Zwift crashing on start-up

Bugs and Support
1

I am running Zwift on PC (Windows) on a decently powerful PC (e.g. can play a number of fairly demanding FPS games) and was in the middle of a training session when my trainer (Wahoo Kickr Core) cut out. I ended the workout as it said ‘connection lost / failed’ and from then on I am unable to launch Zwift. The game boots up but gets stuck and freezes during the load-up blue screen where the white ‘Z’ logo starts shrinking and then freezes and starts very slowly (over a matter of minutes) reducing in size until it gets to the main screen. At this point, nothing is usable and it just crashes if you click anything. I have tried:

  • Rebooting PC multiple times.
  • Uninstalling Zwift and reinstalling it (multiple times).
  • Deleting cache and all history from Microsoft Edge which is apparently used to launch the game.
  • Updated all my graphics drivers (AMD) to the latest.
  • Disabled Windows Defender for Zwift.
  • Uninstalled firewall software to stop blocking Zwift.
  • Deleted all local files from My Documents within Zwift folder.
  • Opened Zwift as administrator.

At a loss as to what to do… see logs below for more info.

2

Here are some of the things in the logs, containing the word ‘error’:

[20:04:35] ERROR: Could not load wad file: assets/gearing/gearing.wad
[20:04:35] ERROR: Sky::Load(): Watopia not found
[20:04:35] ERROR: Sky::Load(): Watopia not found
[20:04:35] ERROR: Sky::Load(): Japan not found
[20:04:35] ERROR: Sky::Load(): Japan not found
[20:04:35] ERROR: Sky::Load(): Watopia not found
[20:04:35] ERROR: Sky::Load(): Watopia not found
[20:04:35] ERROR: Sky::Load(): France not found
[20:04:35] ERROR: Sky::Load(): Scotland not found
[20:04:36] GLFW ERROR 65540: Full screen windows cannot be moved
[20:04:36] GL error GL_INVALID_ENUM
[20:04:50] ERROR: Could not load wad file: assets/Bikes/Frames/ScottSparkMountainBike2019/frame.wad
[20:04:50] ERROR: Accessory::GetThumbnailTextureHandle Error - Asset Load Failure - Cannot find thumbnail texture - UI/WhiteOrangeTheme/JerseyIcons/Zwift_RaceLeader_thumb.tga
[20:04:52] ERROR: Accessory::GetThumbnailTextureHandle Error - Asset Load Failure - Cannot find thumbnail texture - UI/WhiteOrangeTheme/Customization/RunningShirts/TealPink2020_thumb.tga
[20:04:52] ERROR: Accessory::GetThumbnailTextureHandle Error - Asset Load Failure - Cannot find thumbnail texture - UI/WhiteOrangeTheme/Customization/RunningShorts/TealPink2020_thumb.tga
[20:05:16] ERROR LEVEL: [QuestService] Goal Parsing Error: {questId: 3b259502-92a5-42e7-bbbb-ed2450008a5f, goalId: 9ad6624d-0337-48d7-9fff-46db6527503e, field: goal.tasks[0].infoInterstitialId}
[20:05:16] ERROR LEVEL: [QuestService] Goal Parsing Error: {questId: 3b259502-92a5-42e7-bbbb-ed2450008a5f, goalId: cb1d1c9a-93e2-4de7-bf8f-a9587d9e0684, field: goal.tasks[0].infoInterstitialId}
[20:05:16] ERROR LEVEL: [QuestService] Goal Parsing Error: {questId: 3b259502-92a5-42e7-bbbb-ed2450008a5f, goalId: a4d2b51f-d72e-43d4-a187-89cc432e7da6, field: goal.tasks[0].infoInterstitialId}
[20:05:16] ERROR LEVEL: [QuestService] Goal Parsing Error: {questId: 3b259502-92a5-42e7-bbbb-ed2450008a5f, goalId: 98bf379d-70ca-4daf-b498-3e9d3d04ec82, field: goal.tasks[0].infoInterstitialId}
[20:05:16] ERROR LEVEL: [QuestService] Goal Parsing Error: {questId: 3b259502-92a5-42e7-bbbb-ed2450008a5f, goalId: 8e85702f-d694-4b64-81ff-cdd5c1a7b842, field: goal.tasks[0].infoInterstitialId}
[20:05:16] ERROR LEVEL: [QuestService] Goal Parsing Error: {questId: 2363efca-cfc0-4c65-9b25-b935c85c4fe3, goalId: 035dd43f-3c06-46ac-9ae2-56413db42fa9, field: goal.tasks[0].infoInterstitialId}
[20:05:16] ERROR LEVEL: [QuestService] Goal Parsing Error: {questId: 2363efca-cfc0-4c65-9b25-b935c85c4fe3, goalId: 6e1bfb56-796a-46a7-b0c0-029789f7c0bf, field: goal.tasks[0].infoInterstitialId}
[20:05:16] ERROR LEVEL: [QuestService] Goal Parsing Error: {questId: 2363efca-cfc0-4c65-9b25-b935c85c4fe3, goalId: e9b8d09a-84b0-49cf-8f63-01191adb5e21, field: goal.tasks[0].infoInterstitialId}
[20:05:16] ERROR LEVEL: [QuestService] Goal Parsing Error: {questId: 2363efca-cfc0-4c65-9b25-b935c85c4fe3, goalId: bf287b5f-0351-4a34-a843-fa1494b35bef, field: goal.tasks[0].infoInterstitialId}
[20:05:16] ERROR LEVEL: [QuestService] Goal Parsing Error: {questId: 2363efca-cfc0-4c65-9b25-b935c85c4fe3, goalId: 5ae8a03d-29b7-4f65-b9c7-3d3e6204abea, field: goal.tasks[0].infoInterstitialId}

3

Further things I have tried to resolve this:

  • Updated Windows to latest version.
  • Reinstalling the Visual C++ redistributable runtimes.

Still not working sadly.

4

Contact support and give them the log file

5

Delete one drive (or at least disable it) if you have it.

6

I have the exact same problem, have you found a solution?

7

Honestly, for some reason, after the 20th+ restart and after 5 odd days it just started working of its own accord. Zwift official support is beyond useless and a complete joke. Even here, I had no real help.

I had a lot better luck on r/zwift on Reddit for some meaningful suggestions and I had a guy reached out to me who was WAY more helpful than Zwift’s support. His Reddit name is: johnm_z

I would suggest DMing him as he took a look at my logs for me and gave some good guidance. I shared a session ID with him for a most recent crash and he looked at the files and said the following:

"We noticed a couple of things, there’s a lot of network errors in the log which indicate it’s having a hard time reaching our servers. Any chance this is a work computer, or has a VPN setup?

Also noticed that OneDrive is syncing the my documents folder, which could cause issues with Zwift as it used that folder. Disabling to check if that solves it could help troubleshoot."

However, before I could implement anything further, I thought I would just check another time at random and it started working again of its own accord. No idea why.