Having Issues With ‘GTA 5’ PC Not Launching? Here Are Some Fixes

Grand Theft Auto 5 launched today on PC, though to say it launched smoothly would be an exaggeration. While many players have been able to drive through the streets of Los Santos, soaking in the 4K God Rays, others can’t even get GTA 5 to launch on their rig. Here are some of the most common errors and some ways to fix them.

Windows User Name Error

One of the most common errors for GTA 5 PC players unable to access the game is an issue with the install path thanks to the PC username. Rockstar has laid out a workaround to circumvent the issue, and they are currently working on a way to patch GTA 5 so this error won’t happen in the future. Essentially, the error message “The Rockstar update service is unavailable (code 1)” will pop up in the installer. This means that your username in Windows contains a character that is causing issues with the GTA 5 launcher. Rockstar is recommending that players create a new Administrator account in Windows and then re-boot the system. Log in with the new account and start the installation process. Eventually the game should be patched and this workaround will be obsolete, but until then it’s the only way to continue the installation.

GTA 5 Social Club Launcher Issues

Some players are reporting issues with the GTA 5 launcher failing to initialize. Rockstar has recomended to players to uninstall the launcher and reinstall it. Just the launcher and not Grand Theft Auto 5 itself. Make sure that the following.exe files are not running in your task manager:

• GTA5.exe
• PlayGTAV.exe
• GTAVLauncher.exe

Run the launcher as an administrator and you should be good to start playing GTA 5 soon!

Failed Zlib Call Error

This is an error that seems to be haunting some GTA 5 fans, and can be a devastating one. This error happens after you’ve installed the game and successfully launched Grand Theft Auto 5. For some players this has popped up right away, though some Steam users have reported it happening after playing for a few minutes. The error suggests rebooting your PC or reinstalling the game all together. Rockstar’s support page for GTA 5 on PC states that rebooting the PC will likely not make a difference in correcting the error. Steam users can verify the game cache, but those who bought from Rockstar will be forced to redownload the full 60GB game. As of now there is no other fix for this issue.

If you’ve been lucky to play GTA 5 with no issues, enjoy it. For the rest of us, hopefully Rockstar fixes these issues quickly, otherwise GTA 5 can be chalked up to another failed game launch in a recent history all too full of them.

[Image via Rockstar]