EAC - Unknown File Version (SoTGame.exe)

Ok I fixed it. I had to do a full reinstall. Got a 2tb external hard drive , backed up my files and reinstalled windows 11 using windows media creation tool. Downloaded an image, mounted it , installed windows fresh, then updated everything, downloaded the game... Ran.

Sigh.

Still working... In summary I believe the issue was my windows 11 user permissions got corrupted somehow .. and instead of dedicating 6 more months to figure out how to do a new one without reading my main user account on Windows, I backed up my personal folders on an external drive , and pushed the trigger on a clean new windows 11 install.

This solved my issue. I can play Sea of Thieves again

Thank you Rare for NOT being helpful at all.

Typo: without "...without deleting my main user account"

Happy sailing folks

@iiitzbam said in EAC - Unknown File Version (SoTGame.exe):

Still working... In summary I believe the issue was my windows 11 user permissions got corrupted somehow .. and instead of dedicating 6 more months to figure out how to do a new one without reading my main user account on Windows, I backed up my personal folders on an external drive , and pushed the trigger on a clean new windows 11 install.

This solved my issue. I can play Sea of Thieves again

Thank you Rare for NOT being helpful at all.

@abroadsplash869 you're going to need to reinstall a fresh copy of windows. Sadly this is the only way.

@abroadsplash869 ok, this might not help everyone with this problem, but i HAVE TO tell you all this. So, recently bought this game and had (as i think) the same problem as you: entered the game and after a few minutes game crashes with "EAC unknown file version (athena/.../core_e4d02...).
I tried to reinstall game, look for compressed files to uncompress, checked licence numbers, renamed SeaOfThieves.exe to SoT.exe but nothing worked, and other solutions just didn't seem like for my problem. The last thing i did to my files, as i remember, was changing SeaOfThieves.exe to SoT.exe and then back . THEN i just decided to make Steam check for any corrupted files, and for my surprise it did find some. I don't know what these files were, because when i changed something in files and it didn't work, i always changed everything back. So, after it fixed corrupted files, i entered the game and.... IT WORKED, IT DIDN'T CRASH. I don't exactly know how i fixed it, but i did, and i hope this will somehow help other ones with this problem.

@faddyrhyme47548 пишет в EAC - Unknown File Version (SoTGame.exe):

@abroadsplash869 ok, this might not help everyone with this problem, but i HAVE TO tell you all this. So, recently bought this game and had (as i think) the same problem as you: entered the game and after a few minutes game crashes with "EAC unknown file version (athena/.../core_e4d02...).
I tried to reinstall game, look for compressed files to uncompress, checked licence numbers, renamed SeaOfThieves.exe to SoT.exe but nothing worked, and other solutions just didn't seem like for my problem. The last thing i did to my files, as i remember, was changing SeaOfThieves.exe to SoT.exe and then back . THEN i just decided to make Steam check for any corrupted files, and for my surprise it did find some. I don't know what these files were, because when i changed something in files and it didn't work, i always changed everything back. So, after it fixed corrupted files, i entered the game and.... IT WORKED, IT DIDN'T CRASH. I don't exactly know how i fixed it, but i did, and i hope this will somehow help other ones with this problem.

Change: i played pc Steam version and, as i remember, i have Windows 11. Just for anyone, who will need this information

Hello,

It seems to be an EAC issue, not a game issue.

Here’s how I solved it:

1. Go to Program Files (x86) and locate the Easy Anti-Cheat folder (typically found in the C: Drive).
2. Delete the folder. If you see any other files or folders related to Easy Anti-Cheat or EAC, delete them as well.
3. Navigate to the Sea of Thieves (SOT) game files. If you're using Steam, right-click on the game, select the gear icon, go to Manage, then Browse Local Files, and delete the Easy Anti-Cheat folder. (If this doesn’t resolve the issue, you can also try deleting the Installers folder.)
4. Return to your game launcher and verify the game files. For Steam users, right-click the game, click on Properties, go to Installed Files, and then select Verify integrity of game files.
5. Start the game and enjoy!

If this solution doesn’t work, some users have suggested renaming the game file to SOTGame.exe, but that didn't work for me.

I hope this works for you all! :)

@culillopr SoTGame.exe * I bet it is case sensitive.

Having the same issue here brand new pc and install and cant get it to work. worked perfectly on my old pc. also can even open up easy anticheat to repair it. please rare do something your help guide does nothing

@jayd9409 God bless JayD9409, it really worked!
I tried for two days to solve this problem and nothing worked, but this cured the game!!!!
Upd: i am using Windows 11 23H2

@jayd9409 пишет в EAC - Unknown File Version (SoTGame.exe):

@lilblancheqc My god, This seems to have actually solved it for me, Thanks for sharing!
For anyone who's not aware of the compression feature in windows, If you have little blue arrows next to your folders this solution will likely work for you.

Goto your game root folder and goto properties, advanced, and uncheck "Compress contents to save disk space"
You'll likely get an error saying the .exes can't be uncompressed, ignore that for a moment and let the rest uncompress.
after it's done, go into your game folder and delete any files that still have the Blue arrows (most importantly the exes like SoTGame.exe and Sea of Thieves.exe and gamelaunchhelper.exe as these are the main offenders), and then reacquire them via the Verify and Repair function in the Xbox app.

Обновление сообщения выше: всё же проблема в тот момент решилась лишь на время, НО!
Я нашёл простое, но долгое решение:
Если у вас идёт ошибка вида EAC ... Unknown File Version (Core_xxxxx.pak), то вам нужно найти именно этот файл, удалить его и запустить проверку файлов игры. Если после этого вы снова получаете эту ошибку, но файл Core_xxxxx.pak другой, удаляете и снова запускаете проверку файлов и так до тех пор, пока ошибки не пропадут.
В моём случае всё это заняло примерно три часа и все 15 ошибок файлов были устранены и что забавно - это после полной переустановки игры!

Что ж, надеюсь это кому-то поможет.

================================================================================================

Update to the post above: still the problem at that point was only temporarily solved, BUT!
I found a simple but long lasting solution:
If you get an error like EAC ... Unknown File Version (Core_xxxxx.pak), you need to find this file, delete it and run a check of the game files. If after that you get this error again, but the Core_xxxxx.pak file is different, delete it and run the file check again, and so on until the errors disappear.
In my case all this took about three hours and all 15 file errors were eliminated and what is funny - this is after a complete reinstallation of the game!

Well, I hope this helps someone.

Another possible solution for those of you who use Steam and are still searching for answers:

• Boot up Steam.
• In the top left corner, click on the button that says "Steam" with their logo next to it.
• Then, go to settings.
• Click "Downloads" from the left side menu.
• Scroll to the bottom of the downloads menu, then disable "Enable Shader Pre-caching".
• Try to boot up the game and see if it works!

I think when the shaders would try to download every time I started up the game, something would go wrong and that's what would cause the error. This seemed to fix my issue and I've been able to play since.

Good luck and fair winds!

@lilblancheqc sagte in EAC - Unknown File Version (SoTGame.exe):

@jayd9409 A window expert helped me and the problem got fixed for me: uncompress game root folder and redownload game

I ran a file integrity check and after it the error disappeared.

I am still having the original issue and this is 7 months old. how is this not fixed?

First of all, let me clarify that I'm using Windows 11 and I encountered this issue on the Xbox app. I tried to solve the problem by attempting several things simultaneously, and I managed to solve it at least for myself, but I'm not sure which step actually fixed it. I've been reading numerous websites for hours and tried almost everything without success. Here are the steps I took:

1. I uninstalled and reinstalled the game (on the drive where the system is installed), but the game still didn't launch. (The game folder is uncompressed, just to note.)

2. I deleted the EAC files in Program Files, then reinstalled EasyAntiCheat by running the "EasyAntiCheat_EOS_Setup" program with the "install 0367a3a8ea344f08851d76facf6f66d3" command from the installer folder in the Sea of Thieves main directory. The game still didn't launch. (When I added a "0" at the end of the relevant part of the system.json file in the EAC folder where Sea of Thieves is installed, the game would open, but I couldn't join a server, so I left it in its original state.)

3. I uninstalled the Windows update KB5044376 because I read that others were having the same issue with other games after this update, and then I restarted my computer.

4. I believe somewhere around this step, I also followed these commands:
   Open the start screen and type "cmd"
   Right-click on the command prompt and click on "Run as administrator."
   Type the following commands and hit enter after each:
   DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Scanhealth
   DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth

5. I added exceptions for everything related to EAC and Sea of Thieves in the firewall.

6. In the Windows settings under Privacy & Security, I checked Core Isolation > Kernel-mode Hardware-enforced Stack Protection, as some had reported fixing the issue by disabling it. It was already disabled for me. I'm not sure how safe it is to keep this disabled.

7. In the Task Manager, I went to the services tab and changed all EasyAntiCheat-related services from manual to automatic startup. I then restarted my computer.

8. Just to be sure, I verified the game files through Xbox, and when I launched the game from Xbox, I saw that the issue was resolved. The game opened successfully and I was able to join an online server.

As I mentioned, I’m not sure which step worked. My best guess is that steps 5 and 7 were key in solving the issue. I decided to write down everything I tried, no matter how silly or reasonable it seemed, in case it helps someone, as I didn’t want to buy the game again on Steam after already purchasing it on Xbox. I hope we can eventually play the games we paid for without needing all this effort. This is a completely ridiculous situation.

@luckypirate9515

I forgot to disable Windows Update's automatic updates, and the KB5044376 update got installed, which caused the same game issue to reoccur. I removed the update again, and the problem was resolved. If you're experiencing the same issue, try uninstalling this specific update and see if it helps.

Hello everyone, I am praising the Lord rn, I got it to work for me! I think they finally listened to our niche group of problem havers (https://status.seaofthieves.com8/10/2)! Or it may have just worked by the countless things I've been trying (and undoubtedly you as well), and so this being the last thing I tried.

What I did was change the potential problematic folder's ("C:\XboxGames\Sea of Thieves\Content\Athena\Binaries\WinGDK", "C:\XboxGames\Sea of Thieves\Content\EasyAntiCheat", "C:\XboxGames\Sea of Thieves\Content\Installers") to not compress to save disk space in properties -> advanced for all these folders (Uncheck "Compress contents to save disk space").

Then I deleted the application having the issue (SoTGame.exe).

Then I verified files through Xbox.

And providentially it worked! YAY! Best feeling! I hope it works and finally. Goodness me.

If you still having trouble (maybe new problem or something), try running through SoTGame and then look at the error it gives and tell support. I was gunna do this as a final resort, then ask for steam key since it wasn't working for peeps on xbox lol.

P.S. I think the issue is specifically with the WinGDK folder if you care and don't wanna uncheck "Compress contents to save disk space" to all of them. This happened to me again, as I was forced to reinstall the game, and I just tested this folder alone and it worked.

yo wsg guys i just starting having this problem and did all i could. AI didnt helped and even support. ig i am the only one here whos cooked

Had the problem yesterday and @CulilloPR solution worked for me. Just make sure to follow everything he said and delete every instance of EasyAntiCheat Folders from all the drives. Thanks @CulilloPR .

@liil-brick Thanks a lot it's worked for me