Fortnite is a free online multiplayer battle royale game developed by Epic Games. The game has seen massive popularity ever since its release and is still actively played on various platforms. While Fortnite enjoys a massive and steady player base, it has been subject to many errors and issues in the past and they continue to be a problem for the players even today.
Most notably, broken patches, server issues, and a bunch of computer problems have kept the game crashing more times than a rusty airplane. It gets even worse when we focus specifically on the PC port of the game. The game keeps crashing at launch, midgame, or even randomly at times. This is certainly not how one would enjoy their favorite game at all.
Select the Process tab and locate the Epic games launcher. Right-click on it and click on the End task option. After closing down all the background processes of the Epic Games Launcher, restart the launcher and check if the issue gets resolved. If still Epic Games Launcher won’t open, then try the next solution. Epic Games Launcher Crashes Desktop Icons: Hi so i recently dowloaded epic games launcher to install a game and i noticed that my desktop icons were half black. I did a restore point to fix it and i had to install epic games again and when i did my icons went back to being half black again. I've played a few games today, took a break to relax and eat dinner, came back to the game and everytime I try to play Fortnite by double clicking on either the Fortnite application or the Epic Games Launcher, it takes me to the UE4 Crash Reporter. The title says: an Unreal Process has crashed: UE4-EpicGamesLauncher. Epic Games Launcher Crash on launch 0 When I open up the Epic Games Launcher, I can only really get past the login screen, and at that point I am met with the Unreal Engine crash screen, given the options 'close without sending,' 'close and send,' etc.
Why Fortnite Crashes on PC
Fortnite is a massively played online multiplayer game. You can expect the game to receive constant updates and fixes from time to time. And, at the same time, a few (or a lot) of problems along with them as well. That’s why it’s extremely difficult to pinpoint why Fortnite keeps crashing on PC. It could be a problem either at Epic’s end (server issues, broken patches), issues with your PC, or Fortnite itself.
There are multiple causes behind the error. These include but are not limited to faulty or corrupt drivers, high game settings, overclocking, temperature, etc. To find out what it is exactly, try playing any other graphics-intensive game for an hour or so and see if that particular game crashes. If it does, the problem lies with your PC or its settings. Otherwise, the game (Fortnite) itself is causing the crash.
How to Fix Fortnite Crashing on PC
Here are a few methods that can help you fix the Fortnite crashing issue. You don’t have to try them all; just start with the first solution and work your way down the list to see which one works for you.
Fix #1 – Run Fortnite as an Administrator
The first course of action is to run Fortnite as administrator. Running the game as an administrator will let it have all the rights and access to function properly.
Step 1: Right-click Fortnite and select the Run as administrator option. Click Yes on the User Account Control window prompt if it appears.
Step 2: Launch and play Fortnite for an hour or so and see if the game crashes.
If it doesn’t crash anymore after running as an administrator, you can use the ‘Permanent’ fix below for more convenience.
PERMANENT Fix:
Step 1: Navigate to the directory where the Fortnite folder is located. Right-click the Fortnite folder and click on Properties.
Step 2: In the Properties window, go to the Security tab and click on the Edit button.
Step 3: In the Group or user names section, click on your account and see if Full Control is allowed for your account in the bottom window. Allow your account to have Full Control if it doesn’t already and save the changes.
Step 4: Go back to the Security tab and click on the Advanced option at the bottom.
Step 5: In the Advanced Security Settings window, change the Owner to your account. Apply and save the changes.
Step 6: Launch Fortnite.
If the game is still crashing after having administrator privileges, move on to the next solution.
Fix #2 – Tone Down your Graphics Settings
It’s possible that your game settings are set to High that are causing the issue, so try lowering those settings. You can test with lower resolution and effects to see if that fixes Fortnite crashes on PC.
Here’s what you need to do:
Step 1: Go to your Fortnite Settings, then click Video Settings.
Step 2: Check the following graphics settings and adjust them respectively:
- Display Resolution: set to the same resolution as the resolution of your display in your computer
- Quality: low or medium
- View Distance: medium or far
- Shadows: off
- Anti-Aliasing: off
- Textures: low
- Effects: low
- Show FPS: On
Step 3: Save your settings and restart your computer to see if your Fortnite runs properly.
Fix #3 – Avoid CPU Overclocking
Higher clock speeds can impact your game stability. If you have overclocked your processor and then your Fortnite crashes, you should set your CPU clock speeds back to the default. If this fixed the issue, then well and good; otherwise proceed to the next solution.
Fix #4 – Update your GPU Driver
Often times when a game crashes the main culprit behind this is your graphics card driver. You may be using a wrong device driver or it’s out of date which causes the game to crash.
The processof updating your driver is simple: go to your graphics card manufacturer’swebsite, find the latest driver and make sure it’s compatible with your versionof the Windows variant. Download and install the driver, and then restart yoursystem for changes to take effect.
Fix #5 – Turn off Timeout Detection
Another reason behind the Fortnite crashing issue is your TDR setting. TDR stands for Timeout Detection and Recovery. Timeout detection would cause the game to crash if the graphics card took too much time to launch the game. Turning it off will let the graphics card take as much time as it wants.
It is recommended that you ‘back up your registry’ before applying this fix in case if something goes wrong. Here’s how to do it:
- Press the Windows+R to bring up the Run box.
- Type “regedit” and press Enter to open the Registry Editor.
- Click File on the menu bar, then select Export.
- Select the location where you want to save the backup copy, then type a name in the file name box and click Save.
Now that you have saved a backup copy for your registry, let’s turn off the GPU’s timeout detection.
Step 1: Open the Registry Editor and follow this path:
Step 2: In the GraphicsDrivers section, locate the TdrLevel value. If it isn’t there, right-click on any empty space in the right pane, then hover over New and click QWORD (64-bit) Value.
Step 3: Rename the new value as “TdrLevel”.
Step 4: Double-click TdrLevel and assign it a ‘0’ value in the Value data field. Click OK to save changes.
Step 5: Close the Registry Editor and restart your computer.
Launch Fortnite and see if you’ve fixed the crashing issue.
Fix #6 – Reinstall BattlEye Fortnite
Your BattlEye anti-cheat service may also cause the game to crash at random times. If this is the case, you’ll have to reinstall the service to fix the problem.
Step 1: Browse to your Fortnite install folder and proceed to:
Step 2: Run Uninstall_BattlEye.bat file.
Step 3: Restart your computer.
Step 4: Now run Install_BattlEye.bat from the same folder.
This shouldfix the problem if it’s been related to BattlEye.
Epic Games Store
Fix #7 – Disable Fullscreen Optimizations
For someusers, disabling this option from the game executable’s properties has fixedFortnite crashes. This can be done by changing the compatibility mode on FortniteClient-Win64-Shipping.exe.The process is as follows:
Step 1: Go to your Fortnite install folder and proceed to:
Step 2: Right-click on FortniteClient-Win64-Shipping.exe and select Properties.
Step 3: Go to the Compatibility tab and check Disable Fullscreen Optimizations, then click Apply > OK.
Fortnite
Step 4: Similarly, right-click on FortniteClient-Win64-Shipping_BE.exe and select Properties.
Step 5: Go to the Compatibility tab and check Disable Fullscreen Optimizations, then click Apply > OK.
Fix #8 – Reinstall Fortnite
If none ofthe solutions seem to work, you can try to uninstall and then reinstall Fortnite.
Step 1: Launch Epic Games Launcher.
Step 2: Uninstall Fortnite (click the gear icon next to ‘Launch’ and select Uninstall).
Epic Games Launcher Download Pc
Step 3: Restart your PC.
Step 4: Launch Epic Games Launcher.
Step 5: Install Fortnite.
Step 6: Install Fortnite Battle Royale (optional, click the gear icon, click options, tick Battle Royale and confirm).
Step 7: Launch Fortnite.
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We hope that one of the above solutions will work for you and you’ll be able to play the game smoothly again. But if that doesn’t happen and you still face the crashing issue, then we suggest heading over the Fortnite Support Site for help.