AION 2 0xE0000012 crash after the NCSoft logo (fix)

If you run Corsair iCUE, disable it from Windows startup apps and restart your PC before launching AION 2. One player (AION 2 Discord) reproduced this exactly five times in a row: the game crashed every time iCUE was running in the background and launched flawlessly every time it wasn't. A second player in a Steam thread also named iCUE as the cause and added "I guess its been happening with Razer and Logitech's as well" (a guess, not something they tested).

Press Windows + R, run msconfig, open the Services tab, tick "Hide all Microsoft services", find every Citrix Systems Inc. entry, untick them and restart. In the main Steam thread one player posted this (copied from a League of Legends tip) and wrote that AION 2 then launched; a second replied "This worked for me, thanks!". A third, Rabbit 666, stopped the Citrix services in services.msc, then disabled four Citrix services in msconfig (Citrix Policy Service, App Data Protection, Device Posture, Workspace Advanced) and rebooted: "Still the same issue." Citrix won't work until you turn the services back on. On 14 October another player wrote that they had played all week with Citrix installed and got 0xE0000012 for the first time; they didn't say what they tried.

One player in the same Steam thread wrote "deleting the citrix workspace app from the computer solved the aion 2 exit:: 0xE0000012 error for me". Nobody else has confirmed it. Just closing the Citrix app and stopping its background services did not help two players in the same thread (DeviLuna and codeinedreams), so quitting it isn't enough. The log the thread starter posted has the line md:: 1 C:\Program Files (x86)\Citrix\ICA Client\ctxapclient64.dll, while the Windows system files around it show md:: 0. NC hasn't said what that flag means.

NC's support guide AION 2 Closes or Crashes Shortly After Launch says other applications often conflict with AION 2's security features and lists Citrix and other remote or work apps, remote desktop tools, other launchers and games with anti-cheat, Razer Synapse, ASUS Aura Sync, Corsair iCUE, and monitoring tools such as NZXT CAM and CPU-Z. Close them, then press Ctrl + Shift + Esc and end any leftover processes before launching. This is NC's general advice for launch crashes, not specific to 0xE0000012, and no 0xE0000012 poster has said the list alone fixed it. One player wrote "Mine was RivaTuner.." and didn't say whether closing it helped.

An earlier log investigation in the AION 2 Discord found NCGuard's own log (ncglog.txt) flagging Malwarebytes files (mbamsi64.dll and offreg.dll) and linked that to this crash; the game launched once Malwarebytes was removed. We could not re-read that Discord thread on 15 October, and no Steam poster has reported Malwarebytes as the cause.

In Steam, right-click AION 2, open Properties, and put -dx12 -windowed in Launch Options. One player says this fixed 0xE0000012 for them, in the same Steam thread and again in a second thread (same username, no one else confirmed it). Nobody has explained why it helps. If you get a DirectX message instead, see the DirectX 12 page.

In the Steam launch Support Link thread a player answering someone whose game closes after the NC logo wrote "you can try to unplug my mic, loaded up, no issues or disable mic driver in device manager. It works for me". Nobody else has confirmed it. If you have a USB headset or mic, see also the 0xE0000013 page, where unplugging USB devices is the best-supported fix.

For Mac players running AION 2 through CrossOver 26.3 with D3DMetal, one Reddit thread (M1 Max, about 10 October) shows the NC Guard log naming gameoverlayrenderer64.dll before exit:: 0xE0000012, with the game hanging at the splash or closing after the intro. The poster fully exited Steam, then launched Steam through CrossOver with WINEDLLOVERRIDES="gameoverlayrenderer64,gameoverlayrenderer=", which disables the Steam overlay DLLs, and says it worked. One other user wrote "works for me too"; a later user said it worked only temporarily before the splash hang came back.