Steam version not running, can't access licence keys & unlock non-Steam.

[Unacosamedarisa]

I recently saw that AI War had updated on my Steam games list ("Because it was going smoothly" update, I think), along with the version 8.0 and the Destroyer of Worlds expansion announcements. I hadn't played the game in about a year, so thought I'd start it up, see what's new, and check if I needed to pick up the last expansion to be released ("Vengeance of the Machine", which I do have... I can never remember which ones I have). Unfortunately, the game wouldn't start, either from the Steam games list entry, or from the executable in the Steam directory. Both give the error...

"Oops! The game crashed. The crash report folder named *DATE* next to game executable. It would be great if you'd send it to the developer of the game!"  (attached one of these below)

I've had a look about the forums, to see if there were any similar problems and possible solutions, and have tried reinstalling, wiping the folder and complete reinstall, opting in to the Beta, as well as the "old graphics pipeline" beta, restarting Steam, restarting the computer... none of which have worked, alas.

However, I was able to download/install/start the non Steam version, grabbed from the website here (7.0)... and it runs fine (as far as the main menu, which was as far as I went). Unfortunately, it's the trial version, with none of the expansions present... And, I can't seem to find my licence keys anywhere in Steam to activate them in that version, and can't start the Steam version to get the keys from ingame. (I've bought everything AIWar from Steam, base game and the 5 released expansions)

In addition, I've tried running the updaters present in both installs, as I saw there was some mention of out of date updates etc., but neither of them work. The Steam version UDA/ArcenUpdater gives a similar "Oops!" error as above, a crash folder and log with the same Access Violation. The non-Steam 7.0 version gives an error "Unable to read RuntimeData/Updates/UpdateList.txt" (no surprise, as RuntimeData/Updates doesn't exist).

Obviously, I'd like to get the Steam version working... although failing that, I'd like to get the licence keys from the Steam version, to unlock the non-Steam version... and then get that to update. Although I'd hazard a guess that maybe the nonSteam version updated to 7.04-7.06 might have the same problem as the Steam version.

System is running Windows 7, 64-bit, 4GB RAM, NVidia GeForce GTX650 Ti BOOST 340.52 Drivers, MSEE for AV (tried with RealTime protection off, and no joy).

[keith.lamothe]

Very sorry about the inconvenience, and thanks for reporting this.  I'm sure Chris will see this soon, but here are a couple recent reports that sound very similar (except you don't use Avast, but rather MSEE) and have been resolved:

http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,16079.0.html

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=15650

Just in case they help.

[x4000]

Hi there,

Can you try restarting Steam?  There is a new version that was uploaded since you posted this, I believe, and it may help.

Thanks!
Chris

[Unacosamedarisa]

I think I did get that update just after I posted this topic... And no change, unfortunately. I'm trying a fresh install of the game at the moment, just incase something left behind was causing the issue. Will try when that's done.

[keith.lamothe]

Just FYI, for the two folks with Avast where the game was dying (most of the time) on start-up the problem wouldn't go away when they added an exception in Avast for the game, or even when they disabled Avast.  They actually had to uninstall Avast to get it to stop killing the game.  I don't know if MSEE engages in such deception (exceptions not working can be a mistake on either end, but continuing to kill processes when "disabled" is a bit much) but I figured I'd mention it.

[x4000]

I've never heard of MSEE causing any sorts of problems at all, but you never know.

Regarding log files, incidentally if you can post the output.log from your AIWar_Data folder after a crash, plus whatever text files are logged into the RuntimeData folder, those would be helpful.  I'm honestly not sure why the unity 3d engine asks you to send us the other files, as it's not useful to most developers since we don't have the unity 3d source code.

[x4000]

Oh!  I keep forgetting, it's not always antivirus.  Honestly I really doubt MSEE is messing with it.

However, as noted in a few other places, WindowBlinds hates newer versions of the unity engine: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php?topic=14124.0

So does msi afterburner: http://steamcommunity.com/app/273070/discussions/0/558753803782716565/#p4

Why those just hate the newer version of unity is unknown to me, but so it goes. :/

[Unacosamedarisa]

Regarding log files, incidentally if you can post the output.log from your AIWar_Data folder after a crash, plus whatever text files are logged into the RuntimeData folder, those would be helpful.

I'm not getting any log files like that... nothing being created/logged in either AIWar_Data folder, or the RuntimeData folder. Only the *DATE/TIME* folders next the executable, as I linked in the OP.

Unlike the other cases, I am getting nothing when I try to run the game/exe... just the "Oops!" window. No AIWar.exe window, no Game Init stuff.

I have neither Windowblinds nor Afterburner installed. Have tried uninstalling MSEE, no change. Will restart my machine, just incase it's something left hanging around.

[keith.lamothe]

Odd, usually it's one of the above.

For diagnostic purposes:

1) do any of our other games run ok on your system?

2) do you have any other machines to test AIW on?

[x4000]

Wow, that is really very unusual.  How is the RAM usage on your machine?  Do you have any other sorts of unusual programs that hook into other programs?  It used to be that things like XFire did that, although it was never a problem crashing anything that I was aware of.

Also, do you have the Korean language bar from MS Office installed?  That's been known to mess with a variety of games when enabled.

Another thing from the other thread on TLF that might be useful:

Well... I'm doing general googling on other unity games, because most likely it's something that affects all of them given when you are seeing the crashes. There is some good stuff on the Kerbal Space Program page here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/24536-Self-help-for-crashes-look-here-first-if-KSP-crashes

I hope one of those helps! Some of the items there were news to me -- particularly the thing with multi-core processors on 32bit machines causing issues, and the Athlon issue. Fortunately they've figured out solutions to those oddities and have posted them in a handy FAQ.

Even though you use Microsoft Security Essentials, I would also think that the notes about putting an exception on the entire steam folder as a test might work.

Someone else pointed out this:

I had similar problems with a non-steam version (humblebundle). I tried everything mentioned here. I seem to have the game working. I moved the game folder to the root of my drive (C:\TheLastFederation) I made an exception on Avast, ran a windows update as referenced here. http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/172934-Fatal-error-in-GC
I also ran the program as an administrator and ran windows XP compatiblity mode. XP mode is the last thing I tried. Maybe it is what worked.

This also:

I had the same issue as above (GOG Version), but my solution was not the antivirus, but that I had Peer Block enabled. It seems that if anything prevents the game from contacting whatever server it reaches out to upon startup, you get a crash.

I responded with this:

Apologies for the delay in my response, somehow I missed this. The game is reaching out to check for updates, nothing more. If you want to disable updates for the game (which really isn't the best thing, but you can), then you can download the following file and put it in your RuntimeData folder inside your game install folder: http://www.arcengames.com/share/settings.dat

That file is a mostly-empty settings file that does nothing except turn off the automatic updates check (which simply downloads an xml file from an amazon s3 bucket, which then lets you know if there are newer versions of the game for you to optionally download). If you turn that off, then no network-connection-blocking programs should have a problem with the game.


I hope that one of these helps!

[Unacosamedarisa]

RAM usage shouldn't be an issue, 4GB and only Steam running, still no joy.

No MSOffice, Korean or otherwise, installed.

MSEE completely removed, system restarted, no change.

Nothing else unusual that's hooking into other programs. 

Tried copying the folder to C:\ to get past any DEP problems. No change. Can't add AIWar.exe to the DEP whitelist though, it must be run with DEP.

Changed folder permissions to allow writing, no change.

No Peer Blocker etc. Have tried with the settings.dat provided, and no luck.

GPU Drivers are upto date, and no major hardware changes from when I last successfully ran the game... and, as I say, 7.0 works fine.

I've got a netbook beside me, which I can install/run Steam on and see if it works on that machine. Also, I'll try and grab a trial of one of your other games and see if that runs on this machine.

[Unacosamedarisa]

Steam version 7.061 runs fine on my laptop/netbook... All of the expansions present, and I see the entries for LicenceKey and ExpansionLicenceKeys in the settings.dat there. If I copy that RuntimeData folder from the netbook to my main PC 7.0 trial installation, will that update that 7.0 installation to 7.061 (and unlock it)? If the issue is with 7.061 then it won't run, obviously, but if it's something to do with my mainPC not installing, or breaking something it'll tell us that... I notice the working netbook install is ~80MB larger than the broken mainPC install.

[keith.lamothe]

Steam version 7.061 runs fine on my laptop/netbook... All of the expansions present, and I see the entries for LicenceKey and ExpansionLicenceKeys in the settings.dat there. If I copy that RuntimeData folder from the netbook to my main PC 7.0 trial installation, will that update that 7.0 installation to 7.061 (and unlock it)?

That won't update the game to 7.061, it will just update the images, text, etc, and probably be a bit of a frankenstein.

I'd suggest copying the entire AI War directory from your laptop to a new location on your main PC, and just run the AIWar.exe there (the game is fully portable, you can actually run it from a jumpdrive, though I wouldn't recommend it).  If that works then we can diagnose why exactly that copy of the game works on that machine and another copy doesn't.  If that doesn't work it's a separate category of problem.

Thanks for sticking with it

[Unacosamedarisa]

Copied 7.061 across from the netbook to the mainPC, and had the same error... straight crash, with the "Oops!" message. No additional logs or anything being created. So, must be something specific with this PC's setup. Is there any other information I can provide to you to narrow it down?

I'm not in any pressing rush to play, at the moment... I have a thesis due in in 3 weeks time. And I guess if all else fails I can play on my laptop.

[keith.lamothe]

Wow, yea, that pc really doesn't want you playing the game.

As far as info to narrow it down, basically a complete list of the processes and possibly even services running on the machine during your attempts to play the game.  Cross-referencing with the laptop's list of said wouldn't hurt. 

But you could also just try killing all the processes and services that you don't specifically need to play the game (even kill steam, and just run AIWar.exe directly).

It's good you have a workaround (the laptop), but be great for others who might be encountering the same issue if we can figure out what's causing this.  That said, I understand that you don't have unlimited time to fiddle with this.

I hope the thesis goes well