PC Game Pass games crash at launch with Exception code: 0xc0000005. Latest in line - Starfield.

Hi Legendaddy,

Thank you for reaching Microsoft Community. We're sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you.

I am aware of the issue you're experiencing with launching Starfield and other games from the Xbox PC app. You appear to have attempted a number of troubleshooting techniques to fix the problem, based on the information you've supplied.

Regarding your speculation that the issue is caused by the game being installed on the D: drive, I can confirm that it is possible to install games on a non-Windows drive and run them without any issues. However, it's still possible that there may be some compatibility issues with your specific hardware configuration. Allow me to ask some questions to help us further isolate the issue.

• Do you have any third-party anti-virus software, firewall, or VPN installed?

• How about game accelerator?

• Did you add mod or addons to your game?

In order to provide you an appropriate response, I might require the answers to these questions.

I hope to hear back from you.

Kind regards,

Lavenia

Hi @Lavenia. Thanks for reading my thread. Appreciate any help you can provide -

• I don't have any third-party anti-virus/Firewall installed. I only have the stock Windows Security and firewall. And I haven't turned on "Controlled Folder Access" in it. I don't have the VPN on throughout the process.

• No game accelators either. No CPU/GPU undeclocking or overclocking. I've tried the Windows game mode on and off.

• No mods in the game. The games I listed, they crash right after installation finishes.

Another point to note -

I played the game on Xcloud for few hours. Later when I try to launch the locally installed Starfield, the title splash screen shows "syncing data", and another grey window pops up where the data sync progress goes from 0 to 100%. That window closes successfully, but after that, the Starfield splash screen crashes as usual with Exception code: 0xc0000005.

That tells me that it is not a connection issue. The game is connecting with Xbox backend system fine. But for whatever reason, it is crashing afterwards.

Speculation part

Regarding your speculation that the issue is caused by the game being installed on the D: drive, I can confirm that it is possible to install games on a non-Windows drive and run them without any issues.

I know as per official documentation, it is supposed to work from whatever drive it is installed on. But what I was speculating is - there must be a bug in the app where if [ "empty space in C: drive" > "size of the game installed on non-C: drive" ]; then that causes some bug / compute error / memory access ot allocation error leading to crash.

Can you please have the Xbox PC app development / testing team carry out this testing -

• Have a PC with SSD, partitioned into two drives - C: (100 GB) and D: (500+ GB).

• Bonus point for having PC configurations similar to mine - Intel Core i7-9750H, RTX 2080-MQ, 16GB DDR4 RAM, 1TB PCIe NVMe SSD, Latest GeForce driver, Windows 11 Home or Pro.

• Fill up C: drive with stuff so that empty space on C: drive is ~50 GB.

• Install any 100+ GB game from XBox PC app to D: drive.

• Now try to launch that game.

If the game launches fine in that test, then my speculation is wrong. But if they too see a crash with Exception code: 0xc0000005, then they found an issue to fix. I'm able to install and play any game whose size is smaller than free space in my C: drive. So, that makes me confident that my speculation is correct.

Previous assistance attempt

When I had posted the RedFall thread for the same crash, a "Microsoft Employee" with username "XBF - Tali" had reached out to me in DM. She had asked me to submit the report in Feedback Hub while recreating the issue, so that it has crash logs etc. I had done that 3 times during the course of the conversation with her. I also supplied the diagnostics.zip to her. I had also sent her the dmp file windows creates every time the game crashes, (file location C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Local\CrashDumps). But afterwards, I didn't hear back from her. Last communication from her was on 5/30.

(I'm not trying to call her out or blame her etc. Mentioned this so you know the history. If this portion is not appropriate, please let me know and I'll edit it out.)

I appreciate you for responding back and addressing all the questions I asked. I value the time and effort you have given out, especially in trying to find resolution to the problem.

In pursuit of resolution, it turns out that you have already tried all the crucial troubleshooting steps. As a result, it would be more beneficial for you to contact our live support team so that they can properly check your device remotely and to see what’s going on with your device.

Kindly follow the steps below to contact our live support team:

• Please use this link: Contact us | Xbox Support

• Scroll down and look at the lower left side if you can see the page matches the country/region you are currently located.

• If not, please select the country/region it is showing and select the correct one among the lists.

• Make sure to use to check the available contact times of the support.

• Select the "Contact Us" button

• Select the drop-down menu options that will match your concern.

• The next window will provide you with support articles based on your request and we recommend reviewing the relevant articles before selecting the "See contact options" button.

• On the final window, you will be presented with multiple options. We suggest selecting either the "Chat online" or the "Request a call" options to speak with someone. Be sure to provide as much detail as possible.

• If you cannot get connected to the support, please use the Virtual Agent and enter this exact phrase, "Talk to an agent".

• Should you be encountering issues contacting support, you may try InPrivate Window of your browser, other browser, different device/s or connect to different network.

Hi.

I had already contacted Xbox support on 6th September. I got a callback from an Xbox support agent, who transferred the call to Windows expert agent. That agent then connected to my machine via "Quick Assist". But after seeing the troubleshooting steps I've listed, he suggested that I should wipe my entire drive, including deleteing every file and then reinstall Windows. That's...... nuclear. That's not a solution. That's like suggesting brain transplant for cough & cold. There's no guarantee that that'll work, and when that doesn't work, next suggestion will take it a notch higher and tell me to get a new PC altogether.

Not sure why Microsoft doesn't wanna entertain the idea that it's not the user machine's problem but might be a bug in the Xbox app?

Hi Legendaddy,

Thank you for reaching Microsoft Community. We're sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you.

I am aware of the issue you're experiencing with launching Starfield and other games from the Xbox PC app. You appear to have attempted a number of troubleshooting techniques to fix the problem, based on the information you've supplied.

Regarding your speculation that the issue is caused by the game being installed on the D: drive, I can confirm that it is possible to install games on a non-Windows drive and run them without any issues. However, it's still possible that there may be some compatibility issues with your specific hardware configuration. Allow me to ask some questions to help us further isolate the issue.

• Do you have any third-party anti-virus software, firewall, or VPN installed?

• How about game accelerator?

• Did you add mod or addons to your game?

In order to provide you an appropriate response, I might require the answers to these questions.

I hope to hear back from you.

Kind regards,

Lavenia

I can confirm, any game installed on my E:Drive: This is where i keep my games, If the game size is larger then space available in c:Drive I get a whole bunch of errors, As soon as i clean up space every game works fine, but starfield is giving me a different error.
C:\ProgramFiles\WindowsApps\BethesdaSoftworks.ProjectGold_ 1.7.23.0 x64 is either not designed to run on

Windows or it contains an error. Try installing the program

again using the original installation media or contact your

system administrator or the software vendor for support. Error

status Oxc000012f,

I can confirm, any game installed on my E:Drive: This is where i keep my games, If the game size is larger then space available in c:Drive I get a whole bunch of errors, As soon as i clean up space every game works fine,

There you go.... another person confirming my speculation. But MS keeps denying / ignoring this.

Id like to add that i did free up 200 gigs from my c drive and all is working now.

But you are onto something. Its strange that not a single game thats storage size is greater then the available storage on c drive will work. It really needs to get sorted. What happens when games get to the point where they take 300 gigs or more and people only have a 250 gig ssd to run their OS?

I can barely imagine the amount of time and effort you must have invested in trying to find resolution to this problem. You already have exhausted everything. And have reached our assisted support team to check your device remotely for further resolution with your issue, nevertheless we still failed to fully fix your concern. And also, submitted feedback. Please revisit to see the status of your feedback items. 

Revisit Feedback Hub? There's been no response there by anyone from MS.

I spent the entire day today reinstalling Windows completely. Even after that, the game is STILL crashing with the same exact error!

My head is pounding right now. 😵

I too have the issue. I have a 250GB SSD and 2TB HDD and Starfield simply will not launch from D drive. Ive also attempted your troubleshooting attempts, as well as had MS give me the run around over the issue, even telling me to wipe my PC and start over which I agree is a totally absurd request. I guess the answer to this is to just go and buy a new SSD with more space to avoid this issue... As if the games arent expensive enough from the start (Paid for Starfield Premium Edition only to find that its totally unplayable for me)...

Maybe we should start a petition to get MS to look into this issue as if it were relevant? Im out of ideas personally.

For now Starfield via xbox.com is just the way its going to be, the question is how long will that go on for?