Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2) – Stuck at Decrypting bug – How to fix

Red Dead Redemption 2 is finally here on PC and the game has been doing extremely well so far. The game had performed excellently on PS4 and it is doing the same on PC as well. Everything about the game feels awesome so far. But that doesn’t mean the game is free from performance issues. People have already started reporting about problems like lag, crashes, game exiting unexpectedly, fps drops, failed to initialize error, various bug & glitches, etc.

There is a new error or bug that has popped up, that is causing the game to remain stuck at the Decrypting phase. Is this really a bug or error? Is there a fix?

Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2) – Stuck at Decrypting bug – How to fix

What is the Stuck at Decrypting bug in Red Dead Redemption 2

Looks like a lot of Rockstar Games Launcher users are stuck at the decryption phase of the game. After the download is done the Rockstar launcher decrypts the game before the users can play it. And this is where the problem is showing up. Users are not being able to progress past the decryption.

How to fix this error

Let me begin by saying that this is neither a bug nor an error. I downloaded the game on my two systems. One has 256 GB SSD + 2 TB 7200 RPM HDD and the other one has a 2 TB 7200 RPM only. The launcher decrypted the game in few minutes on the system with the SSD but it seemed like it got stuck on the one without the SSD.

So, I cancelled the process and started everything all over again. But this time I decided to wait a bit and see what happens. And it looks like I was right. On systems without SSDs the decryption will take a bit longer. The whole process took around 25-30 minutes but it was successful in the end.

If you are not using a SSD on your PC then you just have to wait for a bit. I didn’t try this on a 5400 RPM HDD so I am not sure how long will the process take on HDDs with speeds lower than 7200 RPM.

If you think this guide had helped you then let us know in the comment section below. Also, if you are facing problems that are not mentioned on this article then also you can comment below. We will try come out with a fix. Good luck!


That’s all folks!

Last Updated on November 5, 2019