[2021] "Stellaris is Still Running"

Omniscient said: Starting last night, I've been having problems where whenever I close Stellaris, steam thinks that the game is still running, and won't let me run it again unless I close and restart steam. I've already tried several supposed fixes, such as running in administrator mode, with no success. Does anyone have any idea what is going on?

FYI the game did not change on that day, last update was 2.3.2 on June 18th. So I guess this must be a Windows or antivirus update ... ? Or even Steam maybe?

Anything like that happen then?  

My guess is there's a Steam problem causing this for you, as we haven't had other reports like this in the 2 years since this thread.


Please do a full **clean** re-install of Steam and game:

- move any valued save games elsewhere, and user_empire_designs.txt from /Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/ if you have made any custom empires or races.
- "uninstall" in Steam-Stellaris
- exit the Steam app entirely
- manually delete both the Steam/SteamApps/common/Stellaris AND Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris folders

- delete everything in the Steam folder EXCEPT steam.exe and the SteamApps folder
- run steam.exe to rebuild all that

- re-install game in Steam, run a Steam Verify when done.
- add stellaris.exe to the exceptions list of your antivirus app; ESPECIALLY if you have Windows Defender, add it to the Ransomware "Apps Allowed Through" list.
- start the game with no mods active and test

Good luck!