Obsidian on Windows 11 keeps crashing without error messages (Solved)

Bug graveyard
1

Hi all,

I’d like to share an issue I encountered on Windows 11 where Obsidian kept crashing immediately on startup, without any visible error message. Hopefully this helps anyone running into the same problem.

Symptoms:

  • Obsidian (v1.9.12) would not open at all — it just quit instantly.
  • There was no popup or visible error message.
  • When launching from the command line, the log always showed repeated GPU process errors like:
[xxxx:ERROR:content\browser\gpu\gpu_process_host.cc:957] GPU process exited unexpectedly: exit_code=-2147483645
[xxxx:FATAL:content\browser\gpu\gpu_data_manager_impl_private.cc:415] GPU process isn't usable. Goodbye.

What I tried (did not work):

  • Reinstalling Obsidian completely (including deleting the config folder in AppData).
  • Renaming/resetting my configuration files.
  • Using startup flags such as --disable-gpu, --use-angle=swiftshader, --disable-gpu-compositing.
    All of these attempts failed — the crash persisted.

Solution (worked):
Launching Obsidian with this combination of flags finally solved it:

"D:\software\Obsidian\Obsidian.exe" --disable-gpu --disable-gpu-sandbox --in-process-gpu

After this, Obsidian launched normally.

Notes:

  • The key seems to be --disable-gpu-sandbox. Without it, Electron (which Obsidian is built on) still tries to initialize the GPU process and crashes.
  • Once Obsidian is running, I recommend going to Settings → Appearance and disabling hardware acceleration, so you don’t have to use these flags every time.
  • I also tried reinstalling before, but that alone didn’t fix it — the crash was specifically tied to the GPU process.

Conclusion:
If you’re on Windows 11 and Obsidian keeps crashing on startup without any visible error, try starting it with:

--disable-gpu --disable-gpu-sandbox --in-process-gpu

This worked for me after reinstalling and resetting configs didn’t help. Hopefully it saves others some time!

2

What’s the output of show debug info command and which GPU do you have exactly?

3

Hi, here’s the requested information:

Obsidian Debug Info:
SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: v1.9.12
Installer version: v1.9.12
Operating system: Windows 10 Pro 6.2.9200
Login status: not logged in
Language: zh
Insider build toggle: off
Live preview: on
Base theme: light
Community theme: none
Snippets enabled: 0
Restricted mode: on

RECOMMENDATIONS:
none

GPU Information:

  • AMD Radeon™ Graphics
  • NVIDIA GeForce RTX2060

Additional notes:

  • I’m using Windows 11 (or 10, if that’s correct).
  • Obsidian would not start without the following launch parameters due to GPU process crashes:
    "D:\software\Obsidian\Obsidian.exe" --disable-gpu --disable-gpu-sandbox --in-process-gpu

After launching with these flags, Obsidian starts normally.

4

Hi, I’ve tested Obsidian after the GPU crash issue. Using the --disable-gpu --disable-gpu-sandbox --in-process-gpu launch parameters allows it to start, but modifying the appearance settings alone did not resolve the problem permanently.

Permanent solution:
If you normally start Obsidian via a shortcut, you can add the launch parameters directly to the shortcut:

  1. Locate your Obsidian shortcut → right-click → Properties.
  2. In the Target field, append the following parameters:
"D:\software\Obsidian\Obsidian.exe" --disable-gpu --disable-gpu-sandbox --in-process-gpu
  1. Apply and save.

Now, whenever you launch Obsidian via this shortcut, it should start normally without needing to manually add parameters each time.