Game crashing when starting any games

Age of Empires II: DE II - Report a Bug
1

:arrow_forward: GAME INFORMATION

  • GAME BUILD #: 1564234
  • GAME PLATFORM: Steam
  • OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 11

:arrow_forward: ISSUE EXPERIENCED

I have not been able to play for about 1 year. Everytimes I started a game, no matter campaign or skirwish, it would crash after 5 seconds in the intro video. The screen showed " trying to write a null file". I tried to reinstall, verify files, it doesn’t work.

:arrow_forward: FREQUENCY OF ISSUE

  • 100% of the time / matches I play (ALWAYS)

:arrow_forward: REPRODUCTION STEPS

Here’s the steps to reproduce the issue:

  1. start a game
  2. intro video for 5 seconds
  3. crash

:arrow_forward: EXPECTED RESULT

start a game without crashing.

:arrow_forward: IMAGE

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:arrow_forward: GAME FILES (SAVE / RECORDING)

2

Hello @FinancedSpore38

Try these steps to fix the issue:

  1. Delete your user files. For deleting your user files, you have to:

a. Make sure that your Steam Cloud is disabled in Steam, AoE2 game, Properties, General.

b. Go to C:\Users\YOUR_USER\Games\Age of Empires 2 DE.

c. Copy your user folder to a safe place, it has lots of numbers.

d. Delete the original folder

e. Verify your files in Steam, AoE2 game, Properties, Local Files.

f. Open the game again. A new user folder will be created.

If this works, then copy back the files from your old user folder. These files are in this folder -C:\Users\YOUR_USER\Games\Age of Empires 2 DE<0>\Savegame, Recorded Games and Save games.

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what should I do in step c?

4

The step C, is about coping the information you have inside of your USER folder. In this case, your USER folder starts with 7656119835… and more numbers.

If you don´t have any saved games or custom scenarios that you would like to use in the future, you can delete this folder (step D) and continue with steps E and F.

If you want to keep your user information (saved games and custom scenarios), you should copy the folders/files inside of your USER folder to a new location ( you will use it to restore them after)

5

I delete the old folder, verify the files and open the game again. But there is no new use folder.
What is the name of the new folder?

6

The user folder is always a combination of numbers.

Please, after deleting the original user folder, verify your files in Steam and launch the game. If you don´t see any user folder, just try to play a skirmish and that should generate the folder.