Hello,

Big problem for me since the patch that came out some weeks ago (not the last). When I launch the game, with TESV.exe, it starts the launcher. So, if you see my point, either the SkyrimLauncher exe or the TESV exe start the launcher. So basically, when I choose "Play" in the launcher, the launcher exits and start again, and I can't play the game. I'm stucked into a circle, am I on acid or what ?

I tried to delete the .ini files in my user folder, tried to reinstall the game from scratch, and the problem remains. Please help me, I never heard of any other player having the same trouble.

I'm on Windows 7 64.

I have heard of the same problem several times (and seen it on my wife's computer once), but it's normally solved by verifying steam cache (see sticky about patch problems).

Lucky you, as I know how to fix this. Navigate to your steam folder and find the .exe

Right click the .exe and select properties.

Click the compatibility tab

Under the line that says "Privilege Level" there should be a check box that says "Run as Administrator."

Uncheck this box and start playing.



Now send me your first born and pledge allegiance to me.

Did you change the "ugridstoload" to a higher value than default by anychance?

If so,(and you have verified game files,which sets the ini back to defualt) you need to put the "ugridstoload" back to 7 or 9 or what ever you used for your last saved game.

Then the game should load. If you want to revert back to ugridstoload = 5 (default) then while ingame ,bring up the console and type setini"ugridstoload:general" 5 ,then type "saveini" and then "refreshini"

I tried to verify steam cache and it didn't worked. I also reinstalled.
I removed run as admin and it didn't worked.
I don't think I modified ugridstoload. Where is this option ? I can't find it in any .ini.

Are you running any graphics card utilities like EVGA precision or Asus Gamer OSD? Turn them off.

if your sound card use the asus chipset, check directly at asus site for updated drivers. It solved my problem. The old driver had a bug that prevented some aplications from lauching
(my card was a xonar, but those same drivers are used for omega cards and other, and neither windows 7 nor steam see the need to update those drivers)

another guy had a different problem with a monitoring program running in the background (vga precision ... something like that)

I had the same problem, but first to the .ini and ugridstoload. If you don't have that line, it seems you haven't used it yet. If you use the ugrid settings, you would have to add that line to your ini manually, so you shouldn't worry about that.

As to getting your game to run again, the following solution worked for me:

- Open Steam
- Right Click on Skyrim, select properties
- Select Local Files tab, verify game cache
(so basically doing what the sticky post recommends first)

So much for the standard process, but that didn't work for me at first. If above still doesn't let you run the game:
- make a copy of your skyrim.ini and SkyrimPrefs.ini, then delete the originals.
- Re-validate the game cache via Steam (again). Deleting the files and verifying seemed to trigger a steam download for me, after that, the launcher worked again.
- Basically, try to force steam to download Skyrim files. Perhaps try backing up your tesv.exe and/or skyrimlauncher.exe (rename it) and then do the validation steps again. Steam hopefully will initiate a download of the missing file(s). After the download is complete, try again. (I got a download of about 50 MB in total, after that, everything worked again).
- Restore the .ini entries you had before (if you had made any).

Hope you'll get the game running again!

This time, it worked ! I think I needed to delete both .ini and .exe before verifying the cache. Now I can play again, thanks !

in what directory is Skyrim.ini suppose to be located? I only see the SkyrimPref.ini file. I did a search for that second file mentioned,... but it is not under SteamApps, So I do not have it, it seems.

The Pref file alone seems to allow a cache verify for me (at no suprise as I did that 50 times already for other sollutions),... though the game still does not launch after pressing play.

I know the launcher knows TESV.exe is there. I do not have that Loop-error like some have when TESV.exe is removed (I tried that). For me when I press play in the launcher, the launcher disappears and nothing happens.

clean HD (reformatted) Win 7, all drivers (motherboard, graphics-card etcetera) up to date. I tried about 30 solutions I found in this forum and other forums sofar, and nothing helps me to get the game to launch.

i have this same problem for about a week now. havent even played yet.

It might be that ini is made when TESV.exe is launched... but since my TESV does not launch.....

here is what i get every time i press play "Skyrim Has Stopped Working"



Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: TESV.exe
Application Version: 1.2.12.0
Application Timestamp: 4ec6cb55
Fault Module Name: StackHash_b4ee
Fault Module Version: 0.0.0.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 00000000
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 715b0000
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.768.3

Ok after a week i finaly got it to load, click on steam go to settings then go to "friends" uncheck everything now go into "In game" also uncheck everything now go to where it says friends and click offline. poff pos finally loaded up past the play screen.

Nalion - you should be Bethesda customer support! You solved my issue!!

Thanks for the praise, but I'll pass on that one. Actually, the sticky post helped me getting the idea, and somewhere, someone else posted that game data would be refreshed by steam if it was missing. So well, I gave it a try combining both those infos. Lucky guess. Anyways, glad it worked for you.

As to above posts - don't know if it's needed anymore:
You can find the .ini files in the following folder:
C:\users\[yourusername]\Documents\My Games\Skyrim - where [username] is your windows logon name/account.
The tesv.exe and skyrimlauncher.exe can be found in your steam install directory under ...\SteamApps\common\skyrim

I'm confused, is the ini file tesv.exe or does it literally say skyrim.ini, because everyone talks about an skyrim.ini file ,i've never seen one anywhere.

No, they're totally different files and different locations - as I wrote in my post.
There's skyrim.ini and skyrimprefs.ini in the windows user documents folder (where the savegames are stored as well) and the skyrim.exe testv.exe (edit) and the skyrimlauncher.exe in the steam directory. The .ini's are text files basically containing game setting variables, from difficulty to how the game handles mouse acceleration and memory usage. Those are the files which can be tweaked for better performance (see elsewhere). The .exe's are the main executable files which "run" the game.

Sorry I am so new to this, I am only learning this because i still cannot launch this game via steam and i am using the old tesv.exe offline. I do see in the user my games a skyrim pref and simply a skyrim. I have tried every fix on here and i just know something in the steam launcher hates my computer set up or drivers. Its to bad i want to purchase other games on steam but dont want my game to auto update, I even tried to disable update forr this game but when i logged on it switched it back on mysteriously like.

Okay, I'll try to run you through this. You just see a plan skyrim-something because your windows probably suppresses standard file extensions. So, for example, the file name truly is skyrim.ini, but windoes displays it as just skyrim with a text file icon. This is the windows default setting, however, you can disable that. If you like, I can show you to turn this setting off so you can see which file has which extension - however, I run Windows 7, so if you have another windows version, the path to enable file extensions will be different. It probably is easier for you to google for "show file extensions in windows". I'm certain you find a walkthrough for that. Besides - I'm running on a german windows, so I'd have to translate it into the correct english windows terms.

In any case - if you run on an old tesv.exe, rename the file to something else (like old_tesv.exe). That way, steam will recognize that a file is missing when you validate your game cache via steam (in the way I described above). Get steam to download all missing files, if need be, close steam entirely and restart it, then validate the cache again. Also make sure you are online on steam. Steam won't initate a download when you set it to offline.

Good luck!