League of Legends Critical Error Fix: Crash on Launch & Dump Created
Tested & peer-reviewed by the GameFixDB Systems & Anti-Cheat Lab for League of Legends (Critical Error Occurred).
The League of Legends 'A critical error has occurred and the process must be terminated' crash report appears when the game client fails to hook the graphics rendering device, encounters corrupt configuration files in the Config folder, or when Riot Vanguard blocks an unauthorized overlay DLL.
- ▸Navigate to League of Legends\Config and delete 'game.cfg' and 'PersistedSettings.json'
- ▸Enable 'Prefer DX9 Legacy Mode' in the League of Legends Client settings under Game
- ▸Close Discord, Overwolf, and RivaTuner before entering a match
Step-by-Step Resolution Steps
Click steps to track progressDelete Corrupted League Config & Layout Files
Corrupted resolution or keybinding files crash the client upon transitioning from champion select into Summoner's Rift.
cmd /c del /q /f "C:\Riot Games\League of Legends\Config\game.cfg" & del /q /f "C:\Riot Games\League of Legends\Config\PersistedSettings.json"Restart Riot Vanguard Service (vgc)
If Vanguard encounters an unhandled driver state, it halts the League of Legends process with a critical termination dump.
cmd /c sc stop vgc && sc start vgcPurge Riot Client Cache & Temporary Logs
Deleting stale logs and lockfiles forces the Riot Client to conduct an automatic quick-repair upon launch.
cmd /c rmdir /s /q "%LOCALAPPDATA%\Riot Games\Riot Client\Data\Caches"Did these steps resolve your error?
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Verified by 0 competitive PC gamers across Windows 10 & 11
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Pro Esports Advisory: Preventing Recurrence in League of Legends
Professional tournament players tune their Windows environment to prevent sudden runtime crashes, memory leaks, and 1% low frame stuttering:
Never immediately jump into a ranked queue after a driver or game update. Wait 2-3 minutes at the main menu until the shader compilation pipeline reaches 100% to avoid mid-round micro-freezes.
Turn off "Hardware Acceleration" in Discord, Chrome, and Spotify. Background apps using your GPU video decoder compete with the game engine for DirectX video memory (VRAM) handles.
Why Does This Error Happen?
Understanding the root cause prevents recurrence during competitive matches:
- 1Corrupted game.cfg or PersistedSettings.json configuration file in the League of Legends\Config directory
- 2Incompatibility between graphics card driver and the default DirectX 11 rendering pipeline
- 3Riot Vanguard driver (vgk.sys) service suspension during champion select
- 4Third-party recording or companion overlay software (Overwolf, Blitz, Porofessor, Discord) hooking improperly
Recommended Diagnostics for League of Legends Players
Frequently Asked Questions (Critical Error Occurred)
Will deleting game.cfg reset my champion mastery or rank?
No. Your rank, MMR, skins, and champion mastery are stored server-side on Riot's accounts databases. Deleting game.cfg only resets local graphical options like resolution and brightness to safe defaults.
Why does enabling DX9 Legacy Mode fix the critical error?
Older GPUs or laptops with integrated graphics may have unstable DirectX 11 drivers. The DirectX 9 legacy backend provides maximum stability for the League engine.