the software was closed because an error occurred

Minecraft on my Nintendo switch keeps reading error each time it gets to the main screen since downloading version 1.7.0. Since updating to 1.7.0 it takes a while for mojang to even pop up and load. Then as soon it gets to the main screen it says an error occurred so it closes the software. I think it's having trouble also with longing into the market place 2.

Minecraft on Switch (the newer one, unified version) crashes all the time for my son. He has a digital download. We have moved it from the SD card to the console. We have also tried his sister's physical game cartridge on his Switch. All behave essentially identically.

It takes several minutes to see the initial Minecraft loading screen (Play, Settings, Store buttons). Occasionally he can go as far as clicking into a world, but usually within a minute or less, and most often even before he gets into a game, it crashes with a message "The software was closed because an error occurred." It doesn't matter if he is playing an online game, a world created from an addon, or just a plain "New World".  If he ever does make it as far as loading a world, the game is incredibly laggy until it crashes.

I guess it's been getting worse and worse over the last several weeks and he finally told me now that the game is completely unusable. At first I thought maybe he had downloaded some DLC/addons/etc that caused problems, but I can't figure out how to remove them, especially since it usually crashes before we can really do anything. I also wondered if it was related to his Microsoft account, but sometimes it crashes before we even get to click the "Login with Microsoft" button.

My daughter also has a Switch, and uses a game cartridge to play. She has not had any issues at all so far.

No other games on his Switch have problems.

Please help. I'm not a gamer, but I am a software developer, so I speak nerd, even if it's a different dialect.

I sent all of this to Mojang support email and got a dismissive response to look to a marketing FAQ for help with something that is clearly a technical problem.  I'm to the point where my best guess is to imagine that the problem is somewhere in his save data or in a downloaded addon/pack.  I would really hate for him to lose all of his hard work over the last year if there is a way to figure out what is actually causing the problem.

Since this Jira issue has been pretty much ignored for 5 months, I don't really have a lot of hope.  But I'm hoping someone will see this and have some other ideas I could try before telling my son about the nuclear option.

Sorry if this is an ongoing issue for you. Often these types of bugs are difficult to reproduce exactly, but crash reports are logged automatically, and fixes are sent out with each update that address several of these reported crashes. We are looking into a few issues with downloaded packs causing problems though.

Are you able to launch the game to the point where you can remove any cached packs? If so, go to Settings→Storage, and there you can select and remove any world templates and resource packs (which can be re-downloaded from the marketplace later if necessary). Often removing these cached packs will help.

Sometimes, starting the device offline can help if the crash is being caused by a log in error - this might help you get to the point where you can remove any cached packs.

Also, are you able to create a new profile on the device and launch Minecraft that way? Obviously this won't help with loading previous saves on the profile, but it might help see if there's a more general issue.

Thanks for the response.  I'm a developer so I understand the Heisenbug principle.  To answer your questions in order:

I have made it to the home screen a couple times (the one with options to play, login, settings, etc), but usually it crashes before ever seeing that screen, and the couple times I have got there, it crashes soon after.  I'll keep trying.  Since I haven't seen that Storage screen yet, is there any way to narrow down which might have caused the problem (e.g., date installed to start with most recent, etc)?

I thought I tried offline with the same result, but am not actually positive.  I will try again to confirm.  

When I use another Switch profile (no Nintendo Online and no Microsoft Account), the game seems to work.  We didn't try playing it for a long time, but it loaded up quickly (instead of minutes), wasn't laggy, and didn't crash during the 3-5 minutes we were using it.  As I assume you are thinking, I am pretty confident that something in his (my son's) personal data is bringing this bug to the surface.

Thanks again for responding with some suggestions.  After I test these ideas this week, I will respond either way to let you (and any future users) know what I find.

Update (play by play, typing as I experiment).

Since my first comment Minecraft updated to version 1.9.0.  It still loads slowly (a few minutes to home screen).  The first time it loaded after the update it briefly showed a message that was something like "Global resources failed to load and were reset."  I don't remember the exact wording and haven't seen that again.  The software did not immediately crash.

I started out by deleting a single world template.  After restarting the software (still a couple minutes) I went back into Storage and used the checkboxes to delete the rest of the world templates at once.  In the warning/confirmation dialog I noticed that several, but not all, template names were listed twice for some reason, even though they were only listed once in the Storage settings view.  After restarting the software, it still took a couple minutes to load Minecraft.  It did seem less laggy, but that could be my imagination.  The software did not crash during this process.

I went back to Storage and deleted the resource packs and a number of things in cached data that my son believes are from some server games.  It still takes a couple minutes to restart Minecraft, and the software did not crash during this process.

This was all done while still online.  I have not tried to disconnect the device from the network yet.  That said, it appears to be working, aside from taking quite a while for the initial software load.  We went into a world that had portals (not a Minecraft guy here, these are just the words my son says, hope they make sense) and my son was happy with the results.

The only issue I see at the moment is the time it takes to start the game.  It starts in approximately 20 seconds when using a second Switch profile (not connected to Nintendo Online or Microsoft account), but takes almost exactly 2 minutes to start with my son's "real" profile.  Once it gets past that, the game currently seems to be normal now.

Instinct says that the global resource reset and/or the upgrade to 1.9.0 is what fixed the issue, but all stored data (except for worlds) has been cleared, so that could contribute as well.  I'll have my son redownload the various templates and packs one at a time and if the problem comes up again, we'll let you know which packs seem most likely to cause the issue.

I know this is long, but figured that leaving these comments might help other parents in the future.

I have this issue also with my son's profile.  

We are on Switch V1.13.1  Load times around 5 minutes on a black screen, followed by about 23 seconds on the white screen (before Mojang appears), after which occasionally crashes out with the "Software was closed because an error occurred".  If Mojang appears then we know the game will launch.  Recently getting the error "failed to load character 2"

Closing the app from the home screen also freezes for about 30 secs and then crashes with the same error message.

Very often his profile requires the aka.ms remote login procedure to be repeated.

Often his character is reset to the generic Steve setting.

I have already deleted all Global resources beside the original Minecraft textures.

I discovered a "Miscellaneous cached item" in the settings. With no image graphic in the select box.  I tried to delete it and the game crashed out with "Software was closed because an error occurred".

My sibling plays Minecraft on the Nintendo switch, and while there playing normally OR opening the settings menu (menus in general) the game randomly errors and decides to crash. This is still relevant with the Buzzy Bee update.

I get a black screen when starting minecraft under my profile on switch, only mine. I takes 5 minutes to just get to the white Mojang logo. It started since the fox update for SWITCH

You can't use the home button on the black screen

Thank you for your report!
We're actually already tracking this issue at MCPE-48406, so we will resolve and link this ticket as a duplicate.

If you would like to add a vote and any extra information to the main ticket it would be appreciated.

If you haven't already, you might like to make use of the search feature, to see if the issue has already been mentioned.

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I get this when my game crashes a lot