KSA refuses to launch, not even showing up in the task manager

[DestinyPlayer]

Whenever I try to launch KSA.exe, the game doesn't even show up in the task manager as a process, it's as if it flat out refuses to launch period.

Spoiler: PC Stats

Game is installed on Drive E:, no special characters or cyrillics anywhere in the paths.

Windows 10 Pro 21H1

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
GIGABYTE X570 GAMING X (Probably unimportant but for completeness)
64 GB of DDR4 RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Super
NVIDIA Game Ready Drivers version 581.80

Microsoft .NET SDK 9.0.304

 

[LongLiveKSA!]

Change textures to 1K resolution if you have an older computer. Worked for me.

 

[DestinyPlayer]

Change textures to 1K resolution if you have an older computer. Worked for me.

Not really an option when the game doesn't even launch far enough to be able to even access the settings, and I can't find a configuration file that'd allow me to change it by hand

 

[Crazy Cat Gentleman]

So you don't even get the first screen where you pick the whole solar system, just earth/moon, just earth, and then texture sizes?

I'd look into reporting it as a bug.

EDIT oh this is the bug reports forum

 

[DestinyPlayer]

So you don't even get the first screen where you pick the whole solar system, just earth/moon, just earth, and then texture sizes?

I'd look into reporting it as a bug.

Nothing whatsoever, it doesn't even show up in the task manager. Just "Double Click the .exe, not even a blip anywhere in the system". Far as I can tell even CPU load doesn't jump up.

And, well... that's what I'm doing? I thought this was the place to report bugs : D.

 

[LongLiveKSA!]

Not really an option when the game doesn't even launch far enough to be able to even access the settings, and I can't find a configuration file that'd allow me to change it by hand

Oh, goodness
I can't help with that, sorry

 

[Rico70ru]

The same problem, and similar config
Gamee is installed on laptop, Drive С:, no special characters or cyrillics anywhere in the paths.

Windows 11 Pro 25H2

AMD Ryzen 5 4600H
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti
NVIDIA GRD version 581.80

Microsoft .NET SDK 9.0.11

 

[Jabbawaky]

I am having the same issue, and I also have a 1650 (mobile). It has successfully launched twice. Both times were clean installs, running a fresh download of the setup...exe, and launching directly from the installer by ticking the check box at the end. However this method is not consistent.

Also, although it never shows up in the task manager, a window does pop up before immediately crashing.

Things I have tried that did not work:
* Launching the exe directly (no shortcut)
* Deleting the game files and reinstalling without using a fresh download of setup...exe
* New setup...exe without ticking the check box to launch at the end (launching through shortcut)

 

[MKellerBR]

Same issue here.
Amd Ryzen 2600
RTX3060
Windows 11 24h2 (26100.7171)

 

[selden]

Same issue here (I think). I see only a brief flash of a white full-screen window.

The installer used was
setup_ksa_v2025.11.4.2791,exe

No error log files are created: the 3rd party file utility "Everything" shows that the most recent file is named "KSA.exe".

I suspect the computer is older and more limited than devs anticipated:

Lenovo Thinkstaton E31
model 2555 31U

Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-2120 CPU @ 3.30GHz
16 GB DDR3 RAM
GPU: Nvidia Quadro 600, 1 GB DDR3

Edited to add: It's running Windows 10 22H2 with ESU.

 

[MKellerBR]

Look in Windows Events!

I found permission issues here!

 

[DestinyPlayer]

Not the case for me, it seems to be some sort of KERNELBASE.dll issue which is... concerning?

 

[selden]

Similar symptom here: Windows reliability utility shows


Faulting application name: KSA.exe, version: 2025.11.4.2791, time stamp: 0x67200000
Faulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll, version: 10.0.19041.6280, time stamp: 0x56511854
Exception code: 0xe0434352
Fault offset: 0x0000000000025369
Faulting process id: 0x1934
Faulting application start time: 0x01dc556bd634b675
Faulting application path: C:\MyPrograms\Kitten Space Agency\KSA.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\System32\KERNELBASE.dll
Report Id: 527e0da1-7415-424c-ae76-67f384a4d22a
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

 

[Allie_Gat0r :3]

Add some of us here to your list ->

Solved Thread 'Pc specs for White screen then close on start'

Friday at 5:37 AM

As asked by morrow:
Apologies, system is in french.

As for graphics card, an RTX 3070 Mobile GPU, drivers up to date.
tried running as admin, nothing yet! ping me on discord (kopelthep) if there's anything, more active there!
Cheers!

• Kopelthep
• Replies: 23
• Forum: Technical Support

• 

I have not checked the Event Viewer, but my post has a hung/stuck application even after installing DotNet 9.0 etc.

For reference:
Laptop boots game and is playable with medium textures (5.6GB VRAM allocated/used via GPU-Z) with a 4060M, Win11 22H2 + NV 552.21 Driver
Desktop with 9800X3D + 3080ti + Win10 20H2 and NV 551.86 or so don't. I'm skeptical it's solely the Nvidia driver and Vulkan, given these two GPU's drivers aren't that far apart. Maybe KSA's executable has issues on Windows 10, or a specific feature set up. But need more failures like us to figure it out I guess.

Another user *can* boot the game on Windows 10 with a GTX 1050Ti (so even older + Worse support) on driver 572.xx but, their original driver may have been even older.

I can't upgrade my Nvidia driver to a slightly newer version (yet) because I don't want to ruin my custom REBAR + DLSS overrides on a bunch of games, sadly each driver install wipes it. Ideally we find the absolute bare minimum Windows 10 version, plus the oldest Nvidia Driver per GPU generation that gets the settings screen visible (Lol.)

 

[Allie_Gat0r :3]

Same issue here (I think). I see only a brief flash of a white full-screen window.

The installer used was
setup_ksa_v2025.11.4.2791,exe

No error log files are created: the 3rd party file utility "Everything" shows that the most recent file is named "KSA.exe".

I suspect the computer is older and more limited than devs anticipated:

Lenovo Thinkstaton E31
model 2555 31U

Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-2120 CPU @ 3.30GHz
16 GB DDR3 RAM
GPU: Nvidia Quadro 600, 1 GB DDR3

Edited to add: It's running Windows 10 22H2 with ESU.

Selden, also, sorry to say but I legitimately don't think you can boot the game, ever with that GPU or possibly CPU. The GPU is way too old, with too little memory even if they optimized it. I don't even know if that quadro has vulkan. You'd need a modern *at least* 8GB GPU (even an RTX 3060 12GB from ebay I guess) in there :/

 

[selden]

My understanding is that people have been able to run KSA on graphics cards with less than 8GB by specifying low resolution surface textures.

It'd be nice if KSA provided a separate initial loading screen where settings could be specified before loading the full game.

 

[MKellerBR]

I discovered the problem.
Windows Ransomware protection protects the Documents folder, consequently preventing access to the "My Games" folder.

By adding the My Games folder ([User_profile]\Documents\My Games) as an exception in Ransomware Protection, the game opened normally, creating the folder and configuration files normally.

 

[DestinyPlayer]

I discovered the problem.
Windows Ransomware protection protects the Documents folder, consequently preventing access to the "My Games" folder.

By adding the My Games folder ([User_profile]\Documents\My Games) as an exception in Ransomware Protection, the game opened normally, creating the folder and configuration files normally.

Not the issue here.

 

[MKellerBR]

Not the issue here.

BlankWindowScreen not starting the game, without messagens, only windows events. My post Can help!

 

[Selvek]

Fixed!

In Event viewer I got the .net error below. I updated my nVidia drivers and now the game launches.

Application: KSA.exe
CoreCLR Version: 9.0.1125.51716
.NET Version: 9.0.11
Description: The process was terminated due to an unhandled exception.
Exception Info: Brutal.VulkanApi.VkResultError: Vulkan call to vkCreateInstance failed with error: VK_ERROR_INCOMPATIBLE_DRIVER
at Brutal.VulkanApi.Instance..ctor(CreateInfo createInfo)
at Brutal.VulkanApi.Vulkan.CreateInstance(CreateInfo createInfo)
at Core.KSADeviceContextEx..ctor(Api inApiVersion)
at Core.Renderer..ctor(GlfwWindow window, VkFormat depthFormat, VkPresentModeKHR presentMode, Api vulkanApiVersion)
at KSA.Program..ctor(IReadOnlyList`1 inArgs)
at KSA.Program.Main(String[] inArgs)