[SOLVED] Red Dead Redemption 2 Launch Problems

[MoonFartFlam]

I've been in contact with R* support for the past two months having them to try and resolve the launching problems I'm having with RDR2. It's been wildly unsuccessful so far. Which is why I reach out to the community!

It's been that I can't get the game to launch, whether it be from R* games launcher crashing, or R* saying my social club account doesn't own the game.
The three main errors are as follows:

Executing from R* launcher: R* launcher crashes and gives "The Rockstar Games Launcher exited unexpectedly. Please visit https://support.rockstargames.com for more information."
Executing RDR2.exe directly: R* launcher gives "This Social Club account doesn't own RDR2, please ensure you are using the correct account and try again"
Executing from steam: R* launcher crashes and gives "Unable to launch game, please verify your game data"

It is my hope that someone else has experienced and solved this problem, such that I might be privy to the wonders of the solution as well.

Current troubleshooting steps attempted

• Updating Bios
• Updating Windows
• Updating R* Games Launcher
• Updating Graphics Drivers
• Disabling Antivirus
• Re-linking R* and steam accounts
• Verifying Game cache/reinstalling game (twice)
• Enabling administrator permissions to .exe
• Removing Overclocking software
• Installing everything on one drive, then opposite drives
• Deleting files in Temp folder

Since it's plausible to be a hardware problem, Specs:
i7-3930k (stock)
asus p9x79 pro
GTX1060 6gb
32gb gskill ram
ssd boot & hard drive RAID (everything currently installed here)

Thanks for reading, and I hope if you've had this problem, you've been able to resolve it...

 

[Lutfij]

You could rule out the theory of your hardware being the issue, by sourcing a donor system that is concurrent and try and install the game there and see if the launcher doesn't have a hiccup.

Could you please state the make and model of your PSU and it's age?

 

[CosmicDance]

Try deleting your settings file so that it attempts to start at defaults.

Your settings file is in -

C:Users/<your username>/Documents/Rockstar games/Red Dead Redemption 2

Andy

 

[CosmicDance]

Try deleting your settings file so that it attempts to start at defaults.

Your settings file is in -

C:Users/<your username>/Documents/Rockstar games/Red Dead Redemption 2/Settings
It is called the 'system' file.

Andy

 

[MoonFartFlam]

First off, thanks for the suggestions.

Try deleting your settings file so that it attempts to start at defaults.

Your settings file is in -

C:Users/<your username>/Documents/Rockstar games/Red Dead Redemption 2

Andy

I have attempted that as it was suggested by R* support, surprisingly, the RDR2 folder doesn't exist in that location. It has yet to be created!

You could rule out the theory of your hardware being the issue, by sourcing a donor system that is concurrent and try and install the game there and see if the launcher doesn't have a hiccup.

Could you please state the make and model of your PSU and it's age?

I know it is a Thermaltake 1000+w PSU and it's almost 7 years old. Don't know the exact model though. Stickers seem to have been removed. It looks exactly like this model though. I'll see if there is an available system for the download.

 

[MoonFartFlam]

Update:

Installed RDR2 on a laptop with an i5-7400, gtx 1050M, 8gb ram
It booted up first try (using my social club sccount). This however, can not be a permanent solution for the problem. Not my laptop.

This does let me know, the problem is not with steam/R* launcher/my account, but something to do with my hardware... The plot thickens

 

[CosmicDance]

Have you tried the RDR 2 Rockstar, Reddit and Steam forums as there are hundreds of other people who have headaches with this game not starting on PC too?

Mine used to crash when it first released but the patches from Rockstar sorted that.
The only problem I still have is an infinite loading screen when trying to change online sessions.

 

[MoonFartFlam]

Have you tried the RDR 2 Rockstar, Reddit and Steam forums as there are hundreds of other people who have headaches with this game not starting on PC too?

Thanks for the suggestion. I've been looking for this specific set of errors since December.
Most every complaint was about the game pre-November when it was universally afflicting players.

 

[MoonFartFlam]

The problem has been found.

My RocketRaid 2320 controller is causing an error with ntdll.dll only when attempting to launch RDR2. Every other game/application works perfectly.

If I remove the controller from the computer and run RDR2 on the boot drive, (leaves ~10gb unused) it launches perfectly. If I only reinstall the raid controller, the error returns. This is not trying to have the game run on the controller, but just having it installed.

For any looking for a solution who have an old RocketRaid controller, either try updating drivers or ditch the old raid card. In my case, drivers were already as up to date as possible, so I'll be going without the title until a new storage solution can find its way into my system.