Beta patch not launching possible solution
 

I had the bug where the game would launch to the initial logo and then exit before reaching the splash screen. I messed around a lot before noticing the following lines in the conf.ini

[window]
DepthBits =24

Note the gap between DepthBits and =24. Could be blank space. Could be corrupt. I deleted the space making it:

[window]
DepthBits=24

and now the game runs. Try it. It may work for you as well. UK user of Steam btw. I turn Cloud off and maintain my conf.ini under:

C:\Users\{user}\Documents\1C SoftClub\il-2 sturmovik cliffs of dover

If it doesn't work, check the rest of the ini files for other suspicious lines like this. Binary in notepad often appears as a harmless blank. Or it may even be the worlds worst .ini file handler that doesn't strip blanks ;)

Happy flying.

I noticed this too and got all excited, but changed that and nothing happened. =( Still won't launch.