How to Fix Black Desert Online Not Working / Not Responding

If you’re having Black Desert Online issues on your Windows 10 PC, you might not be able to start this game at all.

There are various problems that can occur with Black Desert Online, and in today’s article, we’ll show you how to fix some of the most common problems.

Black Desert Online is a popular living-world MMORPG. As a player, you’ll experience fast-paced combat, hunt monsters and kill bosses, while training a series of important life skills that include fishing, trading, crafting, cooking, and more.

At the same time, the game will also offer you the opportunity to train your troubleshooting skills. Players report that Black Desert Online is affected by a series of issues that range from crashes and black screen issues, to FPS drops.

In this article, we’ll show you how to fix the following issues:

• Launch issues
• Graphics bugs
• Lag and disconnections
• Crashes and freezes
• FPS drops.

How can I fix Black Desert Online bugs on my Windows 10 PC?

1. Black Desert won’t launch

Here are the most frequent launch issues and how to fix them:

• Failed to read launcher version error

This error occurs when the launcher couldn’t contact the server. To fix this error, flush your DNS and clear TCP/IP, change your DNS to Google Open DNS and disable your Proxy Settings.

• Black Desert Online Launcher.exe is not responding

This error is usually caused by improper proxy settings. Disabling your Proxy Settings should eliminate Launcher crashes.

Proxy server issues are pretty annoying. Make them a thing of the past with the help of this guide.

• Only the game background is visible

Sometimes, after you launch the game, only the background is visible — there are no buttons, text boxes, or other type of information.

To fix this problem, replace the DGCefBrowser.exe file in the installation directory. You can download the DGCefBrowser.exe file from Black Desert’s official support page.

Then move the new file to the same directory where the current DGCefBrowser.exe is located. When prompted by Windows, choose Replace.

• Launch errors 3, 901 and  903

These errors usually occur when there is a network issue. Try refreshing your Internet connection and launching Black Desert Online again.

If the issue still persists, update your graphics drivers, disable background programs and switch to a wired connection if you’re using a Wi-Fi connection.

• Launch errors 10, 11, 201, 202 and 203

To quickly fix these errors, simply close the game client, log in to Steam again and launch the client again.

2. Graphics issues

There are several types of graphics issues that may affect the game. Here’s how to fix the most frequent ones:

• Black world, and overlaying windows

This appears to be a graphics driver issue affecting mainly AMD cards. To fix this problem, downgrade to driver version 16.12.2.

• Other players’ effects are not visible

Auto Frame Optimizer often removes other players’ effects in order to boost FPS. This usually happens on low-end devices. To fix this problem, simply go to the Game Settings and disable the “Auto Frame Optimizer” option.

• Game looks pixely

This problem is usually caused by the Upscale option which increases game performance. To fix the pixely-looking graphics, turn off the upscale option.

• Textures and non-player characters keep popping in

Sometimes textures, NPCs and other random objects suddenly pop up on screen while players move around the world.

To reduce this effect, turn on the High-end mode option. However, keep in mind that this action may negatively impact your game’s performance.

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3. Black Desert Online lags or disconnects

If the game is too slow or even disconnects, follow these troubleshooting steps:

1. Go to the Options menu, select Screen and lower all your game settings. If your computer barely meets the minimum system requirements to run Black Desert Online, you will often experience lag.
2. Install the latest graphics driver updates from NVIDIA or AMD.
3. Disable unnecessary background programs to reduce strain on your computer’s resources. For more information on how to perform a clean boot, check out Microsoft’s support page.
4. If you’re using a Wi-Fi connection, switch to a wired connection to reduce packet loss. Also, install the latest modem drivers from your device’s manufacturer website.
5. Power cycle your modem. Sometimes, power cycling your modem works wonders. Turn off your computer, and then remove the power cable from your router/ modem. Wait for thirty seconds, and then plug your devices back in. Turn your computer back on and launch Black Desert.

We mentioned that a driver update might fix the network issues with Black Desert Online.

If you don’t want to manually search for and download driver updates, you can always use third-party software to automatically upgrade all of your selected drivers.

 4. Black Desert Online crashes or freezes

Black Desert Online sometimes crashes after hitting ALT + Tab, and this problem is often caused by the Windows 10 KB3197954 update. To fix this issue, simply uninstall KB3197954.

If the game crashes with error 0xE19101A, try disabling Driver Signature Enforcement in Windows 10 to solve this problem.

If Black Desert Online crashes randomly, follow these troubleshooting steps:

1. Run the game as an Admin.
2. Close background programs. Launch the Task Manager, click on the Processes tab, and filter the programs by memory. Close all the programs that are using a lot of memory.
   
3. If you’re using high video settings, try lowering them to medium.
4. Uninstall and then reinstall the game to fix corrupted game files.

5. Fix FPS drops in Black Desert Online

1. Disable overlaying programs such as MSI, Steam Overlay, AMD Gaming Evolved, Nvidia GeForce Experience, etc.
2. Reset your ingame display settings
3. Turn off the Game Bar DVR feature. This feature is available on Windows 10 and is known to cause various game issues. Open the Registry Editor, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftPolicyManagerdefaultApplicationManagementAllowGameDVR, set the value to 0 and reboot.
4. Change the power profile selection on your computer:
   • Go to Control Panel >Power Options.
   • Click the Change battery settings option.
   • Select the High Performance profile.
     
5. Update your graphics drivers.If the FPS is limited to 24 or 30, enable the full screen windowed mode. This is a known issue with the AMD / Nvidia drivers when your monitor is identified as a TV in their code.
6. Change the graphics settings of the game using the following values:
   • Graphics Quality – High 2 > Medium 2 (or lower)
   • Texture Quality – High > Medium (or lower)

If you can’t open the Registry Editor in Windows 10, follow this guide to solve the problem. And here’s a similar guide for Control Panel.

Also, if you’re having trouble finding your Power Plans, check out this amazing article.

There you go, we hope that the workarounds listed above helped you to fix the Black Desert Online bugs that you encountered.

As always, if you’ve come across other workarounds, you can list the troubleshooting steps in the comment section below.