Minecraft Launcher stuck/stops loading on "Using default game log configuration client-1.12.xml"

When opening the Minecraft Launcher and attempting to run Minecraft 1.17.1, the launcher will prepare to launch Minecraft, and stop. According to the output log attached, the process stops at "Using default game log configuration client-1.12.xml (outputs XML)", and progresses no further.
Furthermore, closing the launcher during this period causes the Minecraft Launcher processes to go to the background, and cannot be reopened; I have to open Task Manager and force stop the background Launcher process in order to reopen the Launcher.