The Elder Scrolls Online

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Game is not starting up, tried everything I know, need help!

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ValyrianShadow
ValyrianShadow
Soul Shriven
Ok so I literally searched the depths of these forums as well as reddit and other sites on google for solutions but I have found nothing that worked.

Basically, for a few days now, I cant get the game to start. I open the launcher, press play and nothing happens, except the play buttong being greyed out. There is an ESO process that opens up in Task Manager but nothing else happens, it basically has 0% RAM and CPU usage. I dont have a steam version, bought it straight from the website and downloaded it there.

Things I've tried:
- Completely wipe everything ESO related from my PC and do a fresh reinstall (did that thrice now)
- Restart PC multiple times as well as just waiting a few days just to see if it resolves itself after awhile
- Starting exe directly instead of launcher
- Deleting save folder from Documents as well as editing the settings file with certain lines other users have reported working for them, didnt work for me
- Restarted router and reset IP to see if it was something network related, changed nothing
- Repairing game files through launcher
- Installing on different drives (SSD, M.2 SSD) to see if it makes any difference, also nothing happened
- Launch as administrator
- Launch game in windows safe mode

Theres probably some other minor things I've tried but forgot to mention right now, but you can be sure I tried most of these. I just dont know what to do anymore, the game worked perfectly just about three weeks ago, then I had a short break and now the game won't even open anymore.
  • Nestor
    Nestor
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Addons?

    One Drive handling your My Documents?

    Anti Ransomware crap enabled in Windows (it sets everything in My Documents to Read Only)
    Enjoy the game, life is what you really want to be worried about.

    PakKat "Everything was going well, until I died"
    Gary Gravestink "I am glad you died, I needed the help"

  • Awozap
    Awozap
    Soul Shriven
    I've been having the same issue since the patch. I'll state what I think is the fix, then elaborate. Delete everything in this directory:

    %userprofile%\appdata\Local\Temp

    You can press Windows+R and paste that into the Open field in the Run window, then click OK.

    Also delete everything in your downloads folder.

    Here's the long story. I reinstalled about a dozen times, wiping out the game folders. I toggled all the DPI settings, ran the game as administrator, reloaded the video drivers, created a test Windows profile... every suggestion I could find. Nothing worked. I started looking at the config files and diag files for errors and versions etc. etc. I found the install log, which contained this entry:

    Looking for 'resource' directory using the CLASS_PATH...
    Looking for 'resource' directory using the java.home variable...
    Resource dir found under 'C:\Users\myusername\AppData\Local\Temp\I1679352419\Windows\resource'.
    seaFilename = Install_ESO (1)
    Default properties location = C:\Users\myusername\Downloads\
    Windows Default UIMode is: GUI
    loading windoze dll: C:\Users\myusername\AppData\Local\Temp\I1679352419\Windows\resource\iawin32.dll

    Reading this, I realized that ESO dumps a bunch of stuff in the AppData folder. So even if you uninstall the game, these cached config files persist. There were also a lot of java references that seemed like game environment variables. Since this was all in the temp folder, I decided to just delete everything in my temp folder and empty the trash. I did the same thing with my downloads folder. Voila, the game launched successfully after deleting these files.
  • ZOS_Bill
    ZOS_Bill
    admin
    @ValyrianShadow

    Thanks for listing out the troubleshooting you've tried so far. At this point please go ahead and open a ticket with customer support.
    The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited - ZeniMax Online Studios
    Forum Rules | Code of Conduct | Terms of Service | Home Page | Help Site
    Staff Post
  • REDxROBOT
    REDxROBOT
    Soul Shriven
    I've been having this same problem since the patch prior to the one yesterday. Have you found anything that works?

    edit: Ok, I have no idea -why- this works but I managed to get the game to launch with the following steps.
    1: open the launcher as usual
    2: disable my ethernet
    3: press play on the launcher
    4: wait a few moments then reenable my ethernet

    Once the ethernet is reenabled the game launches as normal.
    Edited by REDxROBOT on 28 March 2023 12:10
  • Awozap
    Awozap
    Soul Shriven


    edit: Ok, I have no idea -why- this works but I managed to get the game to launch with the following steps.
    1: open the launcher as usual
    2: disable my ethernet
    3: press play on the launcher
    4: wait a few moments then reenable my ethernet

    OMG That worked!!! (my had stopped working again since my post)

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