10 Ways to Fix League of Legends Won’t Start on Windows 10

League of Legends is one of those titles that changed how we look at gaming and online multiplayer systems in general. Over the course of time, LOL has become a part of the essential popular culture as well. While all this remains true, the League of Legends application for Windows has not been near perfect by any chance. In fact, now and then, people come across problems that stop them from playing the game.

And we are not even talking about bugs at this point. We are talking about issues that stop users from opening the League of Legends game in the first place. As you can guess, this can be pretty annoying, especially if you are addicted to the game. However, thanks to the incredible tech support from the developers and the peer community, you would not have much trouble finding the right solutions to fix the League of Legends will not start problem.

In this article, we have compiled the best solutions to fix the League of Legends won’t start on Windows 10 error. We have gathered these options from multiple sources, including the peer communities and tech support channels. Thus, you may want to try one or more of these steps until you see some success.

Potential Reasons League of Legends Won’t Start

There are two primary scenarios that stop users from starting the League of Legends game on Windows 10. They are:

You double-click on the League of Legends shortcut you have on your desktop, but the game does not open. It means you cannot see any response on the screen. The situation means the game cannot even load in the first place.
In the second scenario, the game may start up but get stuck at the primary stage. You may or may not receive an error saying that League of Legends cannot connect or start up. In this case, a network issue or something more internal could be responsible for the error.

Now, some of the common reasons why these errors occur are as follows. We will be trying to fix the League of Legends won’t start on error by addressing the following issues one by one.

Server issues with the League of Legends infrastructure may cause the problem in the first place. If the central server faces any problem, you cannot connect to the game.
You may have a system-level or network-level firewall that blocks your requests to League of Legends. It may have been set up accidentally or deliberately.
If you have an unstable internet connection, it may also cause a problem. Once again, the LOL client will not be able to connect to the servers.
An improper installation of League of Legends is also a reason why the game cannot start properly. This issue could happen due to several factors, including malware attacks.

Depending on the OS build you are using and the installed apps, you may see some system-specific errors. However, now, we will look at ways to fix the problem.

How to Fix League of Legends Won’t Launch on Windows 10 Error?

Here are the ten best solutions we have found. It would be great if you can follow these solutions in the same order we have listed them.

#1 Check the Internet Connection

Make sure that you have an active internet connection. If your computer cannot connect to the internet, the LOL client may also not be able to do that. Now, there could be a number of reasons why the internet may not work. It could be a problem with your ISP or the router, or the PC. Therefore, we recommend turning off and turning on the Wi-Fi router or the modem to reset the internet connection.

Then, you can open the League of Legends application, and it should work correctly.

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#2 Fix the Shortcut Issue

If you have installed League of Legends on your PC as a standalone game, you might be using a shortcut to access the game. It means the shortcut you place on the desktop will launch the League of Legends client, located in the original directory. Therefore, if something is wrong with the shortcut, you cannot play the League of Legends game. In this case, however, the solution is effortless.

Instead of relying on the shortcut, you can open the game from the original installation directory. To do it,

You have to open This PC on your Windows computer and choose the drive where you have installed League of Legends.
Navigate to Riot Games\League of Legends
In this window, you can find several files and applications. Locate the file named LeagueClient and open it by double-clicking.

Now, you should be able to see the League of Legends game running without a problem. If this method works as per the expectations, you can delete the old shortcut and create a new one.

#3 Rely on Another Launcher

Did you know that League of Legends comes with multiple launchers in the system? These launchers find their way to your Windows 10 PC during the installation. So, if you cannot launch the game using the LeagueClient app that we had mentioned earlier, you can use another launcher. To do so,

You have to go to Riot Games\RADS\System
In the window, you can find a cfg file.
Open this file on Notepad
While editing, find the string called leagueClientOptIn=Yes and change it to leagueClientOptIn=No.

Once you have done this, you can go to the installation directory of the game and open launcher.exe. If this step does not work, you can try opening the file called launcher.admin.exe as well.

#4 Update the League of Legends app

You may be wondering how you can update the app when you cannot open it in the first place. As it happens, there is a trick with the installation directory to get the job done. The steps are simple:

You have to go to Riot Games\RADS\Projects
Now, find two folders named league_client and lol_game_client
Delete both these files and remove them from Recycle Bin.

Now, you have to go Riot Games\RADS\solutions
Find two folders named league_client_sin and lol_game_client_sin.
Delete both these files

Once you have done this, you can restart your Windows PC. When it wakes up, League of Legends will force-update in an instant. So, if the game could not run due to a corrupted installation, this step should fix the problem.

#5 Update Your Hardware Drivers

As you know, League of Legends is one of those games that require a good amount of graphical resources. Therefore, if an error impacts the devices connected to your PC, it may stop the game from starting by itself. It is why experts ask you to update/reinstall the hardware drivers whenever you want maximum performance from LOL — or other games, for that matter.

Open Windows Manager on your Windows 10 PC
Choose the Display Adaptor of the computer and choose the option to Update driver from the context menu
You can select an option to search for the updated driver and install it automatically.

Once the process is done, you can restart your PC and start running League of Legends again.

As you have seen, the steps are significant when the game does not start. The other five steps you can follow are:

#6 You have to make sure that you are not running any conflicting applications when you open League of Legends. In some cases, applications like Razer Synapse can impact how well the LOL app functions. The same is the case with the Steam application, especially if you have installed a non-Steam version of League of Legends.

#7 Go to Windows Task Manager and check if you are running any problematic applications in the background. In some cases, processes belonging to the League of Legends collection from a previous session can stop you from launching the app. If you find such processes, you should end the task and try relaunching the LOL client.

#8 If you can launch the League of Legend client but cannot play the game, you can try another option. You have to open the client and click on the Cogwheel on the window’s top-right corner. From the window that appears after that, you can choose the option to ‘Initiate Full Repair.’

#9 You should also check if the Windows Defender suite or Firewall blocks access to League of Legends. In that case, you can remove the application from the list and relaunch the LOL app. You should also set up Windows Defender to exempt LOL from the firewall.

#10 You must also check if your device contains some kind of malware. The presence of malware can stop League of Legends from starting correctly. As you know, some type of malware can impact the popular application in a Windows 10 PC.

Conclusion

If you cannot solve the League of Legends issue using any of the methods mentioned above, you have only one option left. It is to reinstall League of Legends on your computer. First, you will have to remove the existing installation from the PC. Then, you can use the official installer to install a fresh copy.