I’m having this issue since they transitioned to FAB. It’s kinda ridiculous that it’s been months and there’s no fix for it.
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I just found a fix for this issue. I had multiple VaultCaches on my machine and deleting the contents of all of them and/or searching in the Epic Launcher for files that had cached downloads and clicking the dropdown option for “Remove Local Content” finally got the download to work and reflect in the Epic Launcher UI.
I was like Abixerl_Dev, none of the following fixes worked:
- Signing out and then back in to the launcher
- Uninstalling/Reinstalling Epic Online Services
- Running the Epic Games Store as an administrator
- Deleting the contents of the vault cache (One of mine was already empty, deleting the contents of all VaultCaches seems to have worked)
- Exiting Epic Launcher from the system tray and restarting it.
- Restarting my machine
I was using WinDirStat to find massive files/directories on my computer to try and free up space because I thought the download might be taking so long because it was trying to free up space I didn’t have when I found the second VaultCache.
I had two VaultCaches,
C:\ProgramData\Epic\EpicGamesLauncher\VaultCacheC:\Program Files (x86)\Epic Games\Launcher\VaultCache
TL;DR Only C:\ProgramData\Epic\EpicGamesLauncher\VaultCache appeared in the Epic Launcher download options for cache location, but once I deleted the contents of the Program Files (x86) folder it started working.
None of the above solutions worked for me.
I’m new to Unreal, but it’s quite disappointing.
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Hello everyone, I ran into the same problem, it helped me to reset the download settings.
Looks like this issue has been reported to FAB over 2 months ago and has well over 2,000 replies, yet this has happened to me for the last two items I purchased through fab. I am staring at an Initialize for the product I bought over an hour ago. I miss the old marketplace.
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I noticed Is has been an issue long before a few months.
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Not only have I noticed it has been an issue long before a few months. Here’s what I found out today. After wiping my drive and completely redoing everything, its probably NOT your system, as it was not mine. I created a new account with my alt email and the engine IMMEDIATELY started downloading when i clicked it, where-as before, I could click it a hundred times and it would do nothing. Nothing would download. My games library is UNAVAILABLE for everything that doesnt require a 3rd party login. Like EA and Ubisoft, those work just fine. SOooo…. MY question is, WHY IS OUR CONTENT LOCKED AWAY!? And further, this is a known issue so why are we trouble shooting like its our fault, rather than looking at why the system is locking us out!?
found any fix? mine also stuck on initializing
I have a few more details related to this issue, probably can help with debugging the problem.
1- I ran troubleshoot and it succeed with no error.
2- placing the launcher in debug mode, does not do anything more, it doesn’t log anything extra and doesn’t seem to be enabling the debug other than showing the red link in home allowing disable debug.
3- trying to re-arrange download queue shows a generic error but does not log anything either (not even a single line).
4- download queue is missing details. and after I have installed an update today, it suddenly started downloading something that I suppose I did add a while ago to some test project that later I deleted. the asset is in my vault cache now.
5- cancelling the download puts it in unresponsive state which the buttons are disabled and the list only shows a cross with no explanation.
6- The Asset list need to be cached too the same way the icons for the assets are being cached (in C:\ProgramData\Epic\EpicGamesLauncher\Data\ContentCache which I cannot move to other drive btw!), and only changes updated (that is easy thing to do, since we can’t delete or remove assets.
7- I observed that while the list is being updated, anything that is queued for download, gets stuck.
8- I also noticed if the line has packet loss or ping timeout, there is a high chance that the download will get stuck. it also happens in forums and it even happened when I was uploading screenshots right now!
I would attach the log too, but nothing was added to log after I queued the download or tried to cancel or got the error message on top of download screen.
uninstalling epic service does not work for me. Still stuck at initializing. Mainly happens with older assets where I don’t have the engine installed
Same issue for me on “create project” None of the suggested fixes work and have tried on multiple machines. This is on Epic’s side.
I just looked at the epic launcher logs and there is this error. I have over 2000 items in the vaultcache.
[2025.09.01-00.47.02:484][ 49]LogOutputDevice: Error:
[2025.09.01-00.47.02:484][ 49]LogOutputDevice: Error: Ensure condition failed: false [File:D:\build++Portal\Sync\Portal\Source\Programs\EpicGamesLauncher\Layers\DataAccess\Public\BinaryId.h] [Line: 176]
[2025.09.01-00.47.02:484][ 49]LogOutputDevice: Error: FCachedId storage is overlimited - consider adding cleaning up mechanism
[2025.09.01-00.47.02:484][ 49]LogOutputDevice: Error: Stack:
[2025.09.01-00.47.02:484][ 49]LogOutputDevice: Error: [Callstack] 0x00007ff7065d1227 EpicGamesLauncher.exe!UnknownFunction
[2025.09.01-00.47.02:484][ 49]LogOutputDevice: Error: [Callstack] 0x00007ff704ce07f8 EpicGamesLauncher.exe!UnknownFunction
[2025.09.01-00.47.02:484][ 49]LogOutputDevice: Error: [Callstack] 0x00007ff705837a17 EpicGamesLauncher.exe!UnknownFunction
[2025.09.01-00.47.02:484][ 49]LogOutputDevice: Error: [Callstack] 0x00007ff7058e7a1f EpicGamesLauncher.exe!UnknownFunction
yesterday evening, I was able to download the assets that got stuck a few days ago, so it seems all was well. Today, am getting stuck assets again.
I’m clearing my vaultcache and redownloading all assets again because since fab update, the launcher does not let me download latest version even though there is 5.6 version of assets available.
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This is ridiculous. I am trying to do a job, here. The introduction of Fab has been just horrible. All around failure.
Nothing working for me over here, I’ll try the clearing cache etc., but this is just crazy. @Epic get in here.
Update: I didn’t realize it defaulted to C: and filled up like crazy, ok. For me it was a change in download directory to a relatively empty drive. This being said: instead of initializing forever, how about we get an error message stating there’s no space?
It’s not harddisk space for me, I have 7TB available. For me, the time of day matters when I start the download.
EMP-16951 is ‘Closed’ as ‘Fixed’. The issue will be addressed in .
- %localappdata% → EpicGamesLauncher → Delete Intermediate & Saved Folder
- Deleted all files in both Fab Library Data Cache Directory (Vault Cache) & Default Install Directory
- Opened the launcher as admin
It almost immediately started to download everything in queue and thumbnails are displaying correctly again
Fixed? It’s happening again here.