Wildly Likely Yet Inconsistant Crash at Launch (Multiplatform issue)

[tetraminus]

Edit: looks like this is not tied to mac at all, it happens on windows as well.

For the past month or two i have not had access to a desktop PC, so ive been playing on my mac via Crossover. Generally it has worked flawlessly, with some rare freezes under special conditions. This has been functional for a while now. Yesterday, coinciding with no patch or update as far as i can tell the game crashes to desktop 2-3 frames after launch (on the Valve logo). it does not trigger the wine error handler, implying a problem in the game code, rather than the translation layer. i have Memory dumps in the bin folder, that, from what i can see, dont show any immediate reasons. Things i have tried:

- Reinstalling / verifying game files
- creating a new blank Crossover bottle
- resetting graphics settings
- using both dx11 and vulkan
- rebooting my laptop entirely

Now the most interesting bit is that it happens sometimes but not others. i cant find a pattern, but every once in a while the game will launch and play fine. if my game freezes and i have to reboot the game, it is astronomically more likely to launch again. Seemingly being in a game helps it launch properly. when running the game as a command, the error code produced is 5, which seems to be a problem allocating memory according to what I've seen online.

 

[tetraminus]

Ok, bunch of new info on this:
Resetting all settings has not fixed the issue.
other people also running the game on crossover ON macOS 26.1 are NOT having this issue.
The randomness implies a threads bug of some sort.
the last line in the log is:

88(4.146062):  ReadSteamRemoteStorageFile( bufOut, "cfg/citadelkeys_personal.lst" ) -> 0.003748 seconds

And on a successful run, lines after that imply a localization issue?

**** Unable to localize '#Citadel_PartyInfo_Ready' on panel descendant of 'FriendDetails'
**** Unable to localize '#Citadel_PartyInfo_NotReady' on panel descendant of 'FriendDetails'
**** Unable to localize '#Citadel_PartyInfo_Spectator' on panel descendant of 'FriendDetails'

Lastly, looking through the Wine logs shows that the exception is for sure a c0000005 EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION error

 

[tetraminus]

Latest mdmp

 

[tetraminus]

Other examples of the same issue on seemingly different platforms. All at around the same time the issue started on my side.

X

Thread 'Game is crashing on startup majority of time since Mina patch.'

Aug 20, 2025

When I try and launch the game, it opens, shows the "Valve" screen, then instantly closes to desktop. If I keep trying it will sometimes progress to the Deadlock logo and then go into the game as normal. But most of the time it crashes right after the Valve screen when the Deadlock screen is supposed to start.

• Xathonn
• Replies: 3
• Forum: Bug Reports

Thread 'Game crash on startup'

Oct 13, 2025

So as of the latest update with the rank changes, my game has been consitently crashing on startup, now I do run the game with visual modifications using the ModLauncher and deleting/ resetting mods seems to sometimes fix the problem, and othertimes not, also the game seemingly sometimes manages to run the game with the mods and then sometimes not.
I've tried reinstalling, verifying my files, making a complete clean reinstall, changing the rendering options through startup, also restarted steam, and it seems to almost be random when the game actually decides to boot up properly.
I'd love...

• NikTFH
• Replies: 4
• Forum: Bug Reports

Thread 'Crash on startup'

Sep 10, 2025

No error message is displayed. The game will load, and sometimes get to the splash screen before dropping. It will happen 3-4 times in a row before letting me in. I've attached the dump files from today of it happening.

• Pwoshi
• Replies: 3
• Forum: Bug Reports

R

Thread 'Can't open Deadlock, instant crashes'

Sep 13, 2025

Anyone have suggestions on how to make the game not crash?

Every time I run the game I get to the VALVE splash screen and then see a little blue windows spinning wheel and the game closes and I go back to the Steam game page.

I've tried all the fixes:

• updated drivers including GPU
• uninstalled/reinstalled deadlock
• reinstalled steam
• tried startup launch things like -dx11
• Windows is up to date

My PC specs are good and I have hundreds of hours in Deadlock. It used to open every time just fine, so I'm not sure what changed

• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER
• AMD...

• RWSWAN
• Replies: 1
• Forum: Bug Reports

S

Thread 'Deadlock randomly starts crashing at launch until PC restart'

Sep 20, 2025

The game randomly starts crashing to desktop during the Valve logo. It will work fine for a few days, then suddenly start crashing every time I try to launch it. Game file integrity is fine, reinstalling the game doesn't help either. The only thing that helps is a PC restart.

• sunfoxcis
• Replies: 0
• Forum: Bug Reports

 

[tetraminus]

this problem seems very cryptic but i hope it'll get solved so i can play again at some point.