Activation required offline mode error message - why can't play GTA 5, GTA Online and Launcher games

Having spent the last couple of hours trying to figure out why I can't play GTA 5 and am getting the 'activation required' error message I've put this short video together to try and save you some time. In short, Rockstar's servers are down and have been for the last day and until they are restored you can't play GTA 5 or other Rockstar Launcher games until they are back up.

However, if they are back up and you still have this problem then it may be a firewall issue. Watch the video to see a usually reliable fix if indeed it's the firewall.

Make sure you update everyone in the comments if you find your own fix.

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[FollowThatApp]

Looks like their servers are back up again to play games from the Rockstar Games Launcher but you can’t purchase the remastered Trilogy (yet)

[TheRedneckGamer]

The problem is that they forced the inclusion of online only DRM (and lets be honest thats WHAT the game launcher is) in a release for single player games and somehow managed to break all of their online services for their other games on PC. Me and some buddies all managed to score a day off on the same day and we were going to blast through some content on RDO as a posse, one of us even BOUGHT the game for PC so he could play with the rest of us. Tried to log in this morning and it was dead, basically ruined the day off plans for the four of us, its been down for about 24 hours now with really only the robot reply from support and no actual ETA or explanation of what happened. Honestly this SHOULD be an abject lesson in forcing your consumers to use an online only DRM for a single player game, but I am not hopeful that they will really take the lesson to heart. Billion dollar a year company, and this is the best they can do apparently on a major release.

[Sneax]

The day I decided to load this game up I can’t even play single player mode

[namord]

My biggest dream right now: The servers are down because they install some kind of anti-modding software that blocks every modder instantly when joining online mode.. but i guess it will just stay a dream.

[StopNow-cccz]

THANK YOU SO MUCH!! i was really worried about what happened if my account was banned or something but you have solved it! God Bless YOU <3

[armnex]

bro thanks for this vid i was legit installing vpns and deleting folders and was so confused whats going on 😂

[carl]

Cant even play story offline bro rockstar be clownin

[aaww]

It’s the same for the Nintendo switch Grandtheft auto trilogy if you even try playing any of the games off-line or an airplane mode the game will constantly pop up saying Internet connection required basically making the game unplayable

[arbabraiyan]

does not work, man. in the settings i cannot find gtav

[Milumani]

I was so about to uninstall the game after willing to turn it on after 2 years
thank you for this information, you saved my 10 hours and 100gb of space

[randomgamer]

Hey man my rockstar launcher is online but my games are still not if its just me or is it with everybody?

[lordgambles]

It isn't working for me, I did the exact same thing..

[Noah_]

ok, good. so its not me... its the company that is broken (Rockstar). thanks for the video! :)

[mo_abb]

Thank you man, I was ready to delete the game and reinstall it lol

[Deviibara]

What a shambles. Thank you for posting this video to explain.

[jensabi]

hopefully we all get our launchers back

[blessedrat_]

Thank you so much! I had this issue come up when I unintalled GTA V, reinstalled it, and forgot to run it once before modding it. Due to that it gave me the error since it wasnt able to activate as one of my mods forces offlinemode. It was already checked in the firewall, so I unchecked it and rechecked it and launched the game directly from the Rockstar Launcher instead of steam and it worked. Thanks for making this super helpful quick and to the point video.

[Sounak_edits]

Bro having this same problem... activation code reqd can't even play Story mode

[eternalagony]

I've been having the same issue since yesterday and they didn't tweet anything about it, so I'm kinda worried

[drakesteak]

Shiiit that was it just not allowed access (2023) cheers bud