Windows - Sea of Thieves is not Launching

Our team is aware of some users reporting that on a PC the game will become stuck or crash on a black screen shortly after launching. 

The most common fix for this issue is making sure your Windows Operating system is up to date.

How to check for updates: 

1. Press the Windows Key
2. Type in Check for Updates
3. Select Check for Updates

Other solutions:

Fix #1

Login to Windows 10 with a local Admin Account. This fixes majority of cases reported.

Fix #2

Reset your copy of Sea of Thieves

1. Uninstall the game
2. Press the Windows Key
3. Type in wsreset
4. Right-click and select run as administrator
5. Once complete perform a system reboot
6. Press the Windows Key
7. Reinstall the game (Please install the game to your C drive)
8. Type in Apps and Features
9. Find Sea of Thieves on the list
10. Select Advanced Options
11. Select Reset

Fix #3

Update graphics drivers

When your graphics drivers are either not up to date or suffering from some form of corruption, this can also cause the crash while booting. We recommend that when trying this step that you completely remove you old drivers before updating to the latest versions. To remove your old drivers and then update to the latest:

1. Press the Windows Key
2. Type Add or Remove Program
3. Scroll down the list and find your graphics driver
4. Click the driver once and select uninstall. Confirm this by clicking Uninstall again.
5. Once complete reboot Windows
6. Download the latest drivers from here:
   • Nvidia - Click Here
   • AMD - Click Here
7. Install to the latest driver and then reboot your PC again

Fix #4

Ensure your profile has Offline Permissions enabled

1. Open the Windows Store.
2. Click the Elipssis (3 Dots) from top right corner of the store and select Settings
3. Scroll down to the Offline Permissions section and enable "Make this PC the one that i use to run some games or apps that have limited licenses, even when im offline' (please note: If this option is already enabled, then there is no need to toggle it off and on as you are limited to the number of times you can perform this action).
4. Reboot Sea of Thieves

Fix #5

Change your Language and Region settings

1. Press the Windows Key
2. Type in Region & Language and press Enter
3. Change your Language and Region to English (United States) 
4. Ensure the language option English (United States) is at the top of the list, you can do this by selecting the arrows as shown in the below image. 
5. Reboot your PC
6. Attempt to play Sea of Thieves once more

Should this fix your issue please feel free to revert your language and region back to what they were.

Note: If your language and region are set to English (United States) already please change it to English (United Kingdom) instead. 

Fix #6

Check the Store

1. Open the Windows 10 Store, then in the top right corner click on the profile picture.
2. If you have multiple accounts signed in, sign out all of them but leave the email account linked to the game’s purchase signed in.
3. Next, in the Windows 10 Store download any free app at all.
4. Then try playing Sea of Thieves again through the Windows 10 Store “Library” page.

Fix #7

Go to the below link and save/run the tool. Follow the on-screen instructions to troubleshoot/fix your issue.

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=271185

Fix #8

1. Press Windows + R
2. Type Powershell and hit enter
3. Copy and paste the following into the Powershell window and press enter 

Get-AppXPackage | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml”} 

 Fix #9

Check your time and date settings

1. Right-click the clock on your start menu
2. Select Adjust date/time.
3. Untick then retick Set time zone automatically.
4. Reboot your PC

Additional notes:

1. Check no VPN is present as this could be causing a conflict with the game
2. Check your antivirus is not causing a conflict with the game. Most notable Trend Micro Internet Security has been known to cause conflicts. 
3. Check MSI afterburner is not causing conflicts with the game. 
4. Check a 'Readyboost' USB stick is not in use. 
5. Check your GPU drivers are up to date.