GTA V, which is short for Grand Theft Auto 5, is an action adventure game that was first released in 2013. It can be played in third person or first person view with the game having a single player story mode and an open world mode. Although this is a solid performing game there are instances when certain issues can occur. In this latest installment of our troubleshooting series we will tackle the GTA V launcher stopped working error.
How To Fix Grand Theft Auto V Launcher Stopped Working Error
Before performing the recommended troubleshooting steps for this particular problem I suggest that you try restarting your computer first. This will refresh the operating system as well as remove corrupt temporary data and is quite effective in fixing most software related issues.
There are several factors that can cause this problem ranging from a driver issue to a corrupted game file. Listed below are the troubleshooting steps that you need to do to fix this problem.
Reinstall the Social Club
The first thing you will need to do in this case is to reinstall the Social Club. This is a software that allows you to create an online multiplayer setup.
- Make sure you have logged in with an admin account as you won’t be able to uninstall programs using any other account privileges.
- Click on the Start menu and open the Settings app.
- Click on Apps to open a list of all installed programs on your PC.
- Locate the Rockstar Games Social Club entry on the list and click on it once. Click on the Uninstall button above the list and confirm any dialog boxes which may appear. Follow the instructions on-screen in order to uninstall the Social Club.
- After the uninstallation process is over, you should make sure to delete any remaining files and folders from the uninstallation. The correct paths to these folders depends on whether the game is on Steam or now and where you have chosen to uninstall it but you can always search for them.
- Look for a folder called Social Club in each one of the folders displayed below. The default folders for the non-Steam installation: C:\Users\USERNAMEDocuments\Rockstar Games, C:\Program Files (x86)\Rockstar Games, C:\Program Files\Rockstar Games
- Go to https://support.rockstargames.com/articles/200146066/Manual-Link-to-Social-Club-Application-Download
- Download and install the Social Club application.
Check if the GTAV launcher stopped working error still occurs.
Run the game in compatibility mode
There are instances when the game is not able to run on the latest Windows update which is why you should try to run it in compatibility mode.
- Start Steam by double-clicking its icon.
- Go to the Library tab in the Steam window by locating the Library tab at the top of the window, and locate GTA V in the list of games you own in your library.
- Right-click on its entry and choose Properties. Navigate to the Local Files tab and choose Browse Local Files.
- Inside the folder, right-click the GTAV.exe file and choose Properties. Navigate to the Compatibility tab in the Properties window and check the box next to the “Run this program in compatibility mode for” option. Choose Windows 7 (recommended) from the menu which will appear.
- Under the Settings section in the same window, check the box next to the “Run this program as an administrator” entry.
- Apply the changes you have made and try restarting the game
Check if the issue still occurs.
Verify the integrity of the game files
One factor that can cause this problem is a corrupted game file. If this is what’s causing the problem then you should try to verify the integrity of the game file from Steam.
- Start Steam by double-clicking its icon.
- Go to the Library tab in the Steam window by locating the Library tab at the top of the window, and locate GTA V in the list of games you own in your library.
- Right-click on its entry and choose Properties. Navigate to the Local Files tab and click the Verify Integrity of Game Files button.
- Wait for the process to finish.
- Relaunch the game.
Check if the GTAV launcher stopped working error still occurs.
Try using an older version of DirectX
To check if an update to DirectX is causing the problem you should try using an older version of this tool.
- Open the File Explorer on your computer and navigate to Documents by clicking its entry at the left navigation pane.
- Locate a folder named Rockstar Games and double-click to open it.
- Open the GTA V folder inside and locate a file named “settings.xml”. Right-click the file and choose Open with >> Notepad from the context menu in order to edit it.
- Use the Ctrl + F key combination or click Edit at the top menu and choose the Find option from the dropdown menu in order to open the Search box.
- Type “DX_Version value” in the search box and change the value next to it from 2 to 1. Use the Ctrl + S key combination in order to save the changes or click File >> Save and exit Notepad.
- Try running the game again
Check if the issue still occurs.
Reinstall your graphics card drivers
If you have an NVIDIA graphics card then follow the steps listed below.
- Press Win+R (Windows logo key and R key) at the same time to invoke the Run box.
- Type msconfig and click OK. Then the System Configurations will open.
- When System Configuration opens, click the Boot tab. Under Boot options, check Safe boot then click OK.
- When you’re prompted to restart your computer to apply these changes, click Restart then you will boot into Safe Mode.
- Go to your local hard disk by clicking on This PC then Local Disk C. You should be able to see the NVIDIA folder right there. Right-click on it and choose Delete.
- Click Start and type Run. Select Run, the Run dialog box will appear.
- Type “devmgmt.msc” in the run box and click the OK button which should open the Device Manager Window.
- Expand the “Display Adapters” field. This will list all network adapters that the machine has installed. Right click on the Nvidia adapter you want to uninstall and select “Uninstall”.
- Click “OK” when prompted to uninstall the device. This will remove the adapter from the list and uninstall the driver.
- Press Win+R (Windows logo key and R key) at the same time to invoke the Run box.
- Type msconfig and click OK. Then the System Configurations will open.
- When System Configuration opens, click the Boot tab. Under Boot options, uncheck Safe boot then click OK.
- When you’re prompted to restart your computer to apply these changes, click Restart.
- Download the latest NVIDIA driver for your computer from here https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx.
- Run the setup file and follow the instructions which appear on screen. Choose the Custom installation option and check all the boxes in the custom install options windows. Also check the box which states “perform clean install”.
- Restart your computer
If you have an AMD graphics card then follow the steps listed below.
- Download the AMD Cleanup Utility from here https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/faq/gpu-601.
- Locate the file where it was saved and double-click on the “AMDCleanupUtility.exe’ file.
- A dialogue box should appear stating AMD Cleanup Utility has detected the system is not in safe mode and provide an option to reboot the system to run the Utility in safe mode:
- Click “Yes” the system will be rebooted and AMD Cleanup Utility will run in safe mode.
- The next dialogue box provides a warning message stating that the AMD Cleanup Utility will remove all AMD driver and application components.
- Click “OK” to continue
- After clicking “OK” the Utility will be minimized to the notification area (system tray) and the progress will be displayed as a tool tip.
- The cleanup process will continue to run in the background. To check the progress, hover the mouse over the AMD icon in the notification area.
- Once the cleanup process is finished, a message is displayed stating it has successfully completed. Click “View Report” to see the list of components that were uninstalled, otherwise click “Finish” to exit the Utility.
- Reboot your computer.
Once the drivers have been uninstalled it’s time to install the latest driver update. You can do this with the help of the AMD Driver Auto-detect tool which you can download from https://www.amd.com/en/support.
- Visit the AMD Driver and Support page and see section Auto-Detect and Install Radeon Graphics Drivers for Windows.
- Click the DOWNLOAD NOW button to begin downloading the executable file for the tool.
- Once download is complete, run the file to launch the Installer.
- Click Install to extract the needed files.
- After file extraction is complete the tool should automatically launch.
- Review the End User License Agreement and information about the User Experience Improvement Program.
- Click Accept and Install to continue or close the window to exit the AMD Driver Auto-detect tool.
- After clicking Accept and Install, the tool will attempt to detect the installed AMD graphics product and operating system.
- Upon successful detection of your system configuration, the tool will display the latest Recommended and Optional driver packages that are compatible with your graphics product, as well as the currently installed driver version
- Select the desired version and choose Express installation.
- After the driver package has been downloaded, installation should begin automatically.
- Restart your computer
Check if the issue still occurs.
Reinstall the game
In case the above steps fails to fix the problem then you should uninstall the game then reinstall it again.
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