Instant Crash to Desktop (No Error Code) at "Signing In..." Screen After Season 2 Update

Hi Bungie Support / Community,

I am experiencing a persistent, instant crash directly to the desktop (no error messages or pop-ups) that began immediately after downloading the Season 2 update. The game goes completely "poof" right when trying to establish a network connection.

The Symptom

• The game launches completely fine through Steam.

• Opening studio logos, title splash graphics, and cinematic elements load and render completely smooth with no lag or graphical artifacts.

• I click the initial prompt to enter the main menu.

• The screen switches to "Signing In..." and the loading throbber icon begins to cycle.

• After a few seconds of loading, the ambient sound cuts out, and the game instantly vanishes straight back to my Windows desktop.

The Intermittent "Lucky" Launches

What makes this incredibly strange is that the hardware is capable of running the game. I have managed to break through the crash gate twice out of dozens of attempts:

1. First breakthrough: Right after a fresh reinstall, I managed to reach the main menu and browse the new Cradle progression systems.

2. Second breakthrough: Earlier today, I successfully signed in, played a full 3D match, extracted, and successfully exfilled. However, the exact millisecond the game tried to pull up the Post-Game Exfil Report, it instantly crashed straight back to Windows again.

Relaunching immediately after these successful sessions places me right back into the infinite "Signing In..." crash loop.

Troubleshooting Steps Attempted So Far:

• Verified the integrity of game files via Steam multiple times.

• Completely uninstalled and reinstalled the core game files.

• Cleared the Steam Download Cache and restarted the client.

• Checked %appdata%\Bungie\Marathon\prefs—the game is crashing so early in the handshake that it has not even generated a new cvars.xml file (only old backup files exist).

• Flushed Windows DNS (ipconfig /flushdns) and reset the network stack (netsh winsock reset).

• Attempted running Steam as an Administrator.

Because my laptop handles the actual 3D gameplay and combat smoothly when it rarely lets me in, I am confident this is an account-token validation timeout or an engine network optimization conflict introduced with the patch rather than a local hardware failure.

Is there a known profile corruption issue, cloud-save sync conflict, or a specific engine-timeout threshold error that is causing the application to forcefully terminate during server handshakes? Any assistance or acknowledgment would be greatly appreciated!

Platform: Steam (PC / Laptop)