Discord Won’t Open On My Computer – How To Fix?

Discord is one of the most popular Voice over IP (VoIP) applications that have found a new craze among streamers and content creators. It is used for voice chatting, sharing progress and images and videos to the followers. Discord also has a desktop app for Windows users, who can use this to access the site apart from the already available web version.

Many users have recently reported, that upon attempting to launch the app, Discord won’t open on their computers. This can be very annoying to the users who regularly use the discord application to chat and share their progress with others.

Why Won’t Discord Open?

Although there is no specific reason as to why Discord won’t open on your computer, there can be many different reasons which may be causing Discord not launching error. Here are some of the most common reasons as reported by users across multiple forums and websites:

• One of the most common reasons as to why Discord won’t launch on your device is built up app cache that is preventing the app from creating new data for the next session.
• There is also a possibility that the app itself has timed out from continuous usage and is in need of a refresh.
• There may also be an internet connection error that is preventing Discord from loading content on your device.
• Sometimes, Discord servers may be down, and this will lead to the Discord app showing a blank or grey screen.
• A proxy network is known to disrupt the internet service sometimes, and that may be the reason that the Discord app won’t open on your device.
• Link blockers or Ad blockers tend to block redirects, some of which are important for the app.

Fixes For Discord Won’t Open!

Now that you know the probable causes behind your Discord app not opening error, here are some simple solutions that you can try in order to solve this error.

Note: The solutions provided here are assuming that you have the latest version of the Discord application installed on your device. If not, first update the Discord application to the latest version. Also, update any pending Windows updates as well.

Solution 1: Disable Ad Blockers

If you cannot access the Discord website via the web browser, there is a chance that the ad blocker service that you use is blocking the website from launching on your device. Because of the paywall protocol that is installed on multiple websites, you will not be able to play all the media on the site without removing the ad blocker.

If this is the case, disable the ad blocker on your device, and then attempt loading Discord again. If you are using AdBlock Plus on Google Chrome, follow these steps:

1. First, visit the Discord website on your Chrome browser.
2. Click on the AdBlock icon in the ribbon menu next to the address bar.
3. Here, you should see that the Power button is blue, meaning that AdBlock Plus is enabled.
4. Click on the Power button toggle to disable the ad blocker for Discord website.

5. Refresh the web page.

Solution 2: Restart The App After Task Kill

One of the most important causes behind why Discord won’t open is that your app may have gone into a timeout. This is common with many apps and can be annoying considering you may have to restart if the app does not bring itself back into working. If you see that the app does not come back into action automatically, you will have to restart your app.

Here is how you can do so easily:

1. Open the task manager. You can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Shift + Esc.
2. Under the Processes tab, locate the discord.exe process and click on it.
3. End this task either from the right-click context menu or by using the End task button in the bottom right corner.

4. Next, restart the application by double-clicking on the desktop icon, or from the Start menu.

Alternatively, you can also use the command-line interpreter to execute the taskkill command. Here are the steps that you can follow:

1. Open an elevated command prompt. To do so, open a Run dialog by pressing Win + R. Type cmd and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to launch the command prompt with administrative privileges.
2. Next, enter the following command and press Enter to launch the taskkill command:
   taskkill /F /IM discord.exe

This will kill the Discord app. Once done, restart the application and check if the error persists. Your Discord app should work fine now.

Solution 3: Check If The Discord Servers Are Down

Although rare, sometimes there is a chance that the Discord servers are down, which is causing the Discord app not to load the on-screen information. In situations like these, you need to check the Discord servers.

One of the most popular ones is downdetector.com, which uses data collected from various users across the internet to display the status of a particular server or service.

A good alternative is Outage.report, which uses a similar crowd collected data to check for any outages. If you see Discord app not opening, you should begin your troubleshooting by checking for any server or service outages on such websites.

Solution 4: Disable Proxy Connections

Just like many other applications, the Discord app also has some errors when you connect to the internet over a proxy network. Hence, if you have a premium VPN service enabled on your device, the proxy network that the VPN is using may have been causing the Discord error.

Hence, you can disable all proxies and VPN apps for the time being and then open the application again. The Discord app should open normally.

Solution 5: Adjust Date And Time

Many internet security protocols are dependent on time zones. If the Discord app won’t open, there is a chance that this is because the app is not able to implement the security protocols on your device because of the time zone mismatch. You can start by adjusting the date and time for your device. To do so, follow the steps provided in Solution 1 of our article that helps solve the error where HTTPS sites do not open in any browser.

Next, change the date and time back to the one where your device is located.

If the date and time setting was causing the Discord won’t open error, it should now be solved.

Solution 6: Check Internet Settings

Stored up internet cache can cause a lot of network throttle on your computer. Clearing the said cache can be helpful in removing the throttle, therefore helping you solve errors regarding slow internet connections. By putting your device on flight mode and back, you can reset the internet settings.

On Windows 10, you can also clear the DNS cache by using the command prompt. Follow these steps for the same:

1. Open an elevated Command Prompt. To do this, open a Run window by pressing Win + R. Type cmd and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to launch Command Prompt with administrative privileges.
2. Type the following command to flush your DNS cache:
   ipconfig /flushdns
3. Now, wait for the ‘Successfully flushed‘ message and then try loading the Discord application again.

Solution 7: Uninstall The App And Delete AppData Contents

If none of the solutions provided above helped you in solving the error where Discord won’t open on your device, you need to perform a fresh reinstall of the application in order to keep using it. This seemed to be the solution that helped many users over the Discord app error.

To uninstall the application and delete the residual files, here are the steps that you can follow:

1. Open a Run dialog by pressing Win + R.
2. Type appwiz.cpl and press Enter to launch the Programs and Features section of the control panel app.
3. Under the list of installed applications, locate and click on the Discord app.
4. Click on the Uninstall button at the top ribbon, or select it from the right-click context menu.

5. Follow the on-screen instructions to uninstall the application.
   Alternatively, you can use one of the batch uninstallers from our guide here.
6. Once the Discord app is uninstalled, open the AppData To do so, open a Run dialog and type %appdata% and press Enter.
7. Locate the Discord folder in the AppData folder.
8. Right-click on this folder, and select Delete.
9. Restart your computer after deleting the folder.
10. Next, visit the Discord official website, and download the installer from there.

11. Double click on the file that you just downloaded, and follow the on-screen instructions to install the application.

Now you should see that your Discord not launching error is resolved.

Conclusion

So there you have it. Now you know how to solve if you see that Discord won’t open on your device. Comment below if you found this useful, and to discuss further the same.