If when you open GeForce Experience on your Windows 11 or Windows 10 computer, you notice none of your games appears to be optimized and when you click on a game, you get the message Unable to retrieve settings, then this post is intended to help you with the most suitable solutions to successfully resolve the issue on your device.
Unable to retrieve settings. Try again later.
Why can’t I optimize my games with GeForce Experience?
The main reason why you can’t optimize your games with GeForce Experience is related to corrupted user configuration files. Besides, other factors like improper game settings, antivirus or firewall blocks, corrupt graphic card drivers, and even DNS settings can trigger the error.
Unable to retrieve settings in NVIDIA GeForce Experience
If you’re getting the Unable to retrieve settings in NVIDIA GeForce Experience app on your Windows 11/10 PC, you can try our recommended solutions below in no particular order and see if that helps to resolve the issue.
- Clear Temp folder
- Remove Scan Locations
- Reinstall NVIDIA drivers
- Reinstall GeForce Experience
- Disable third-party security software (if applicable)
- Delete Steam User Data (if applicable)
- Restore NVIDIA Control Panel Settings
Let’s take a look at the description of the process involved concerning each of the listed solutions.
Before you proceed with the solutions below, first try to login with your NVIDIA account instead of a Google or Facebook account. this simple workaround is known to have resolved the issue for some affected users.
1] Clear Temp folder
You can begin troubleshooting to fix the Unable to retrieve settings in NVIDIA GeForce Experience app on your Windows 11/10 PC by clearing the Temp folder on your device.
Try the next solution if this action wasn’t helpful.
2] Remove Scan Locations
Corrupted scan locations in the GeForce Experience app is a known culprit to the issue in view. In this case, to resolve the issue, you can remove the Scan Locations.
To remove scan locations in the GeForce Experience app on your Windows 11/10 PC, do the following:
- Launch GeForce Experience app.
- When the GeForce Experience opens up, click on the gear-shaped icon.
- Next, click on GAMES.
- Now, under the SCAN LOCATION section, repeatedly click on the REMOVE button to remove all the scan locations.
- Close the GeForce Experience app when done.
- Now, close all the games running on your computer and make sure they are not running in background. You can press CTRL+SHIFT+Esc keyboard shortcut to open Task Manager and then end/kill all game process running in the background.
- Once done, relaunch the GeForce Experience.
- Click on the cogwheel icon again to open settings
- Click on GAMES.
- Click on SCAN NOW to scan for the games on your computer.
Once done, the issue should be resolved. Otherwise, try the next solution.
3] Reinstall NVIDIA driver
The issue in hand is probably caused by the corrupted driver files that normal uninstallation didn’t get rid of. In this case, to resolve the issue, you need to clear all the files before you clean install the new driver.
You can clean install NVIDIA display driver, but you first need to uninstall the graphics driver via Device Manager or alternatively use the Display Driver Uninstaller tool. Once done, you can then proceed with the clean install of the NVIDIA graphics driver as follows:
- Download the NVIDIA drivers.
- Open the downloaded driver on your computer and follow the on-screen instructions to install it.
- Once you reach the Installation options screen, select the Custom (Advanced) option.
- Click on Next to see a list of installed components.
- Check the option to Perform a clean installation.
- Click Next button to install the driver.
If the issue in hand is still unresolved after this task, you can try the next solution.
4] Reinstall GeForce Experience
If the installation files of GeForce Experience is corrupted or inconsistent, you’re likely to encounter the issue in hand. In this case, to resolve the issue, you can reinstall the entire application to fix the problem on your PC.
You can uninstall GeForce Experience app via Settings app or Control Panel (we recommend you use a third-party software uninstaller), reboot PC, and then download from NVIDIA official website the latest version of the app and reinstall on your Windows 11/10 PC.
5] Disable third-party security software (if applicable)
Firewall and antivirus are important for your system safety, but sometimes these programs can interfere with Windows and cause random errors to appear.
Bitdefender is known to cause this particular issue. In this case, to fix this issue, you can disable your antivirus software; locate its icon in the notification area or system tray on the taskbar and right-click the icon and choose the option to disable or exit the program. If disabling the AV didn’t resolve the issue, you’ll have to remove the third-party antivirus programs from your PC using the dedicated AV removal tool.
If removing the antivirus fixes this error, you can now install the same antivirus again, or you can switch to an alternative AV software or better still stick to Windows 11/10 native AV program – Windows Defender.
6] Delete Steam User Data (if applicable)
User reports has revealed that Steam and GeForce Experience app are incompatible and usually conflict, and this may lead to the problem you’re currently facing. So, if you have Steam installed on your Windows 11/10 device and you encounter the error in hand, you can try deleting some of Steam’s temporary user data and see if that helps.
To delete Steam User Data on your PC, do the following:
- Press Windows key + E to open File Explorer.
- In File Explorer, navigate to the folder path below:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata
- At the location, delete the folder without any number in its name.
- Exit File Explorer.
- Restart PC.
On boot, launch GeForce Experience app and see if the error message reappears. If so, try the next solution.
7] Restore NVIDIA Control Panel Settings
This solution is recommended by NVIDIA Support – it requires you to restore NVIDIA graphics card settings.
To restore NVIDIA Control Panel Settings, do the following:
- Launch NVIDIA Control Panel.
- Select Manage 3D settings.
- Click the Restore button.
- Click Yes on the prompt.
- Reboot your PC.
That’s it! Hope this post helps you.
Related post: Fix Scanning Failed error in NVIDIA GeForce Experience
How do I reset my GeForce Experience settings?
To reset your GeForce Experience settings, you can press Control + F7 which saves the profile/configuration. So if you tweaked it excessively and then saved, it will default to that setting when you launch the game or press Alt+Tab. So tweak the settings as desired, then save a new setting.
How do I turn on NVIDIA game settings?
The easiest way to turn on NVIDIA game settings is by just right-clicking on the desktop and selecting NVIDIA Control Panel from the context menu. You can also find it inside Window’s own Control Panel in the Personalization screen, or just type “NVIDIA” in Start Menu search and it’ll usually pop right up.
What does it mean if a game can’t be optimized?
Many users recently reported that they were unable to optimize their games using GeForce Experience. An error occurred whenever they navigated to the optimization menu. So, if you get a game that can’t be optimized error, it’s usually due to several causes; the most common one is the corruption of local files and NVIDIA drivers.
