Patcher/Downloader Issues

Yesterday I tried to log in to the game and when the patcher would try to load up it would stay black and I'd get a bunch of script errors and then have to close it manually. I did a file verify from the game's properties>local files>verify integrity of game cache, button in Steam's game library list. It found 44 files needed to be redownloaded which totaled 8.4GB on the downloader. I let it run by itself for the rest of the day, checking back periodically to find it had stopped due to an error. I restarted the download 3 or 4 times during the evening. Then when I came home from work in the morning, I tried to start it up and it tried to load it for its first time start up. It loaded a loading bar or two then I got an error that it had stopped working and could only let it be closed by windows. After several attempts at that with no change, i did another file verify and it again said 44 file needed redownloading, which again totaled 8.4GB. This time it didn't take very long to finish the download. But when trying to start it, the same error would pop up after 2 loading bars and say it's stopped working and would close it. I did a delete of all FFXIV game content on my computer and then did a fresh download and install. This took pretty much all day and again would only stop working and close when I was finally able to try and start it again. I'm not sure what steps to take next besides a fresh install of windows 10. :(

I appreciate it's a bit late now, but don't ever verify files through Steam for this game. It does sound like a reasonable thing to do, but that only works for games that update via Steam. This game (and some others) gets the updates itself through the launcher so you can't use the verify function as the files Steam have aren't the most up to date version (Steam only has 2.1!)

So basically when you verified files, it compared the files on the disk (3.45) to the version in Steam (2.1) and it realised they were different so set about putting you back to 2.1. And then when that had finished the launcher would then redownload all the files to put it back to 3.45. When you did the second verify it again reverted back to 2.1.

Regarding the actual game problem though there's a few things you can try. For the script errors, open Internet Explorer (even if that's not your usual browser) and go into the options and delete browsing cache files, specifically "Temporary Internet files and website files". The launcher is actually piggybacking off of Inernet Explorer so that's why you have to clear the files for that browser even if it's not your normal one.

If you're still crashing, try going into your Documents folder and look for a "My Games" folder. Inside that will be a folder called "FINAL FANTASY XIV - A Realm Reborn" which actually has all your hotbar, macro, UI settings, etc. Rename that directory to something else (temporarily!) and then try and open the game again (it'll recreate that folder and ask you the basic questions like if you have an account already etc).

If that version works then you can try moving the files inside the directory back in until you find the problem one(s). To speed things up, inside the directory are folders starting FFXIV_CHR which are your character data (macro, hotbars etc) so you can move those folders back for all your settings per character (the character itself is stored on SE servers, this is just your local configuration files).

Hope this is some help!