ComfyUI backend fails to start

**ComfyUI backend consistently fails to start with the same error. My system has an Intel Core i5-14600K CPU with an Intel ARC B580 GPU, 32 GB of RAM, running on Windows 11 24H2. I have the latest drivers installed. The iGPU is disabled in BIOS. I've already tried multiple reinstalls, different ComfyUI versions, different AI Playground versions, all with no dice. I have attached the full error report below:**

```
Service: comfyui-backend
Command: comfyui-backend startup
Exit Code: Unknown
Duration: 3.2s
Timestamp: 3/25/2026, 11:33:25 PM

Standard Error:
comfy-aimdo failed to load: Could not find module 'C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\ComfyUI\.venv\Lib\site-packages\comfy_aimdo\aimdo.dll' (or one of its dependencies). Try using the full path with constructor syntax.
NOTE: comfy-aimdo is currently only support for Nvidia GPUs
Adding extra search path checkpoints C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\models\ComfyUI\checkpoints
Adding extra search path loras C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\models\ComfyUI\loras
Adding extra search path loras C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\models\ComfyUI\lora
Adding extra search path vae C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\models\ComfyUI\vae
Adding extra search path text_encoders C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\models\ComfyUI\text_encoders
Adding extra search path text_encoders C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\models\ComfyUI\clip
Adding extra search path clip_vision C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\models\ComfyUI\clip_vision
Adding extra search path style_models C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\models\ComfyUI\style_models
Adding extra search path embeddings C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\models\ComfyUI\embeddings
Adding extra search path diffusers C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\models\ComfyUI\diffusers
Adding extra search path vae_approx C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\models\ComfyUI\vae_approx
Adding extra search path controlnet C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\models\ComfyUI\controlnet
Adding extra search path controlnet C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\models\ComfyUI\t2i_adapter
Adding extra search path gligen C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\models\ComfyUI\gligen
Adding extra search path upscale_models C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\models\ComfyUI\upscale_models
Adding extra search path upscale_models C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\models\ComfyUI\latent_upscale_models
Adding extra search path hypernetworks C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\models\ComfyUI\hypernetworks
Adding extra search path photomaker C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\models\ComfyUI\photomaker
Adding extra search path classifiers C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\models\ComfyUI\classifiers
Adding extra search path model_patches C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\models\ComfyUI\model_patches
Adding extra search path audio_encoders C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\models\ComfyUI\audio_encoders
Adding extra search path diffusion_models C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\models\ComfyUI\diffusion_models
Adding extra search path diffusion_models C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\models\ComfyUI\unet
Adding extra search path insightface C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\models\ComfyUI\insightface
Adding extra search path facerestore_models C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\models\ComfyUI\facerestore_models
Adding extra search path nsfw_detector C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\models\ComfyUI\nsfw_detector
Adding extra search path inpaint C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\models\ComfyUI\inpaint
Setting output directory to: C:\Users\Zach\Documents\AI-Playground\media
C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\ComfyUI\.venv\Lib\site-packages\requests\__init__.py:113: RequestsDependencyWarning: urllib3 (2.6.3) or chardet (7.2.0)/charset_normalizer (3.4.6) doesn't match a supported version!
warnings.warn(
[ComfyUI-Manager] `python -m pip` not available. Falling back to `uv`.
[ComfyUI-Manager] Using `uv` as Python module for pip operations.

Prestartup times for custom nodes:
1.2 seconds: C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\ComfyUI\custom_nodes\ComfyUI-Manager

Windows fatal exception: access violation

Stack (most recent call first):
File "C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\ComfyUI\.venv\Lib\site-packages\torch\__init__.py", line 256 in _load_dll_libraries
File "C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\ComfyUI\.venv\Lib\site-packages\torch\__init__.py", line 280 in
File "", line 488 in _call_with_frames_removed
File "", line 995 in exec_module
File "", line 935 in _load_unlocked
File "", line 1331 in _find_and_load_unlocked
File "", line 1360 in _find_and_load
File "C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\ComfyUI\comfy\utils.py", line 20 in
File "", line 488 in _call_with_frames_removed
File "", line 995 in exec_module
File "", line 935 in _load_unlocked
File "", line 1331 in _find_and_load_unlocked
File "", line 1360 in _find_and_load
File "C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\ComfyUI\main.py", line 194 in
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\ComfyUI\main.py", line 194, in
import comfy.utils
File "C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\ComfyUI\comfy\utils.py", line 20, in
import torch
File "C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\ComfyUI\.venv\Lib\site-packages\torch\__init__.py", line 280, in
_load_dll_libraries()
File "C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\ComfyUI\.venv\Lib\site-packages\torch\__init__.py", line 263, in _load_dll_libraries
raise err
OSError: [WinError 1114] A dynamic link library (DLL) initialization routine failed. Error loading "C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\ComfyUI\.venv\Lib\site-packages\torch\lib\c10.dll" or one of its dependencies.

Standard Output:
[START] Security scan
[DONE] Security scan
## ComfyUI-Manager: installing dependencies done.
** ComfyUI startup time: 2026-03-25 23:33:24.681
** Platform: Windows
** Python version: 3.12.4 | packaged by Anaconda, Inc. | (main, Jun 18 2024, 15:03:56) [MSC v.1929 64 bit (AMD64)]
** Python executable: C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\ComfyUI\.venv\Scripts\python.exe
** ComfyUI Path: C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\ComfyUI
** ComfyUI Base Folder Path: C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\ComfyUI
** User directory: C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\ComfyUI\user
** ComfyUI-Manager config path: C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\ComfyUI\user\__manager\config.ini
** Log path: C:\Users\Zach\AppData\Local\Programs\AI Playground\resources\ComfyUI\user\comfyui.log

Python Environment (pip freeze):
No pip freeze output available
```