Minecraft Won't Launch? Fixes in Order, Quickest First

Work through the fixes below in order. Most launch problems are solved in the first four steps: fully closing the launcher, signing out and back in, updating your graphics driver, and testing without mods. If the game opens and then closes, skip to the crash report section, because the report usually names the problem.

First, figure out which of these you’re seeing:

• The launcher itself won’t open or closes immediately.
• The launcher opens, you press Play, and nothing happens (or it closes after a few seconds).
• The game starts but crashes at the Mojang screen or while loading, with a crash screen or “Exit code”.
• The game freezes on a loading bar and never finishes.

Fixes in order (Windows and Mac)

1. Close it completely. The launcher can keep running in the system tray (Windows) or menu bar (Mac) after you close its window. Quit it from there, or end “Minecraft Launcher” and any javaw.exe in Task Manager, then start again.
2. Restart your computer. Pending Windows updates and stuck background processes cause more launch failures than you’d expect.
3. Sign out and back in to the launcher. An expired Microsoft session can stop the Play button working or show “Failed to authenticate”.
4. Update your graphics driver from NVIDIA, AMD or Intel’s own site (or your laptop maker’s). Old drivers are one of the most common causes of crashes at startup and of “OpenGL” or black-screen errors. Laptops with two GPUs should also set Minecraft (and javaw.exe for Java) to the high-performance GPU in Windows graphics settings.
5. Test a clean vanilla profile (Java). In the launcher, go to Installations and launch “Latest release” with no mods. If that works, the problem is a mod, a modded profile or custom settings; see the crash report section below.
6. Undo custom Java settings (Java). If you edited JVM arguments or pointed an installation at your own Java, put it back to the default. The launcher bundles the right Java for each version.
7. Check free disk space. Updates fail quietly on a nearly full drive. Clear a few gigabytes.
8. Repair the install.
   • Java launcher from the Microsoft Store or Xbox app: Windows Settings → Apps → Installed apps → Minecraft Launcher → Advanced options → Repair, then Reset if that doesn’t help.
   • Bedrock on Windows: the same steps on the Minecraft app. If the game won’t start at all, also repair the Gaming Services app the same way, then restart.
9. Reinstall, after backing up. For Java, copy your saves folder out of .minecraft first. Then download the launcher again from minecraft.net. Our launcher guide explains where everything is stored.

If you’re on an old or low-power PC, check the system requirements too. Integrated graphics that don’t support a recent enough OpenGL version can’t run current Java versions.

Reading a Java crash report

When Java Minecraft crashes, it writes a report to the crash-reports folder inside your game directory (%appdata%\.minecraft on Windows by default). Logs from the last session are in the logs folder, as latest.log. Open the newest file and look for:

• “Description:” near the top. It’s a short summary of what failed.
• “Caused by:” lines. The first one usually names the real problem.
• A mod ID in those lines. If you see one, remove that mod (or update it to the right version) and try again.
• “Pixel format not accelerated” or OpenGL errors. That’s a graphics driver problem, so go back to step 4.

Mod launchers (Modrinth App, CurseForge, Prism) show the log in their own window. “Exit code 1” alone doesn’t mean anything specific; the log above it does. Most modded crashes come from a version mismatch or a missing library, which our mod install guide explains how to avoid.

Bedrock on phones and tablets

1. Force-close the app and open it again.
2. Update it from Google Play or the App Store. A game left behind on an old version may not start after a service change; see how to update Minecraft.
3. Restart the device and make sure there’s free storage. Minecraft needs room for updates and world saves.
4. Remove resource packs you added if the crash started after importing one.
5. Reinstall only after backing up worlds. On some devices worlds are stored inside the app, so uninstalling deletes them. Upload them to a Realm or export them first.

Consoles

Fully close the game from the console’s home menu (not just back to the dashboard), check for system and game updates, and restart the console. If one specific world crashes on load, try opening another world. If others work, the problem is that world, often a huge redstone or entity build. If the game starts but runs poorly rather than crashing, the lag guide is the better page.