Minecraft crashing with exit code -1073740791

What the number means

Windows reports process exits as 32-bit numbers, and Minecraft prints them signed. Read as unsigned, -1073740791 is 0xC0000409, a Windows NTSTATUS code called STATUS_STACK_BUFFER_OVERRUN.

That code is not vague. It means the compiler's stack security check, the "cookie" placed next to a function's local variables, was found overwritten when the function returned. Something wrote past the end of a buffer on the stack. Windows treats that as a live security threat and kills the process on the spot, before the corruption can be used to run arbitrary code. This is the /GS check doing exactly what it was built for.

The crash almost always arrives with a second message: "outdated video driver or conflict with screen recording software." That line is Minecraft's own launcher recognizing the pattern, not guessing at it.

Why this is not a Minecraft or Java bug

Minecraft's own code runs inside the JVM, and the JVM does not let Java code corrupt its own stack this way. A stack buffer overrun happens in native code, meaning a compiled DLL running in the same process. When Windows kills the process, it does not distinguish between "Minecraft's DLL" and "some other program's DLL loaded into Minecraft's process." Both look identical to the security check.

So the real question is never "what did Minecraft do wrong." It is "which DLL loaded into this process actually overran its stack." In practice, that is almost always one of two things.

Cause one: the GPU driver itself

Minecraft's rendering goes through your graphics card's OpenGL driver DLL on every frame. That driver is a large, complex piece of native code, and a bug in it can overrun its own stack under the right conditions, crashing the entire process it is loaded into.

The specific DLL varies by hardware:

• Nvidia: commonly nvoglv64.dll
• Intel: commonly ig7icd64.dll

Both appear repeatedly in real crash reports on Nvidia's and Intel's own community forums, tied to this exact exception. It is a driver defect, not something Minecraft triggers on purpose, which is why it comes and goes across driver releases.

Cause two: overlay and capture software

Discord's in-game overlay, GeForce Experience's overlay, RTSS or MSI Afterburner's frame counter, and OBS's game capture hook all work the same way: they inject code into Minecraft's process so they can draw on top of the game or read its rendered frames directly. That injected code shares the same stack as everything else in the process. A bug in any one of them can overrun it.

This is exactly what Minecraft's error message is naming when it says "conflict with screen recording software." It is not limited to programs that record video. Anything that hooks the process the same way qualifies.

Fix it in this order

1. Update the GPU driver directly from the vendor. Not through Windows Update, which lags behind. Get the current driver from Nvidia, AMD, or Intel's own site. Since the driver DLL is the single most common cause, this alone resolves most cases.

2. Disable overlays one at a time. Turn off the Discord overlay, GeForce Experience overlay, RTSS or Afterburner, and OBS game capture individually, launching Minecraft after each change. Disabling everything at once tells you that an overlay was responsible, not which one, and you will want to keep the others running.

3. Read the crash log for the actual DLL name. If the crash continues, the log will usually name the culprit directly. Check:

• latest.log, in .minecraft/logs/, for the lines immediately before the crash.
• hs_err_pid<number>.log, written next to latest.log or in the .minecraft folder itself, created by the JVM specifically when native code crashes it.

In either file, look for a line naming a .dll near the top of the crash, often under a heading like "Problematic frame." Whatever DLL is named there is the one responsible, and it tells you whether to keep chasing a driver update or a specific overlay.