“Escape from Tarkov” is an online first-person shooter game developed by Battlestate Games, an indie developer from Russia. The game is set in the city of Tarkov, located in the war-ravaged fictional Norvinsk region of Northwestern Russia.
While the game is still in development, its current closed beta version is available to a select group of testers. To be able to play the game, first, you have to start the Battlestate Games launcher. This allows you to connect to dedicated servers and enter the game. As it turns out, starting the launcher sometimes returns an error, preventing you from playing the game.
The Error
If you’re playing “Escape from Tarkov”, you might’ve encountered the aforementioned error when trying to start the Battlestate Games launcher. If that’s the case, you’ll see a Windows notification pop up, informing you of an unhandled exception. The contents of the pop-up usually report the following: “Error reading JObject from JsonReader”.
The obvious thing to try first is to reinstall the Battlestate Games launcher. If the error appears again, there are two options you can try to solve this problem.
Start the Launcher with Administrator Privileges
It might be that the launcher needs higher Windows access privileges at this moment.
- Open the folder where you’ve installed the Battlestate Games launcher. If you’ve used the default settings when installing the launcher itself, the path should look like this:
C:Users[username]AppDataRoamingBattlestate GamesBsgLauncher - Locate the “BsgLauncher.exe” file in the folder and right-click it.
- Click the “Run as administrator” option from the menu. It should be one of the options at the top of the right-click menu.
If everything went well, the launcher should now start without any issues. It’s also possible it will require an update, so let it finish updating before starting the actual game.
Edit the Settings File
If running the launcher as an administrator didn’t do the trick, you might want to edit the game’s configuration file. To do so, follow the steps below:
- Go to the folder of the Battlestate Games launcher. The folder’s default location is the same as described in the previous section.
- In order to prevent losing any of the settings you might have, please create a backup copy of the “BsgLaunchersettings” folder.
- Now go to the settings folder, locate the settings file, and right-click it.
- Click “Open with” and choose “Notepad” from the list of suggested programs.
- Use Ctr+F to bring up the search dialogue.
- In the “Find what” field, enter “gameRootDir”:null.
- When you locate it, replace the “null” value with the path of game’s installation folder. By default, this location is “C:Program FilesEscape from Tarkov”.
- Press Ctrl+S to save the configuration file and close Notepad.
Reinstall the Game
If none of this helped with the error, you might consider removing both the launcher and the entire game from your computer, and then reinstalling them. Instead of using custom installation folders, this time use the default locations the installer offers you.
Of course, before you uninstall the game, make sure to copy the settings file to a safe location (your Desktop, for example). Once you reinstall the game, copy the settings file back to its location. If there’s already a file with the same name, you can safely overwrite it.
Hopefully, this will solve the problem, allowing you to start playing Escape from Tarkov.
Game Story
As mentioned above, Escape from Tarkov revolves around the fictional region of Norvinsk, Russia. This is a special economic zone serving a significant purpose in economic relations between Russia and Europe. With corrupt private corporations operating in the area, the Tarkov metropolis became the focal point of a huge political scandal involving the economic zone.
Believing that the corporation called Terra Group was responsible, local government officials ordered an investigation into the matter. For this purpose they hired a private military company called Battle Encounter Assault Regiment (BEAR). Their task was to find any evidence of Terra Group’s illegal activities in the region.
In order to stifle the investigation, Terra Group hired United Security (USEC), a western-funded mercenary company. Soon after the investigation started, the situation in Tarkov quickly deteriorated into an armed conflict, now known as Contract Wars.
Trying to restore order, the Russian government sent in their Russian Internal Troops to deal with the mercenary companies. To keep things from escalating into an open warfare, the United Nations ordered their special peacekeeping mission to move into the region. That’s when all hell broke loose.
With the entire city of Tarkov under blockade, players have to survive and fight their way out of the city.
Problem Solved
Hopefully, one of these options will allow you to continue playing Escape from Tarkov. Even though the game is still in the beta phase of development, it still provides incredibly intense gameplay. With a realistic environment and amazing sound effects, it fully immerses each tester into the violent world of Tarkov.
Did you run into the error while trying to play the game? Have you managed to solve it? Did you get to escape from Tarkov? Please share your experiences in the comments section below.
