If you're experiencing issues with your launcher when you try and run a game from Steam please try the following solutions:

• Make sure steam.exe and the cities.exe file are on the allowed list for both Windows Defender and your anti virus program
  
• Check your anti virus programs quarantine section as we've found that occasionally the bootstrapper file gets falsely flagged as a virus. If it's in your quarantined list please restore the file and try again.
  
• Make sure that both Steam and the game is installed on the same partition, preferably your C:

If none of the above first steps work please try the following:

1. Exit Steam and start it as Administrator (right click Steam.exe > Run as administrator)
   
2. Run the cities.exe file directly from the installation directory (this will circumvent the launcher all together)
   
3. Exit Steam and remove the Paradox Launcher from the Add/Remove programs menu (Windows) and then start the game again. This will trigger a fresh re-installation of the launcher and hopefully solve it.
   
4. If this still doesn't solve it this rather long and elaborate removal of the launcher should do the trick:

For each game that uses the launcher, you will need to delete the following files or folders, if they exist, from the game’s data directory (e.g., C:\Users\YOURUSER\AppData\Local\Colossal Order\Cities_Skylines):

.launcher-cache
content_load.json or dlc_load.json (depending on game)
game_data.json
newsfeed


On Windows:

1. Go to Add or Remove Programs and uninstall “Paradox Launcher v2”
   
2. Delete the following files or folders, if they still exist:
   C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Paradox Interactive\launcher-v2
   C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Paradox Interactive\launcherpath (should be gone)
   C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Paradox Interactive\launcher-v2 (should only contain logs)

On Mac:
Remove the following files and folders from ~/Library/Application Support/Paradox Interactive/:

• .cpatch (hidden by default)
  
• launcher-v2 (all of the folders and versions)
  
• bootstrapper-v2
  
• ThirdPartyLicenses.txt

On Linux:
Remove the following files and folders:

• ~/.paradoxlauncher
  
• ~/.local/share/Paradox Interactive/launcher-v2
  
• ~/.local/share/Paradox Interactive/launcherpath

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If none of these steps have solved it please open a ticket[paradox.zendesk.com] with the following:

Windows:

- Close the game
- Attach ALL files Found here - Attach ALL files Found here
Mac:
- Close the game
- Attach ALL files Found here
Linux:
- Close the game
- Attach ALL files Found here (if is set)
OR
(if it was not set)

If you could also provide a screenshot of the error that would be much appreciated.