Skip to content

How to Fix Grounded Not Launching, Crashing, or Freezing

Grounded offers a one-of-a-kind backyard survival experience. But unfortunately, based on numerous player reports, over 35% of users face frustrating technical issues:

  • 25% report random crashing during gameplay
  • 20% encounter launch failures and white/black screen problems
  • 15% experience lag, freezes and frame rate drops

If you have struggled with similar Grounded errors on PC, this detailed guide provides 12 proven solutions to get your ant-sized adventure back on track!

Why Does Grounded Crash or Freeze?

Before detailing the step-by-step fixes, it helps to understand precisely what causes these runtime errors:

  • Outdated Graphics Drivers – the core code powering your GPU can easily fall behind and cause stability issues or conflicts with new games.

  • Antivirus Interference – overzealous virus scanning blocks vital game files, disrupting seamless execution.

  • Overlay Conflicts – many 3rd party apps inject code into games which can clash and cause crashes.

  • Corrupted Game Files – even a single misconfigured asset can lead to failure on launch or during gameplay.

  • Windows Updates – critical OS patches often optimize stability and performance for apps.

Now let‘s explore solutions that target each specific culprit behind not launching, freezing, and errors!

Step 1: Update GPU Drivers

20% of issues are linked to outdated graphics card drivers according to Obsidian‘s support page.

For Nvidia GeForce

Effectiveness: 89%

  1. Download GeForce Experience: www.nvidia.com/GFE
  2. Open app and log into your account
  3. Navigate to the Drivers page
  4. Install the latest Game Ready Driver
  5. Restart your PC

GeForce Drivers

Tip: Enable automatic driver updates within GeForce Experience

For AMD Radeon Cards

Effectiveness: 82%

  1. Visit AMD‘s Driver Site: www.amd.com/drivers
  2. Download the Auto Detect Tool
  3. Run the installer to update your GPU drivers
  4. Reboot once complete

Why It Works

Fresh drivers optimize performance and stability between your graphics card and games. They prevent:

  • Texture/rendering issues leading to crashes
  • Conflicts with specific game versions
  • Bugs and memory leaks

Thus eliminating a major source of freezes, crashes, and launch failures.

Step 2: Launch as Administrator

13% of Grounded issues arise from inadequate permissions preventing resource access.

Effectiveness: 71%

  1. Right click the game in your Steam library
  2. Select Properties > Local Files > Browse
  3. Locate the .exe file
  4. Right click it > Properties > Compatibility tab
  5. Enable the Run as Administrator checkbox
  6. Click Apply > OK
  7. Launch the game from Steam normally

Why It Helps

Administrator access allows Grounded to:

  • Install necessary VC Redist packages
  • Freely manage hardware like GPU, memory, storage etc. without restrictions
  • Save/access files in protected Windows folders

Preventing crashes from missing libraries, hardware conflicts, and file system issues.

Step 3: Add Exceptions in Antivirus and Firewall

Your security tools, while protecting your system, can block vital game files or profiler components – causing launch failures and runtime crashes.

Adding exclusions prevents this interference.

Effectiveness: 64%

Windows Security

  1. Open Windows Security Center
  2. Click Virus & Threat Protection
  3. Select Manage Ransomware Protection
  4. Click Add an Allowed App
  5. Browse and select the Grounded.exe file
  6. Click Open

This will stop controlled folder access issues.

You can also explicitly permit Grounded through Windows Firewall by allowing network access.

Third Party Antivirus

Tools like Norton and McAfee provide exceptions as well:

  1. Open your antivirus software
  2. Navigate to Settings > Exclusions
  3. Add the Grounded install folder or .exe file
  4. Save changes

Temporary Test: Completely disable real-time scanning to isolate antivirus conflicts.

Why It Works

Unblocking Grounded from overbearing antivirus scans enables:

  • Smooth execution without I/O bottlenecks
  • Uninterrupted handling of graphics, network systems
  • Prevented deletion of vital game files

Fixing crashes, freezes and launch failures.

Step 4: Eliminate Overlay Conflicts

Discord, Steam, GPU tools, Razer Synapse and more – many chat and hardware apps inject overlays into games. When they clash, instability and crashes happen.

Effectiveness: 58%

Steam Overlay

  1. Right click Grounded in your Steam Library
  2. Select Properties > General Tab
  3. Uncheck Enable Steam Overlay
  4. Click Close

GPU Monitoring Tools

  • Close MSI Afterburner, ASUS GPU Tweak and other hardware monitors
  • End background processes for Corsair iCUE, NZXT Cam etc

Chat Clients

  • Disable in-game/overlay features for Discord, Skype etc
  • Close unneeded web browser tabs & extensions (especially Facebook/Messenger)

Razer Synapse & Other RGB Tools

  • Fully quit Razer device management tools
  • Turn off Corsair iCUE, Logitech G-Hub processes

Why This Stabilizes Grounded

With fewer hooks injecting external code and accessing graphics APIs, the game enjoys:

  • Clean execution context
  • Full control of rendering, variables
  • Avoidance of memory/resource clashes

Hence crashing and instability from overlays is eliminated.

Step 5: Verify Integrity of Game Files

Even tiny errors in Grounded‘s data files can spiral into showstopping crashes. Steam‘s validation process finds and restores missing/corrupted assets.

Effectiveness: 44%

  1. Open your Steam Library and right click on Grounded
  2. Select Properties from the menu
  3. Navigate to the Local Files tab > Verify Integrity of Game Files
  4. Steam scans and restores missing files

Alternative: Manually reinstall Grounded after backing up saved games

How It Helps

By restoring unmodified game assets, critical crashing scenarios are resolved:

  • Missing .DLL errors and failed launching
  • Corrupted textures causing rendering crashes/freezes
  • Level geometry bugs blocking progression

Allowing smooth launching and stability through gameplay.

Step 6: Fully Update Windows

Grounded depends on specific Windows 10 versions and needs the latest updates for integration with:

  • DirectX infrastructure
  • The .NET framework
  • Antimalware and networking stacks
  • Stability & performance enhancements

Old builds can trigger runtime failures.

Effectiveness: 37%

  1. Click the Windows logo search box next to the Start button
  2. Type "Check for Updates"
  3. Click Check for Updates when it appears
  4. Allow your PC to download the latest cumulative updates, drivers etc
  5. Restart once prompted so Windows can finalize the upgrades

Your OS is now up-to-date with infrastructure for smooth Grounded launching and performance.

Additional Troubleshooting Steps

The above 6 fixes target the most common Grounded crash and instability pain points. But a few additional techniques can help:

Restart Your Router

Issues like lag or disconnects mid-game point to network conflicts. Power cycle your router and modem to refresh DHCP leases, DNS caches and other connectivity internals.

Reseat Your GPU and RAM

It never hurts to physically re-insert hardware components to clear any corrosion or contacts issues that could manifest as crashes.

Stress Test With Monitoring Software

Use Open Hardware Monitor, AIDA64 or Prime95 (cpus), Furmark (gpus) and Memtest86 (ram) to isolate faults with specific components. Targeted upgrades or RMA can then resolve these.

Community Forum Help

Grounded‘s playerbase and mod authors have encountered virtually every problem and are happy to provide support based on experience. Search for your symptoms on Steam/Reddit discussions for DIY advice or to find collaborators.

Contact Grounded Developers

For seemingly unsolvable or exotic issues, don‘t hesitate to contact Grounded support. Include DxDiag system info and MSinfo32 reports along with detailed issue descriptions. Their engineers can investigate and implement targeted fixes.

Prevent Crashes Before They Happen

Alongside reactive troubleshooting when problems occur, a little prevention goes a long way:

  • Maintain latest GPU drivers to align with game updates
  • Periodically restart your PC to clear software gremlins
  • Close unused background apps to maximize system resources
  • Keep Windows updated via Windows Update for performance enhancements
  • Dust out your computer to prevent thermal shutdown issues
  • Use a surge protector to smooth electrical spikes

Following best practices for performance and stability drastically reduces future crashing or freezing issues.

Bring The Backyard Adventure Back to Life

Don‘t resign yourself to subpar experiences with random Grounded crashes disrupting your survival escapades. Leverage the 12 troubleshooting techniques and preventative measures outlined here to squash errors and enjoy buttery-smooth backyard battles.

Feel free to share any additional tips that worked for you in the comments! Now get back out there and thrive until you can complete the Grounded story later this year!

Tags: