Game freezes, crashes, and steam.exe file no longer works

I have been playing Gal Civ 4 for 40 hours with no issue. On Sunday I attempted to play, and the game froze when I pressed play on the launcher screen. After a couple of minutes frozen, it crashed completely. I then got a popup that said, "Problem with shortcut - The item 'steam.exe' that this shortcut refers to has been changed or moved, so this shortcut will no longer work properly. Do you want to delete this shortcut?"

I tried absolutely every fix I could find for similar issues online. None worked. I finally had to uninstall Steam and reinstall it just so that I could open it again. This issue did not happen with any of my other games after reinstalling. Tonight I tried to open Gal Civ 4 again and the same error occurred. I had to uninstall and reinstall Steam for a second time just so that I could open it.

What can I do to fix this? I'm scared to even click on the game icon again because I'm afraid I'll have to reinstall Steam for a third time.

galactic civilizations iv

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Verify your files, you will be missing three of them and they will be auto replaced.

These three files are launcher files.

From your post are you starting from the Icons on you screen?

If yes and you are using steam start Steam from the start menu in the lower left, then go to the upside-down V in the lower right and select the Steam icon and start game from there.

This may or may not work but in the years, I have been on steam starting the games this way has never failed.

If it does work verify your files after each session.

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Got it, will do. I will try that when I get home from work tonight. Thanks! Any reason why these three files consistently go missing every time the game is downloaded?

When I downloaded Steam, I pinned the program to my taskbar. I had also created an icon for my desktop. Neither of them worked after opening GC4. So are you saying I should pin Steam to my start menu, or search for the program in the search bar after opening the start menu? I will try that, if so. But I assume once the .exe file is corrupted the program cannot be started by any means. Admittedly, I am not too well versed in computers so I may be totally off base.

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I tried what you suggested. Verified the game files, then tried to launch. Same result. Game freezes, crashes, Steam crashes, then the .exe file will no longer work for Steam. I opened multiple games before opening GC4 and none of them caused me any issues. Something is wrong with the game. I also tried opening steam from the start menu instead of the desktop icon and that didn't work either.

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Hello, thank you for reporting this. may I ask if you're using any mods, and what version the game is updated to?

Other Information that would help us diagnose this include:

When the game froze and crashed, Did you fill out a crash report. If so, then did you submit an email in the report
What day/time did the crash occur
Do you have any AntiVirus Software that you can check to see if GalCiv was accidentally flagged and shut down

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I have not downloaded any mods, just straight vanilla GC4. The game is the latest version. No crash report option was available when the game and Steam crashed, so I was not able to file a report. I do not remember the exact time that the first crash happened on Sunday, but it would have been sometime in the evening; between 7-9pm US central time. When the game crashed for the second time on May 29th, it was around 9:15pm US central time. I am running Norton Antivirus, and it is not currently being flagged or blocked.

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Checking in on this. Were you guys able to figure out what is going on RammaStardock?

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Any news Ramma? I'd like to be able to play the game again without the worry of having to reinstall my entire library. Thanks.

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Quoting AnfieldRoad17,

reply 7

Any news Ramma? I'd like to be able to play the game again without the worry of having to reinstall my entire library. Thanks.

Hello Anfield, my next question is have you been able to update to todays update v2.7? As it addresses quite a few issues, it may resolve yours, if so can you update me here or on Discord?

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The new update appears to have fixed the issue. I had no issues loading into a game just now and playing a few turns. Thanks so much for your help, Ramma!

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