Hit Play but Game never shows up

DarkLordCorwin

Up until this most recent Saturday, I was having no problems playing ESO. In fact, Saturday evening I had just rolled a new character, got to play it for a little bit before deciding that it was late and I should go to sleep. Sunday morning rolls around and I get up, take care of some things and then go to login. Since I knew I was planning on playing again in the morning, I left Minion, TTC, Discord, and the ESO Launcher running so that I could simply hit PLAY and go.

That was when it all went wrong. I hit PLAY, I heard the usual noises from the Developer/Publisher splash screens, but had no game video, I was still looking at my Windows desktop. The client never showed up on my Taskbar. I tried Alt+Tab to see if it was just minimized but nothing new was there. I opened Task Manager, ESO was not an Active Program except as a listing item beneath the launcher when the launcher was not minimized to the System Tray, otherwise it showed up as a Process only. Thinking that it just glitched, I right clicked and closed it. Tried again, same thing. Closed it through Task Manager again, closed Minion, Discord, TTC, and the Launcher. Tried opening only the launcher, same results. Restarted the computer and attempted again. Same results. Tried the Repair Game feature, same result. Double-checked that I had exceptions in the firewall for ESO and its Launcher. Checked my Windows Updates, my Graphics driver, same results. Tried bypassing the launcher and just opening it with ESO64.exe, same results. Ran malware and virus scans, same result. Finally I took drastic measures, I hit Uninstall in the games Launcher and then started reinstalling the game. I did not attempt to delete anything else, just the basic Uninstall. It finished Reinstalling sometime during last night, a bit over a day since I had started downloading again. Tried launching it without opening Minion or anything else. Same result, I could hear the startup splash screen sounds, but never actually saw any hint of the client opening beyond a Windows Task Manager Process.

While I have not disabled Add-ons prior to launching the game, largely because I forgot to try that method and am not at my PC at the moment, I am getting quite frustrated. As near as I can tell, checking my updates history for Windows, there were no new major updates to any part of my computer, the add-ons or the game between the time I was playing Saturday night and the time I attempted to play Sunday morning other than a pair of anti-virus updates. Yet I cannot seem to effectively launch the game client anymore. I am receiving no known or at least visible error messages. I even tried running Game Consultant in the ESO folders hoping that would provide some insight, but it was both dry and over my head.

As near as I can tell, everything should be working fine. So my question is this, Does anyone have any clue about what the heck is wrong with the game that I can click PLAY on the Launcher, hear the sounds of the game client starting up, but never actually see the game or evidence that the game is running beyond those sounds and a task manager process?

DarkLordCorwin

While it turned out that my Monitor was not switched from the designated one to another, I never did actually figure out why it stopped working. Though it was suggested that I delete the User Settings text file in the Documents > ESO > Live folder and then relaunch the Launcher then client. That did the trick, whatever was wrong got fixed and I can now log back into the game. Just wish I knew what happened and why because a 36 hour uninstall/reinstall process as a troubleshooting measure is ridiculous.

DarkLordCorwin

I neglected to mention that after pressing PLAY and hearing the sounds of the client starting up that my onboard graphics usage fluctuates between 93-100%

Trinity_Is_My_Name

Do you have two video cards? I mean such as an onboard graphics chip and a separate video card? I do and in BIOS I turned off the onboard graphics card and made sure to select (if you have the option) the PCIe slot for the Nvidia graphics card installed.

Other than that I haven't a clue. Hope you figure it out and get it up and running.

Good luck!

DarkLordCorwin

No, I don't, when I switched PCs a few months back(no trouble playing even after that switch) my old graphics card was too big for my new board and I have not replaced it. So I'm just using the onboard Intel graphics and they have worked well enough.

Someone on reddit suggested my designated monitor might have gotten switched from 0 to 1, so I'm looking forward to going back to test that with the hope that it's the solution. As I'm at work though, I'm going to have to wait and hope this or other replies pinpoint my issue so that I can get it resolved when I do finally get back to my computer.

Jimboo84

DarkLordCorwin wrote: »

Up until this most recent Saturday, I was having no problems playing ESO. In fact, Saturday evening I had just rolled a new character, got to play it for a little bit before deciding that it was late and I should go to sleep. Sunday morning rolls around and I get up, take care of some things and then go to login. Since I knew I was planning on playing again in the morning, I left Minion, TTC, Discord, and the ESO Launcher running so that I could simply hit PLAY and go.

That was when it all went wrong. I hit PLAY, I heard the usual noises from the Developer/Publisher splash screens, but had no game video, I was still looking at my Windows desktop. The client never showed up on my Taskbar. I tried Alt+Tab to see if it was just minimized but nothing new was there. I opened Task Manager, ESO was not an Active Program except as a listing item beneath the launcher when the launcher was not minimized to the System Tray, otherwise it showed up as a Process only. Thinking that it just glitched, I right clicked and closed it. Tried again, same thing. Closed it through Task Manager again, closed Minion, Discord, TTC, and the Launcher. Tried opening only the launcher, same results. Restarted the computer and attempted again. Same results. Tried the Repair Game feature, same result. Double-checked that I had exceptions in the firewall for ESO and its Launcher. Checked my Windows Updates, my Graphics driver, same results. Tried bypassing the launcher and just opening it with ESO64.exe, same results. Ran malware and virus scans, same result. Finally I took drastic measures, I hit Uninstall in the games Launcher and then started reinstalling the game. I did not attempt to delete anything else, just the basic Uninstall. It finished Reinstalling sometime during last night, a bit over a day since I had started downloading again. Tried launching it without opening Minion or anything else. Same result, I could hear the startup splash screen sounds, but never actually saw any hint of the client opening beyond a Windows Task Manager Process.

While I have not disabled Add-ons prior to launching the game, largely because I forgot to try that method and am not at my PC at the moment, I am getting quite frustrated. As near as I can tell, checking my updates history for Windows, there were no new major updates to any part of my computer, the add-ons or the game between the time I was playing Saturday night and the time I attempted to play Sunday morning other than a pair of anti-virus updates. Yet I cannot seem to effectively launch the game client anymore. I am receiving no known or at least visible error messages. I even tried running Game Consultant in the ESO folders hoping that would provide some insight, but it was both dry and over my head.

As near as I can tell, everything should be working fine. So my question is this, Does anyone have any clue about what the heck is wrong with the game that I can click PLAY on the Launcher, hear the sounds of the game client starting up, but never actually see the game or evidence that the game is running beyond those sounds and a task manager process?

I've the same issue, reported in another tread.
Also unable to find ESO64.exe in Explorer, seems nothing like an upgrade, it's a downgrade atm