How to Fix NBA 2K21 Crashes, Black Screen, Errors, Invisible Player, Stuttering

Here are some solutions for everyone who are experiencing errors, crashes and random stuttering in NBA 2K21.

NBA 2K21 is now available on PC through Steam and even though the game was awaited by all basketball fans, it wasn’t perceived positively. 2K Games’ latest basketball title sits at a “Mostly Negative” review score right now on Steam, with errors plaguing it in its first days. Do you need help getting over crashes, error messages and random stuttering in 2K21? Check out our guide below.

NBA 2K21 Crashes at Startup

We’re starting off with the most annoying of all issues which is none other than the startup crash. Nothing is more frustrating than not being able to play the game altogether. The fix for this is general and is mostly related to graphics or security reasons. First off, you’ll need to check whether or not your GPU drivers are updated. If not, update them appropriately and try launching the game again. If this doesn’t work, check whether or not you have an overclocking option enabled on your GPU settings. Disabling MSI Afterburner will most likely fix the startup crashing. Try also running the game as an Administrator for this fix.

If this doesn’t work, be sure to whitelist NBA 2K21 from your anti-virus and firewall lists. We expect your setup to be up to par with the NBA 2K21 minimum requirements, so if you don’t meet those requirements, you’ll be sad to find out that the game won’t be able to run on your system.

NBA 2K21 Expired MyPlayer Account

If you are getting an error message pointing to your MyPlayer account being expired, you’ll need to do an account verification. Don’t worry, your precious progress isn’t gone. Head to your email account and verify your 2K account, using the email you provided in the registration process. If there’s no verification email there, try changing your email through the 2K Launcher settings and the verification email will be sent again.

Black Screen in NBA 2K21

Experiencing a Black screen in video games is a general issue that may have multiple issues behind it. For starters, you can try running the game as Administrator. If this doesn’t help then whitelist NBA 2K21 from your anti-virus and firewall and try booting the game again. If both don’t work, you can run the game in windowed mode by pressing alt+click.

Error Message: “USERDATA” Corruption

This is a fix provided by 2K Games through their forums. If you are getting the above error message then you should be patient with the following fix. You need to head to the main menu and click “Play Now”. On the next menu, don’t go into play. Instead, let the system download your userdata. There’s no indication that the game is downloading so be patient. After a few hours, you’ll see a notification message on the bottom left of your screen. According to 2K this is when your game data will be once again reinstalled.

Error Message: EFEAB30C / 4B538E50

This is another fix coming straight from 2K Games and is once again related to errors with data being downloaded. To do so, stay in the Play Now menu, just like the previous fix. There’s no clear estimated end time for this download. However, you shall get a message informing you that the download is done. We know that this is a bit frustrating since you are in the game but still can’t play the game but that’s as far as the fix goes for those error messages.

2K Games also prompts you to confirm your email once more as well as check if any programs are blocking access to the game. To do so, follow the steps below, as mentioned on the 2K forums:

  1. On a computer (which needs to be connected to the router you are currently using), open the Windows menu, type “CMD” and press Enter.
  2. In the command prompt, enter the following command: pathping -n 104.255.107.131
  3. After a few seconds the command prompt is going to show some statistics. To copy the output, right-click anywhere in the window and select: Select All. Right click again and select Copy. Open Notepad. Press Ctrl+V to paste into Notepad.
  4. Back at the prompt, type tracert 104.255.107.131 and press Enter. Please wait until the window says Trace Complete. Copy that information as well and send both of these documents to us as attachments.

Invisible MyPlayer

If your MyPlayer character is showing up as invisible in MyCareer, there’s a quick fix that works most of the time. Try creating a new character and as soon as the model boots up, you can exit to the main menu and start MyCareer with your original player. The issue should be fixed now.

Stuttering / Low FPS

Having issues related to the performance of a game sure is frustrating. Luckily, some minor tweaks in the graphics settings can work wonders. For instance, try disabling Anti-Aliasing and Triple Buffering and see if this makes performance better. In most cases, this will help a lot. Also, if you’re using an SSD for NBA 2K21, disable Shader Cache, as it is not needed in this case. If you still have issues, make sure your CPU and RAM usage isn’t higher than 90%. You can lower it by closing any unnecessary programs and browser windows.

Missing .dll Files

A popular and frustrating issue, missing .dll files can be obtained by reinstalling the latest Microsoft VC++ Redistributables. Follow the official Microsoft download links for x86 and x64 versions and the files should be there as expected.

This is everything we had to share regarding crashes, errors and performance issues in NBA 2K21. If you have more specific problems with 2K Games’ new basketball title, you can always contact the 2K support through their forums and get a personalized fix.

NBA 2K21 is available now for Xbox One, Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC through Steam.

Always looking for a deep story, empathetic characters, and a great soundtrack in video games. Hardcore game hoarder and a strong believer that one day Xbox will win the console war.