon reading the name), little spinning blue ring appears next to cursor (Vista 32-bit, all up-to-date)... *dramatic pause, eyes wide open with anxiety* Little blue ring disappears... *"coming at any time now"* ... *longer pause* ...*popping noise, racing heartbeat, flashing icon on toolbar, cursor rushes to check it out* ...Skype: "Hey"

...and that's it. No sign of the Launcher under the Processes tab, no error message, and I had a nice chat over Skype and went to bed laughing at some joke.

...but I'm still sort of annoyed by the Launcher.

So, just to clear some things up for anyone interested (rrrrrright.) in helping or at least reading this to kill time until Top Gear or whatever's on, I'm not an AVG user (not that it'd've mattered now anyway, since the patch covered it), I'm running Avira AntiVir. Launcher.exe does open, as checked with Task Manager open, at the very time the mystical blue ring's there (taking only around 16K in memory or so), but it only lasts for a few seconds, before vanishing without any notice. So basically, it opens, and it closes, and well, that's quite it, really.

Rig meets the specs.

Any guesses? :confused:

I believe you should try to launch the game from steam game list, (if you were using a shortcut before).

Already tried (actually, it was the first thing I tried), the results are pretty much the same, I'm afraid. Sucky thing is, apparently I'm the only lucky fellow awarded with such issue... But thanks for helping, either way

:confused:

let me guess - nvidia 480 gtx?

i have the same issue

my rig:

intel k875 i7
8 GB RAM
nvidia 480 GTX
tried latest driver and beta

doesn't even start

my sons rig:

intel core2duo e6600
4 gb RAM
ati 4870

runs...

same win 7 x64

Actually GeForce GT 120, but we're on the same boat, sadly...

You and a lot of other people - enough for there to be a poll about it.

I cannot get it running on my newer PC (also Nvidea 470) but my old PC (nvidea 275) will run it - slowly!

In your particular case, does it start and then a black screen shows or is it also nothing followed by an amusing amount of nothing?

Poll:

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=21035




.

This happened to me when one of my files was corrupted. Have any of you guys tried getting steam to validate your files? In steam library, right-click CoD, Properties, Local Files tab, Verify Integrity of Game Cache. If it finds a corrupted file it will redownload it.

So far I have:

Reinstalled CoD.

Verified file integrity thingie.

Checked I am up to date with patch (I am)

Reinstalled DX

Reinstalled Net.4

Rolled back to 260 nvidea drivers from most recent set

Turned off Avast firewall.

No dice. I get the a/c and gunsight logo then after 5 seconds the launcher error window. If I close the error window (but not exit the program) I get the Ubi movie and then the epi warning, and I can get to the menus, but any attempt to alter settings will not work. If I try to load a mission I am returned to the previous menu page and the error message reappears. Closing this exits CoD altogether.

I have pet techno-geek who is going to come and check out my setup but he is not available until 13th April: if he comes up with a solution I will be sure to share!

All a bit of a shame as I am enjoying my training flights on my other inferior PC.

Specs: Win 7 64bit, Intel Core i7 CPU 860@ 2.8GHz, 8.00GB RAM, nvidea GTX 470

Tried my luck with integrity too (ages ago and again now), no joy. Trying going back to 260 drivers right now (only step I hadn't properly tried, if to think of it), will tell how it goes (if it goes at all, that is).

...nope, nothing.

The beta 270 drivers do not do the trick either.

With the amount of pilots grounded right now, I think Hitler's enjoying a drink with the King in Buckingham already. :mrgreen: Meanwhile, trying another reinstall while running Steam as admin to see if it does the trick this time around. I think I'm entering pre-CoD depression again... Back then, it was still CoD :-P

had the same issue and this is how i fixed it. delete the il-2 sturmovik cliffs of dover folder in 1C SoftClub folder located in documents. I'm not sure that this will help all of you but for me it did.

Thanks for the tip, but unfortunately didn't do much here... This is a bit sad, and apparently there's been no apparent solution in some cases.

GT120? I suspect that is a weak,unsupported graphics card.Possibly that is the problem in your case Lucas.

Well if all else failed I'd be doing a Windows reinstall as well but I can understand some people not wanting to do that! I've had similar problems with other games (not CoD, thankfully) which were only solved by a fresh install unfortunately. Probably due to lack of expertise...

Pretty acquainted with the possibility, Uther. Not touching the compatibility field, it has 2GB and runs quite a few games with heavy graphics (such as Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway) smoothly, with fairly good settings. It came with the computer, and it'd be really crappy if the card ends up being the issue, since I'm trying to save some money for various purposes (namely a Telecaster guitar, a proper amplifier for it, and if any is spared, pairs of Converse or Vans shoes). It's kept me from buying a decent set of controls and I'm afraid that, for the time being, it might just keep me from buying a new card too.

I'm still a bit dodgy regarding the lack of any screen, sound or message after the crash, if it was the card there should, in theory, be some sign of it, no?

Defiantly get the telecaster before a new graphics card - then you won't care so much if the game won't run cause you'll have a nice tele to play . :)

instead of game, i get this for 50€

aach, soviet union never changes...


(w7, all updates, newest beta nvidia driver, ...,...)

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: Launcher.exe_Launcher
Application Version: 1.0.0.0
Application Timestamp: 4d6e3d08
Fault Module Name: core.dll
Fault Module Version: 0.0.0.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 4d92ff5c
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 001cf570
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1051
Additional Information 1: 0a9e
Additional Information 2: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
Additional Information 3: 0a9e
Additional Information 4: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789

That's so far the highest rated option. I wouldn't mind CoD running though, but well... A Tele's a Tele. :mrgreen:

Lucas, it's a long shot but check your ...\Steam\steamapps\common\il-2 sturmovik cliffs of dover folder to see if you've got the conf, confUser and confs.ini files in there. The reason I say this is that I deleted mine to restore the default ones and rather than verifying cache integrity I fired up the game and got the 5 second spinning circle you describe.

Cheers

Goanna

Thanks for the advice, Goanna, but no dice yet.

The files were already present when I checked - clicked Play, nothing.

I decided, just to make sure, to try what you did and so deleted them, followed by a cache integrity check, which said 23 files were missing. After everything was redownloaded, I tried again but the song remains the same - few seconds, nothing happens, and that's it.

Again, just to make sure, I'm running (or failing to run) the Russian version, physical copy. I don't think it'd make much of a difference in the normal run of things, but this particular release wasn't the normal run of things (although for flight sim standards, it wasn't too unusual :mrgreen:) so it might as well be a bug found only on this particular version.

OT: The marketing done in antecipation was quite nice. I jumped into a store in a mall today, shopping for CDs (if anyone's interested, got myself a copy of Radiohead's The King of Limbs, brilliant) and, as I walk in, I see this huge clock with the Cliffs of Dover cover on it, showing 00:00:00 - I didn't get the chance to see it ticking, but it's quite nice to see that there was such antecipation for a release that's considered to be aimed at a "small niche". Sadly it wasn't released under ideal conditions, but hey, there's time to make it an all-time classic, and even the current videos and screenshots hint that it's there already.

Hi Lucas, I was suffered same pain as you did.
I could run the game before I install the patch.
But not now. Launcher fail. No message appears.
It really drive me crazy!
My conf is GTX260+ & I7 920 with 4G RAM. WIN7

Able to run it before but now you can't? Ouch... Feel sorry for you, pebop. :(

A bit scary too since your rig sounds a tad more fit for the job.

My rig, in any case, is a stock HP p6050 (Intel quad-core 2.3MHz, Vista 32 bit, GeForce GT120, 3GB RAM).

I installed last beta patch in friday.
In the evening I tryed to go fly on-line.
During each 10 minutes Launcher.exe stopped work and game was dead.
After 4th time Launcher.exe crashed, I went sleep. :(

Windows 7 Home premium 64bit
Intel core i5 750 2,67 GHz
RAM 4 GB DDR3
NVidia GeForce 470 GTX

SSAO was ON

:(

Hi Lucas, this is a long shot but I had a similar problem to yours - drove me crazy all weekend (I'm in the U.S. and picked up the game from justflight on Friday, downloaded it from steam, all seemed well but clicking on the icon just didn't launch the game - no matter how much furious clicking I engaged in!).

Long story short, I ended up having a what seems to be a pretty rare problem with my .net framework. My computer (win7 64 pro) says I have .net 4.0 installed, but in actuality there are a few files (mscoree.dll files) that for some reason or other, never got updated - and don't get updated, even if you do a repair/reinstall of .net! Here's a link to check out-

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/astebner/arc.../10110053.aspx

You can use a simple download to check whether your .net is actually 4.0 from here.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/astebner/arc...3/8999004.aspx

Anyhow, I know it's a long shot but I suppose you're willing to entertain one at this point, so if you the time read those blogs and check whether you "really" have .net 4.0.

I tried updating/reinstalling .net 4.0 but that didn't work - I finally fixed the problem by doing a repair install of win7 from the dvd, which was a pain but in the end I'm up and flying (for a few minutes at least until I blow the engine).

Good luck, figure even if this doesn't work for you it's worth it to post in case someone ends up with a similar problem -

oh and one more thing, right afterward the repair install it didn't work, but then after windows update downloaded a whole mess of updates the game finally started.

was you home 7 an upgrade from vista?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOh6N...eature=related

use steam todo a file integrity check

No.

Thanks for the very very constructive and detailed post.

As their little .exe confirmed, my .NET 4.0 has indeed a few obsolete files, meaning I (and the others) might just have found a possible solution at least for this problem in particular, if anything.

So, we have a suspect - great, something to work on instead of . However, as Murphy's law goes, if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong, and flight simulators and computers are no exceptions to it.

And there I go trying to get the dreaded fix to run so I can finally destroy some engines properly by myself, without having to overheat it for an hour or have the flak do Swiss cheese out of it... Thing is, the fix for fixing the update error found - ta-daaa - an error :mrgreen:

I'm trying it again to see if I have any luck today, but hopes are anything but high, I'm afraid.

EDIT: In any case, here's the verifier's error log, showing what exactly is missing (a lot of things, pretty much)

TO ANYONE CONCERNED: THE LAUNCHER IS NOW WORKING.

Thank to all of those who helped.

Now, the solution I found to it turned out to be very simple.

1. Open iTunes, and put 2HB by The Venus In Furs, with Thom Yorke on the vocals on.
2. Download the .NET Framework 4.0 web installer (this thingy here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/e...displaylang=en )
2.1 Install it.
4. Open Steam.
4.1. Think it won't work.
4.2. Grin as the fancy crosshair appears on the screen.

Note: Step 1 is not mandatory, but it's still highly advised.

Now, to the arduous process of making this thing playable... :mrgreen:

EDIT: I'll just keep editing this very post just for the sake of... of whatever. Current state is, all of the menu's running pretty and everything; graphics aren't quite working and all I get when clicking fly is sound. And what a sound, by the way! But uh, I'd rather if that sound came with video. Pretty please? Trying some tweaks here and now going to (try to) fly the thing properly to see if any of the tweaks worked.

EDIT 2: They did, after all! All it took was run the DirectX installer again and restart the computer, everything seems to show as it should, and if to go strictly technical, the game runs and I am able to fly all right. The performance was downright sh*te, it must be said, but for the time being I'm taking that as a minor, since I haven't fiddled with any settings and my rig isn't what one'd call ideal for the task.

The update is now out and Steam's taking care of it for me ATM, I'm waiting for it to launch so I can jump in and see what's the score.

Glad you got the launcher working!!

I was grinning too when that crosshair showed up - I had clicked that launcher so many times with nothing happening I didn't know what to make of it for a second.

I've done all that too, and still it crashed while loading a mission or test flight every single time.

I've been getting random launcher crashes either in the middle of a mission or trying to start the next mission...this is what i've changed so far -

Re-installed .Net framework 3.5 SP1 ( for XP)

Cleared out the cache folder in My Documents\1C SoftClub\il-2 sturmovik cliffs of dover\cache

Changed the resolution ( to a higher resolution )

I do not know which of these helped, but I played 3 missions from the GB campaign on the trot before I got a freeze..reloaded the game and done the next 2 missions...so a big improvement!

Not sure if any of the above helped or I got lucky...will keep on testing!


.

Sorry if I'm mistaken, but as far as I remember the .NET Framework version you're after is .NET Framework 4.0. Again, I might be wrong, but in any case, it's worth checking the "redist" folder in your install for the programs required for CoD to run.

Solved - Launcher works on my system
 

I tried everything posted everywhere. However, the problem would always occur during the Quick Mission: "British Attack - Column", so I focused on fixing that mission with hopes that the solution will transfer to other missions.

My initial solution: Reduce the number of planes in each flight by one. That is, two Spitfires instead of three; three BF-109's instead of four, etc., for each flight in the briefing screen.

I was very surprised that this reduction works consistently since I never had problems with larger numbers of planes in some other missions, such as the air battle over the channel. I assume it is a combination of planes and land features that causes the Launcher to fail.

After such a long time trying to get this mission to work, I felt obliged to share my preliminary solution with the forum. Now, it may very well be that a reduction in each flight is unnecessary, or that an increase in the number of planes may also work. In fact, I suspect that this is some sort of mathematical issue such as division by zero when the number of surviving planes reaches a certain point. I don't claim to know precisely why, but the reduction mentioned at the start of this post works for me.

Here is a rundown of my settings and system:

In-Game Video is set for all features at their highest values except for Anti-Epilepsy Filter, SSAO and VSYNC which are unchecked. Resolution: 2560x1600, 60HZ which is native to my Dell U3011 30" monitor.

Realism is all checked except for Head Shake, Engine Temperature Effects, Clouds and No Map Icons.

Video Hardware is 2 x AMD HD6970's in CrossfireX, managed by the new "RadeonPro" software, available free from AMD, with all the settings set for maximum quality, not max performance so as to tax it to its limits. Clock speeds are overclocked as high as they will go using MSI Afterburner.

Fan Cooling is managed by MSI Afterburner with my stock fans running so that degrees C = percent maximum speed. (i.e., 50% @ 50C, 80% @ 80C, etc. The fans are noisy at that level, but not as noisy as the inside of a real cockpit. I have convinced myself that it adds to the realism :rolleyes: Max temps are 70C. Frame rates run from 50 fps upwards.

My System Hardware:
ASUS Rampage III Formula in a Coolermaster HAF 932 case running Windows 7 Professional, 64 Bit.
Intel I7-950 overclocked to 4.2GHz max with Hyperthreading OFF due to heat.
12 GB Corsair Dominator DDR3-1600 Memory, Corsair 750TX Power Supply, SanDisk 240 GB SSD (Loads CLoD really fast!), Coolermaster Hyper 212 processor cooler (70c Max in CLoD), big hard drive, 2 optical drives, etc.

Bells & Whistles: Saitek X-52, Saitek Pro Pedals, TrackIR 5 Headtracker, Game Commander 2 Voice control, (Oldie but Goodie!), Original Buttkicker Gamer (Works good, lasts a long time!) It all works and NO overheats!

Thanks to you all for your help. The release candidate has fixed all my problems mentioned in this thread. I highly recommend it.:)