[SOLVED] Can't exit game

[SolarSystem]

If I try to exit the game in any way either quitting or just alt-tab away my screen goes completely black and all input is locked. No way to even get to the task manager. All I can do is do a hard shut down.  (Demo downloaded from Steam today)

Help?

System: i7, 16 GB RAM, Geforce 425M, Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit)

[eRe4s3r]

not help in teh sense but there is a way to close a task even if you don't see the task manager (believe me, it opens even if you don't see it ,p)

to do that you have to hit

ctrl + shift + esc (all 3 at the same time, in that order, hold ctrl shift and then esc then let go of em)  (Make sure the processes tab is selected beforehand because that is the most important tab of them all) it remembers which tab is selected in the task manager, so do this first and then try in the game ;p

Anyway, that combo opens the task manager (even if you don't see it)

now type -> "AVW" in quick succession. .. so just A V W
and hit "ALT + P" (that's the combo for closing the task you selected by typing its name... sorta)
then hit Enter key (thats the "yes close this task" action)

Does this get you out of this black screen situation?  Because if it does, it is not a hard-lock. If it does not, you are looking at some kind of hardware/driver malfunction.

In any case, that it does not give you your screen back or control back is obviously a pretty big bug somewhere.. but where I do not know.

[SolarSystem]

I repeat. ALL INPUT IS LOCKED.
Sound controls (music is still playing, but I cannot mute or change volume with the keys that do that), caps/num lock (lights do not change), EVERYTHING.
The only button that does anything is the power button if I hold it down long enough.
I've left it for over an hour and still nothing changes. My computer is completely locked up.

update:
On my last attempt, I turned off the full screen mode, which then needed another computer reset, but now I can exit properly. The issue happens every time it tries to return my desktop when exiting full screen for any reason.

[x4000]

Most likely steam did not download all the game files properly; if you verify the steam cache the problem will go away. We use the unity 3d engine, which is very common, and we don't do anything special to prevent input in the manner you describe. But sometimes when an install is incomplete from steam, really odd things can happen.

[SolarSystem]

I forgot to mention that I did verify the cache and all was fine.

The problem may have very little to do with the game itself and just some stupidity with my computer.

There were  a few more alerts from my firewall and antivirus after I started up in windowed mode asking for various permissions (and it then did a game update). There may have been some conflict there causing my issues. Might even be able to exit normally from full screen now that I've allowed everything....

I'm gonna test that now, actually....


.... And failed. Still no exiting full screen without locking up my computer.
Anyone have any other ideas?

[Oralordos]

I would check to make sure your drivers are up to date. There could be a problem with them.

Why would you want to stop playing this game in the first place though?

[x4000]

I would suspect the antivirus or firewall more than anything else, as you mention.  Perhaps try disabling them briefly, start the game and then exit the game and see if that works.  I've never heard of this particular issue before, so either it's something new with one of the antivirus programs or similar, or it's some sort of bad driver, or it's actually some sort of malware.  You might want to run some sort of antispyware program just to make sure that nothing has infected your computer.  Years ago, I had some spyware infect a ton of my programs and so when I'd launch something like Winamp it would give me all these errors because the spyware had partly overwritten winamp.  That could be something like that going on here.

[SolarSystem]

Turns out it was Comodo Firewall at fault here.

Question: Can anyone else reproduce this problem by running said firewall?

[x4000]

Glad to know what it was at least -- thanks for the update! I've not used that particular firewall before.