Forum Discussion

Re: EA WRC not starting after 1.9 patch

Saw this potential fix posted on Reddit. Tried it and manually running "EAAntiCheatGameServiceLauncher.exe" worked for me. Haven't had a single problem launching the game from Steam since doing that.

  • Make sure the game is installed on your C: drive

  • Go to C: Program Files (x86): Steam: steamapps: common: EA SPORTS WRC: WRC: Binaries: Win64

  • Right click on "EAAntiCheatGameServiceLauncher.exe"

  • Select "Run as administrator" (not sure if running as admin is even necessary, but better safe than sorry).

  • The EA Sports WRC pop-up should appear, with the little white loading bar at the bottom. The bar should load, and after this some new files should be dumped in the folder. After that, the EA Sports WRC pop up should disappear.

  • Right click WRC.exe and "run as administrator".

After that you should be able to exit the game, and from then launch the game normally from Steam using the green "Play" button. I've tried launching the game from Steam three times and every time it now launches without issue.

It seems that the files that manually running the "EAAntiCheatGameServiceLauncher.exe" as detailed above dumps into the folder named above are required for the game to launch properly since Patch 1.09.

9 Replies


  • @waz84 wrote:

    Saw this potential fix posted on Reddit. Tried it and manually running "EAAntiCheatGameServiceLauncher.exe" worked for me. Haven't had a single problem launching the game from Steam since doing that.

    • Make sure the game is installed on your C: drive

    • Go to C: Program Files (x86): Steam: steamapps: common: EA SPORTS WRC: WRC: Binaries: Win64

    • Right click on "EAAntiCheatGameServiceLauncher.exe"

    • Select "Run as administrator" (not sure if running as admin is even necessary, but better safe than sorry).

    • The EA Sports WRC pop-up should appear, with the little white loading bar at the bottom. The bar should load, and after this some new files should be dumped in the folder. After that, the EA Sports WRC pop up should disappear.

    • Right click WRC.exe and "run as administrator".


    Having over 30 years of experience using a computer as a developper, I tried all of that before coming here and more after the official support asked me to do things that have nothing to do with the game nor the anti-cheat. Still, it will close immediately after the splash screen. But that's what you get when you use kernel level process, it messes with things that are hard to identify (I mean if anything 19 of July should have been a wake up call for lot of developpers).

    I am not planning to test every single one of my drivers, services and hardware pieces to see which one conflict with the game. Not my job. Especially when all was working fine for 7 months and nothing changed on my end.

  • waz84's avatar
    waz84
    10 months ago

    No, it was installed on D: drive.

    But moving it to my C: drive alone did nothing. Tried moving it to C:, deleting the game completely and re-installing on C:, and nothing.

    Only thing that worked for me was the fix I posted that I found on Reddit.


    @WetJones wrote:

    Hi @waz84 

    When you first encountered the problem was the game installed on your C:\ drive?


  • Got it thanks! Trying to find a fix that doesn't involve the C: drive as I don't have enough space, guess I'll try it anyway without that step.

    * out of luck probably though. What a joke.

  • hoihman's avatar
    hoihman
    New Traveler
    10 months ago

    I have re-installed the game on the C-drive, run it as admin.
    Also tried running the anti-cheat as admin first. 

    Still no go.

    Is there any official response from EA that they are investigating this issue or are they just scamming us ?


  • @hoihman wrote:

    Is there any official response from EA that they are investigating this issue or are they just scamming us ?


    Looking at other game forums (just browse from here to check other games), you will see they are just scamming at this point. Threads about similar issues (or what I believe to be the exact same issue) are just left to rot for months in some forums. WRC just got impacted because the anticheat came out at the same time of 1.9, but you find that problem in F1 games forum or Fifa (or whatever is called now). Most topics do not show any kind of resolution, folks most likely just moved on. What else can you do really anyway ?