I'm really unpleased with GOG Galaxy, it seems to be stuck on "synching game files to cloud" and will not launch the game even though I have now turned off that synching. Is there any workaround? I wish I would not have to have Galaxy installed to patch, but it seems like GOG makes it just too difficult to do so

1) Galaxy is not needed to play a game on GOG.
2) Cloud savin unfortunately sometimes works and sometimes it does not. However they try to improve it.
3) Which game are you talking about? It'S not like you cannot launch any game or is it?
4) Did you try to launch the game outside of Galaxy by clinking the shortcut or executable?
5) Last Galaxy update introduced some false alerts from avast and AVG so if you run one of those av scanners be sure to read this as well.

Okay, forum seems to have eaten my reply, so I'll try again. This has happened to me a few times as well. As Marko noted, you can just launch from the desktop shortcut if you have one, or you can go into the game's install folder and launch from the game's executable directly. Galaxy should eventually sync.

Thank yo!
My executable seems to launch the GOG Galaxy launcher, which launches the game. I can't figure out a way to launch the game with GOG galaxy, could you help me please? THANKS!!

(The game is grim dawn.
Yes, I am aware that I do not need Galaxy, however, as I tried to say (poorly it seems), Grim Dawn patches are not available via GOG, only via Galaxy (otherwise one must de-install and re-install once GOG eventually gets the new version), so that it is very inconvinient either way. )

I highly doubt that the executable is launching Galaxy. You probably clicked the desktop shortcut ( a copy of it is in the game directory as well) and since it has detected Galaxy install routine created a "lauchn Galaxy and then launch game" shortcut. Search for the real executable in the game directory and be sure to actually exit Galaxy before doing so (since it normally just minimizes to desktop tray). Since I own th egame myself I will try it as well.

Edit: I was able to launch Grim Dawn without any Galaxy running at all. I clicked the file shown in the attachement.
Edit2: Launching with Galaxy and syncing worked as well atm.
Edit3: GOG is offering patch only updates for Grim Dawn as well - so I really don't see the need for Galaxy.

This happened to me about a half dozen times with Elex, but whenever I launched the game through the executable, Galaxy worked after that. So not sure why it's not working for you after you launch the game that way. After launching through the executable and shutting the game down, did you shut Galaxy down completely (make sure it's not just minimized to the tray)?

The shortcut is supposed to launch Galaxy if Galaxy has been detected during installation (I recently had a chat about that with support). There is however imo no way that the unmodified original executable will start Galaxy as well if clicking directly on it. I suppose that Galaxy was not closed but just minimized in this case.

Yep, agreed, which is why I specified the executable. That's how I dealt with Elex on the few occasions when it occurred, and it fixed the issue each time.

ah ok thanks, that helps, thank you!