Stellaris Dev Tracker

If you check your error.log in documents/paradox interactive/stellaris/logs/ and the last line says:
virtualfilesystem_physfs.cpp:1202]: Could not open file: settings.txt, error: permission denied

Then try this:
On the drive where Stellaris is installed (C:\ in this case), create a new folder called stellarisdata. The path to this file (in this example) should be c:\stellarisdata.

Then, on Steam, right click Stellaris, Properties and in the launch options box, add:
-userdir=C:/stellarisdata

and then load the game. After loading the game, you can move your user_empire_designs.txt and save games from documents/paradox interactive/stellaris into the new stellarisdata folder you've created

Originally posted by viirinsoftworks: Instead of a million people having to to tedious workarounds because you guys messed up your code, how about instead you have whoever's job it is fix it?

I can't even start a game, I just bought the Machine Age expansion (I have all of them now) and couldn't save even a bio empire without the game crashing. So even creating a new empire and trying to save it crashes everyone.

Such a great game just became 100% unplayable.

This issue has been added to our internal bug tracker, and will likely be addressed soon. In the meantime - if you don't want to wait for the fix - you can use my instructions above.

Alright, after talking with someone else who was experiencing this, and poking the tech lead we have identified the issue that is likely causing this, and a potential workaround:

This issue is caused by having non-US characters in the path to the user directory, and the game fails to save to the settings.txt file and then crashes.

The workaround:
On the drive that Stellaris is installed on, create a new folder called stellarisdata (I will be using C, but just substitute whatever drive you're using). the path to this folder in my example will be C:\stellarisdata.

Then, in Steam, right click Stellaris, go to Properties, and in the launch options, add this:
-userdir=C:/stellarisdata

Then run the game, and see if the issue persists.

Hope this helps!

Hello folks, we are seeing an increase in crashes in the crash reporter as well. Can someone who is experiencing this issue try running Steam as an admin, and see if the issue persists?