Game crashes after launch – “Epic Game Ownership is unknown”

Hello,

I am experiencing a persistent crash with Sins of a Solar Empire II on Steam.

The game launches normally, but I receive the following error:

Epic Game Ownership is unknown.

You must start the game when connected to Epic at least once before playing offline.

I can only select Skip All. After doing so, the game continues loading, reaches Loading complete, and then closes.

The log repeatedly reports:

online_service.pump has caused app.exit!

Game version: 2.0.3 (318)
Platform: Steam

I have already completely removed my mods and reset the local sins2 folder. The .enabled_mods file is empty:

{
"version": 0,
"enabled_mods": []
}

I have also tried launching normally through Steam, -windowed, and /nolauncher, but the problem persists.

My GPU and D3D11 initialize correctly, so the problem appears to be related to the online or ownership service rather than graphics initialization.

The relevant log file is:

C:\Users\Diego\AppData\Local\sins2\logs\sins2_log_25764.txt

Could you please help me determine why the Steam version is reporting Epic Game Ownership is unknown and then closing through online_service.pump?

Thank you.