The problem here is for all those Fortnite and other Epic games gamers have been experiencing the following “Preparing the epic games launcher” message when trying to launch the Epic Games launcher after an update.
Even though this has been reported on multiple platforms, the instructions here cover Windows. For other platforms, the concept is the same. A clean uninstall should solve the problem too.
This is believed to have started happening around the time after the Quixel updates.
There have been plenty of recommendations for fixing this issue. Some work for the odd user but does not work for most.
Some of the solutions presented included reinstalling the update, repairing, or outrightly reinstalling the launcher. Others have gone as far as recommending driver updates, upgrading the entire PC to meet minimum requirements.
The Working Solution to Preparing the epic games launcher
1. Uninstall the Epic Games launcher from your system and download the latest copy from the Official Unreal Engine website here.
2. Delete the Manifests folder or better yet the EpicGamesLauncher folder from the Program data folder usually found here C:\ProgramData\Epic\EpicGamesLauncher\
3. Install the latest Epic Games Launcher version you just downloaded and sign in to your account and everything should be working.
The only issue with this method is that you may have to download your games again from the Epic games store.
That is how you can solve the “Preparing the epic games launcher” hanging bug in the Epic games launcher. It seems the updates that came after the Quixel inclusions were not entirely compatible with previous versions.
Found this article interesting? Follow Brightwhiz on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to read and watch more content we post.