Game won't start after CTD

[akkenoth]

Game won't start after CTD

After getting a CTD (possibly related to Galaxy's new overlay) I'm not able to launch the game again.
If I run the .exe (doesn't matter whether through Galaxy or directly from directory), the game's process will launch using ~200MB of RAM, then silently close after 15-20s.

Windows 10 64-bit, game version 1.11 + HoS, latest NVidia drivers.

It first happened at Friday (13.11) and I was unable to launch the game since then.
Things I've tried:
* update drivers (updated to 358.91)
* update OS (installed TH2)
* verify game files (done 4+ times)
* launching the .exe as admin
* remove Game Overlay 'DLC'
* remove savegames and my .settings files
* update/verify/etc VC++ redistributables
* forcing WARP

What's interesting is that the crash will generate a WER report only if the game has Game Overlay enabled (and they point to error c0000005 - EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION aka null pointer exception, if I'm getting it right).
Also only the 'original' CTD generated a .crashinfo file, but that's quite expected - if the game doesn't launch almost at all it has no way of generating a crash file.
The only thing I haven't tried is reinstalling the game and/or reverting to 1.10 and then manually installing the offline (non-galaxy) 1.11 patch - I have a slow internet connection and I'd rather not download the whole game again (last time was over 13h).

 

[Eve_Rest]

Have you tried to uninstall some of the latest Win10 updates?

 

[akkenoth]

Not yet, but it happened _before_ updating to TH2 (and there were no updates when the game stopped working), so it's most likely unrelated.

 

[Eve_Rest]

Then try to reinstall the GOG Galaxy client or go back to an older version of the client.

 

[RageGT]

Also, check with Task Manager if Witcher process is not still running. Happens sometimes and you just need to end the process. Hope win10 has it. I ain't touching that OS before it is fully compatible and bug free no matter how much MS keeps bugging me to d/l it for free.

 

[akkenoth]

Solv'd

Then try to reinstall the GOG Galaxy client or go back to an older version of the client.

This, surprisingly, has solved the issue. It's just a hypothesis, but I think that the original crash was caused by the new Game Overlay and it somehow further broke some dlls that caused the game not to work even if said overlay was disabled.
Oh, and after uninstalling I have manually removed all the contents from Galaxy's directory - uninstaller removed virtually no files, only registry entries (even main .exe-s remained).

I think there should be a pinned thread with list of 'try-it-first-even-if-it-seems-unrelated' solutions.

Also, check with Task Manager if Witcher process is not still running. Happens sometimes and you just need to end the process. Hope win10 has it. I ain't touching that OS before it is fully compatible and bug free no matter how much MS keeps bugging me to d/l it for free.

game's process will launch using ~200MB of RAM, then silently close after 15-20s.

Methinks that's quite clearly suggesting I was using task manager of course w10 has it, heck, it's much better than the one in 7.
<OFF TOPIC> Also, no Windows ever was and no Windows ever will be fully compatible and bug-free and W10 is IMHO currently on par with 7 in terms of bugs and compatibility, much better when it comes to usability and only 'worse' when it comes to privacy (though there are many tutorials how to 'fix' that) and some advanced configurability (eg forced updates, overridable too). </OFF TOPIC>