1.1.14 Update causes launch failure code 21

[bahaines]

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• I have searched for duplicate or closed issues

Operating System

win32

Kiro Version

1.1.14

Bug Description

Kiro version 1.1.14 (distro d0fd3324a737f695bd14f2aee3ca92accd28870f)
OS Windows 11 Enterprise, 25H2
GPU Intel(R) Arc(TM) 140V GPU (8GB)
GPU driver 32.0.101.8724 (dated 4/15/2026)

Bug Description

After updating to Kiro 1.1.14, the app crashes on every normal launch with a renderer-process failure: "The window terminated unexpectedly (reason: 'launch-failed', code: '21')". Launching with kiro --disable-gpu works reliably, pointing to a GPU/hardware-acceleration regression (system has an Intel Arc GPU).

Operating System

Windows 11 Enterprise, 25H2

Kiro Version

1.1.14 (distro d0fd3324a737f695bd14f2aee3ca92accd28870f)

Environment

• GPU: Intel(R) Arc(TM) 140V GPU (8GB)
• GPU driver: 32.0.101.8724 (2026-04-15)
• Crash began immediately after updating to 1.1.14.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Update Kiro to 1.1.14.
2. Launch Kiro normally (shortcut / default launch).
3. Window appears briefly, then crashes with the launch-failed, code 21 dialog. The "Reopen / Don't restore editors" prompt cannot be clicked before it crashes again.

Expected Behavior

Kiro launches and restores the previous window normally.

Actual Behavior

Renderer process dies on launch. From %APPDATA%\Kiro\logs\<timestamp>\main.log:

​
[info] StorageMainService: creating application shared storage
[info] [WebviewProcessMonitor] Service starting
[info] [shared storage] Fallback application storage initialized with 81 items
[info] update#setState idle
[warning] [WebviewProcessMonitor] app render-process-gone: reason=launch-failed, exitCode=21
[error] CodeWindow: renderer process gone (reason: launch-failed, code: 21)
​

The failure occurs right after shared-storage init and before any workspace/user settings are read (confirmed by temporarily removing the workspace settings.json — no effect).

Workaround

Launching with GPU acceleration disabled avoids the crash:

​
kiro --disable-gpu
​

Notes

• Correlates directly with the 1.1.14 update.
• --disable-gpu resolving it, plus the Intel Arc GPU, strongly suggests a GPU/hardware-acceleration regression (Electron + Intel Arc driver interaction).
• Happy to provide a GPU process log or run with --enable-logging if useful.

Steps to Reproduce

Launch kiro without --disable-gpu flag.

Expected Behavior

Should not get code 21 error

Conversation ID

No response

Additional Context

[github-actions]

🤖 Potential Duplicate Detected

This issue appears to be similar to:

• #10622: upgrade go wrong (85% similar)

What happens next?

• ⏰ This issue will be automatically closed in 3 days
• 🏷️ If this is not a duplicate, you can prevent automatic closure by adding a comment or reacting with 👎 to this message.
• 💬 Comment on the original issue if you have additional information

Why is this marked as duplicate?
Both issues report Kiro launch failures after upgrading on Windows, with similar error symptoms related to the update process causing the app to crash on startup

[github-actions]

Thank you for your feedback! 🙏

The 👎 reaction has been noted. The duplicate label has been removed and this issue has been sent back for maintainer review.

A maintainer will review this issue shortly.

[AnilMaktala]

Thanks for raising this. The launch-failed, code 21 crash after updating to 1.1.14, resolved by --disable-gpu, points to a regression in how Kiro handles GPU hardware acceleration with Intel Arc GPUs on Windows. The Electron renderer process is dying right after shared-storage init, before workspace settings are even read, which is consistent with a driver-level incompatibility introduced in this release. Marking this as a bug to investigate further. In the meantime, launching with kiro --disable-gpu is the workaround.

[awschristou]

Hey @bahaines, thanks for the detailed report, the logs helped a lot.

We think we've tracked it down. In the version you had before 1.1.14 we were turning off Chromium's Skia Graphite renderer. That setting got dropped in 1.1.14, which also moved to a newer Electron. There's a known Chromium crash on the Intel Arc 140V when Graphite is on, so that looks like the likely cause.

Could you try launching with just this flag instead of --disable-gpu?

kiro --disable-skia-graphite

Make sure Kiro is fully closed first (check Task Manager for leftover Kiro processes), otherwise the flag might not take effect.

• If it starts: could you run kiro --disable-skia-graphite --status and paste the output? We want to confirm Graphite shows as disabled.
• If it still crashes: could you attach the latest logs from %APPDATA%\Kiro\logs and anything in %APPDATA%\Kiro\Crashpad?

Also, do you know if your Arc driver updated around the same time you got 1.1.14? That would help rule out the driver.

Thanks!