Black screen on startup

Infidelus

8 years ago
updated 7 years ago
Completed - Resolved

Having been a Windows user for 20+ years, I'm now trying to convert to Linux. As such, I've installed Linux Mint 18 and the Linux version of Steam, but every time I try to launch WFTO I get a black screen and nothing else. Alt+F4 closes it (in proper Windows style).

The current version of WFTO is 1.4.2. If I go into Steam's Beta's section for WFTO and choose previousbuild (in this case 1.3.2) or the publictestbranch (v1.4.0 hotfix testing), the game launches without issue.

Game Version:

Steam Public

Platform:

Linux

How would you rate the customer service you received?

Satisfaction mark by Infidelus 8 years ago

The team helped as much as they could, even when I got a bit frustrated with them for seeming lack of helpful updates on a Linux issue.

Add a comment about quality of support you received (optional):

Replies 42

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Scott Richmond Programmer & Producer

8 years ago

Looking at a linux machine here, I thought maybe your locale is still broken as the LANGUAGE env var is missing too, but I tried removing it and the game still ran no problems.

I may have to build a bebug build of the game for you next week to continue, as I don't have enough information to take next steps.

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Stefan Furcht Programmer

Hello Infidelus,
For me it looks like a potential Steamworks problem (https://partner.steamgames.com/).
Do you have other games which use Steamworks?
Do they work?
I wonder as well if Steamworks fails on its own DRM check because it can not connect to Steam Server. (which makes it quit the application and try to restart it with Steam for a second attempt).
So it would be worth looking if the network setup is correct and Steam ports are open.

** (steam:4268): WARNING **: Unknown device type 14
** (steam:4268): WARNING **: Could not create object for /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Devices/1: unknown object type

I/We have not much Linux experience but I found logs with similar issues around the web and maybe one of these links give pointers:
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/3959
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=208296
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager/+bug/1438003

Hi Scott,

I can't see any other games I've got that are available in Linux that use Steamworks, but I'm only looking at the homepage for the games to see if they mention it as it's not something I know anything about.

There's nothing special in my network configuration. RJ45 from PC to switch and switch to router. Every other game that requires network connectivity works, and I've just logged into my Windows partition and installed and launched WFTO there, so that seems to rule any blocked port problems.

Unfortunately we do not know exactly why you get a black screen and it can impossibly be caused by our own code.
But we use Unity3d, Steam/Steamworks and Coherent UI middleware and one of those is for some reason incompatible with your system configuration.
Thus I think fixing the system errors you got in the Player.log might resolve the issue (hopefully).
Unfortunately we are all no real Linux experts, we just know the game works for the majority of Linux users.
Maybe you can find a fix in the links I posted above?

Hi Stefan,

Apologies for calling you Scott in the previous message.

I have to say I'm a bit disappointed. You say you support Linux natively, but when push comes to shove you don't seem willing to put much effort in and excuse yourself saying you don't know much about Linux. I don't know much about Linux either in the grand scale of things, but I'm always willing to try and learn, as I am with troubleshooting what's wrong with your game on my install.

I can't do much though if you're not willing to pursue it. *The majority of Linux users* clearly isn't all Linux users, which means you have others that can't get the game to work either.

As I've said twice now, the game worked perfectly until you released an update, so blaming my configuration seems to be rather a cop-out answer. You've changed something significant that's broken the game for me, so the least you (collectively) could do is put some effort in to work out what you've changed that could be the root cause.

I'm not saying it's not my configuration, but being as I've reinstalled and not tweaked anything (especially network settings) and as it was working before you forced a patch on me, I'd say the ball's in your court.

I'm quite happy to try a debug build that Scott mentioned a couple of posts ago if it'll help find the problem, whether it's my install or your game update.

Andrew "Nutter" Jaggar

I'm not sure what you consider to be "putting in some effort" if almost a week of back and forth between 2/3rds of the entire code team and yourself doesn't count.

Have you tried reverting to the previous build (using the previous build beta branch), and seeing if you still have the issue on that version?

To rollback follow these instructions:

Right click your War for the Overworld entry in your steam library and select properties
Select the Betas tab
Click the drop-down box and select "Previousbuild - Previous Build (v1.4.1)
Click OK and allow your game to update
Ensure that v1.4.1 is displayed as version number on main menu

If the issue doesn't occur in the previous build, then a player log from that version of the game might allow the coders to look for any differences between the 2 logs.

Hello Andrew,

Yes, I have had responses from the team over the last week, preceded by nearly two months of nothing as my request seemed to get lost in the ether and I only started getting responses again because I made a new comment.

To answer your question, yes I have tried the previousbuild, and I've just tried it again after deleting local content, and no it doesn't work.

As I said in my original post, the last build that did work was the v1.4.0 hotfix testing build. Everything since then has been broken.

OK, I take it all back and apologise unreservedly.

Ubuntu have just pushed out a bunch of patches today, one of with is for the network manager. Now I can't say for sure it's that particular patch as there were 5 updates including a Linux kernel update, but based on previous posts it does seem rather likely as the game now launches and seems to run fine from my very quick test.

I'd still like to know why the game worked fine before the 1.4.1 update, but it's working now so I'm happy for this to be marked as resolved.

I shall now go and stand in a corner.

[Edit]

I have just been struck by a blinding flash of light and I now know exactly what's broken the game, and it's not network manager.

If I try to install a kernel update, I have to uninstall my antivirus as it refuses to complete the kernel install when it's enabled. Instead the update just sits there 1/2 way through and won't finish.

Because I just did a kernel update in today's patches, that's exactly what I did, and I didn't reinstall the antivirus before I tested WFTO. I've just installed the antivirus again and lo and behold the game doesn't work anymore.

I'm sure you're dying to know which antivirus it is, and I'm really disappointed in them for this as I've always found them to be one of the better ones. The culprit is:

ESET NOD32 Antivirus

8 years ago
Completed - Resolved

haha. Thanks for the frank reply. We'll make sure to add it to our list of things to ask future users with similar issues. :)

Just a quick further update.

I raised a ticket with ESET about this which they responded to very quickly, and while they say there's no fix for the current version of NOD32 for Linux (4.0.82), you can work around it by editing the /etc/ld.so.preload file and commenting out the line referencing libesets_pac.so. It's the only line in the file on my install, and I've just tested it and it works (no need to reboot after editing it).

Don't forget to uncomment it after though as it does affect real time file system protection.