It’s not like there’s anything wrong with Forza Horizon 5, at least not something that would cause these issues. There were some hiccups here and there and the game’s launch wasn’t as stellar as it should’ve been, but most of them are fixed by now. The errors we’re going to try to fix today are mainly system-related or compatibility-related errors.
Fix Crashing, Freezing, Black Screen & Game Not Launching – Forza Horizon 5
Like I said, these issues typically aren’t caused by the game, in some cases they can be, but not regularly.
These issues can arise from a couple of issues like: not having an up-to-date OS, out-of-date GPU drivers, Forza doesn’t have administrative privileges, corrupted install, controlled-folder access blocks Forza from writing or reading files, etc.
Update GPU Drivers & Windows 10/11
First fix is updating your OS and GPU driver. I know it sounds trivial and most of you already have tried it, but for those who haven’t: Navigate to “Windows Update” through the Start Menu on your system.
Nowadays, the Windows Updater updates the GPU drivers as well, so there’s no need to go to Device Manager and search for drivers manually. If your system needs updating, update it, if not, navigate to the next fix.
Running Forza Horizon 5 As An Administrator
You can just right-click Forza and hit “Run as administrator”. However, I prefer this method:
- Right-click Forza Horizon 5 and hit Properties.
- Navigate to the Compatibility tab.
- Select “Run this program as an administrator” and “Disable Fullscreen optimizations”.
- Hit Apply and OK.
This will ensure that Forza Horizon 5 will always turn on as an administrator and the Fullscreen optimizations thingy is known for causing black screens and infinite loading, so it’s common practice just to disable it.
Verify Integrity Of Game Files
Like I said before, corrupted installs can also be the main culprit for issues related to these. The Steam verification of integrity of game files is a good way to fix that.
Simply open up Steam, go to your Library, right-click Forza Horizon 5 and go to Properties. From there, navigate to the Local Files tab and you’ll have the option to verify whether your install is corrupted or not.
The whole process shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes, depending on the state of your install.
Controlled-Folder Access
This feature was introduced back in 2018 for Windows, particularly for Windows 10 and it was definitely a very important security feature. But for some reason, a lot of games get blocked by it.
Controlled-folder access limits an application’s ability to read or write any files and sometimes it can block Forza Horizon 5.
To add an exception for Forza, open the Start Menu and type in “Controlled Folder Access”, hit Enter. Once you’re there, hit “Allow an app through controlled folder access”. Then, hit “Add an allowed app” and Browse.
Find and select Forza Horizon 5 and you’re good to go.
At the moment, these are the only know fixes for crashing, freezing, black screen and Forza Horizon 5 not launching on Windows 10 or 11. If none worked, you can also try running Forza in a lower compatibility mode, in other words a previous release of Windows.
That can be done through the Compatibility tab in the game’s properties, like in the second fix.
