100% crash rate on launch with fresh install

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Technical Support
1

Issue Type (Required):

Crash - on Launch

Issue Description (Required):

Indefinite hang on first launch of a clean install, then all subsequent launches result instantly in a crash.

Clean install of Darktide, all mods purged and AppData\Roaming\Fatshark cleared.

First launch goes through normal questions about hardware and raytracing and AppData is created. Task Manager shows the launcher still running, but the game will never launch. After killing the task and relaunching, crashes begin immediately after clicking Start in the launcher. Each new crash results in a new .dmp file.

[PC] Do You Use Mods? (Optional):

Yes, and I’ve tried disabling them

Reproduction Rate (Required):

Constant (100%)

Platform (Required):

PC - Steam

[PC] Crash Report (Optional):

GUID: e16c1ed2-5d34-4008-9717-dec8cae66b28
Log File:
Info Type:

Upload Supporting Evidence (Optional):

2026-06-30 14_46_24-Task Manager.png

2026-06-30 14_48_31-Task Manager.png
2026-06-30 14_48_31-Task Manager.png591×438 68.9 KB

[PC] Upload Console Log & darktide_launcher.log (Optional):

crash_dump-2026-06-30-19.48.21.dmp (118 KB)crash_dump-2026-06-30-19.40.12.dmp (118 KB)darktide_launcher.log (36.5 KB)

2

Seeing that in other threads that its being recommended to DDU, I have preemptively tried this and after a full AMD driver reinstall nothing has changed.

3

@Liverslices just to check, which AMD driver version are you using?

As recent driver versions 26.6.2 and 26.6.4 are unstable and resulting in crashes. The last known stable driver version is 26.6.1 which we recommend rolling back to.

4

@FatsharkLev Was running 26.6.4 when I first posted, but after rolling back to 26.6.1 I still have the same issue. During this roll back I did also run the AMD cleanup utility.

image
image1000×537 124 KB

GUID: 0c8c16f2-314d-49e5-90ce-207c9df6531e

Log File:
Info Type:

5

Thanks for the update @Liverslices

Hmm, it’s tricky as no console log is being generated still.

It’s a shot in the dark, but can you try changing your adapter_index, to do so:

  1. Press the Windows key + R
  2. Enter %appdata% within the search input and select ‘OK’
  3. Navigate to AppData\Roaming\Fatshark\Darktide
  4. Open your user_settings.config file
  5. Find the setting named adapter_index
  6. Change this setting value to adapter_index = 1
    (If the adapter_index value is already set to 1, please try changing this to 0 instead)
  7. Save your user_settings.config file
  8. Launch Darktide as usual

Please let me know how this goes!

6

@FatsharkLev No change, unfortunately. Was set to 0 so I changed it to 1 and got the same result.

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image1078×518 135 KB

GUID: 7f124471-4a33-4282-b527-29f532907eca

Log File:
Info Type:

7

@Liverslices hm okay :frowning: perhaps the drivers are not the culprit here then. Unfortunately, without a console log generated we have little to go on.

Shot in the dark, but could any Anti-Virus software perhaps be quarantining files or blocking Darktide in some way? Adding appropriate exceptions for Darktide may help.

Otherwise, performing a ‘Selective Startup’ to rule out any external program conflicts could be good to check too:

  1. Press the Windows key
  2. Type ‘msconfig’ and select ‘System Configuration’
  3. On the ‘General’ tab, select ‘Selective Startup’
  4. Deselect ‘Load startup Items’
  5. Reboot your PC
8

@FatsharkLev I use windows defender, no 3rd party antivirus. Adding an exclusion to the entire local folder did not change anything:

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image1191×696 145 KB

Disabling startup items also made no difference.

9

@Liverslices just curious if you could try using DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller), opposed to the AMD cleanup tool, and then try installing 26.6.1 driver version again?

Just so we can fully rule out this being the culprit.

10

@FatsharkLev That was post #2 of this thread, I have already tried DDU: 100% crash rate on launch with fresh install - #2 by Liverslices

11

Ah, righto. I’m admittedly pretty stumped by this :thinking:

Shots in the dark, next can you try:

  • Repairing your .NET Framework

  • Reinstalling 2019 C++ Redistributables:

12

@FatsharkLev Are there any other logs I can collect?

.NET 4.7.2 was already installed, so I used the repair tool. The mid-run diagonstic step didn’t catch anything when I reproduced the issue, and completing the repair and restarting didn’t either.

VS 2015 14.51.36247 was installed, and a repair of it didn’t change anything. A full uninstall and reinstall of VS 15 and then a restart also didn’t fix.