Hey @herberthippo and everyone!
Thank you for your patience while we investigated reports of Fab failing to launch. We’ve identified that this can be caused by stale or orphaned install records left behind in Epic’s local manifest data, which can interfere with Fab’s launch process.
We’ve put together a manual fix. Here’s how to use it:
Before you start:
- Fully close the Epic Games Launcher and Fab, including any background processes (check Task Manager to confirm nothing named “EpicGamesLauncher” or “Fab” is still running).
- We recommend backing up any files the script identifies before deleting them, just in case.
Step 1 - Run the diagnostic script
Open PowerShell (not Command Prompt) and paste in the following command:
$pd=if($env:ProgramData){$env:ProgramData}else{'C:\ProgramData'};$ii=Join-Path $pd 'Epic\EpicOnlineServicesShared\InstallHelper\InstalledItems';$lm=Join-Path $pd 'Epic\EpicGamesLauncher\Data\Manifests';$G=@{};$add={param($d,$f,$e)if([string]::IsNullOrWhiteSpace($d)){return};$k=$d.TrimEnd('\').ToLowerInvariant();if(-not $G[$k]){$G[$k]=[pscustomobject]@{Dir=$d;Files=@();Exes=@()}};$G[$k].Files+=$f;if($e){$G[$k].Exes+=[string]$e}};if(Test-Path -LiteralPath $ii){Get-ChildItem -LiteralPath $ii -Filter *.egi -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue|%{try{$r=(((Get-Content -LiteralPath $_.FullName -Raw|ConvertFrom-Json).PSObject.Properties)|Select-Object -First 1).Value}catch{return};if($r.state -eq 'Installed'){& $add $r.dir $_.FullName $r.manifestData.launchExe}}};if(Test-Path -LiteralPath $lm){$fl=@(Get-ChildItem -LiteralPath $lm -Filter *.item -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue);$pdir=Join-Path $lm 'Pending';if(Test-Path -LiteralPath $pdir){$fl+=@(Get-ChildItem -LiteralPath $pdir -Filter *.item -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue)};$fl|%{try{$d=Get-Content -LiteralPath $_.FullName -Raw|ConvertFrom-Json}catch{return};& $add $d.InstallLocation $_.FullName $d.LaunchExecutable}};foreach($k in $G.Keys){$o=$G[$k];$inst=$false;if(Test-Path -LiteralPath $o.Dir){foreach($e in $o.Exes){if($e -and (Test-Path -LiteralPath (Join-Path $o.Dir ($e -replace '/','\')))){$inst=$true}};if(-not $inst -and (Test-Path -LiteralPath (Join-Path $o.Dir '.egstore'))){if(Get-ChildItem -LiteralPath (Join-Path $o.Dir '.egstore') -Filter *.manifest -File -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue|Select-Object -First 1){$inst=$true}}};if($inst){continue};$o.Files|%{$_}}
This will output a list of file paths (if any) that correspond to stale, orphaned install records.
Step 2 - Delete the listed files
If the script returns one or more file paths, manually delete each file listed. If it returns nothing, this particular fix doesn’t apply to your setup, please let us know in this thread so we can look into other causes.
Step 3 - Relaunch
Restart the Epic Games Launcher and try launching Fab again.