Slitherine Launcher Technical Support Issue

[Tomn]

Wasn't quite sure where to put this topic, so I plopped it down here. Hopefully a mod can move it somewhere more appropriate if required.

So at some point in the past few months, not sure when, almost all of my Slitherine games has become unplayable as the launcher freezes on start-up without giving me a chance to actually, well, start the game (or anything else for that matter). On launching, the launcher's window will appear and take a minute to load the "similar offers" page but after that will hang, and the whole time the buttons on the launcher will not be responsive. Launching the launcher through Steam or through Windows made no difference. Of the games I currently have installed, Field of Glory: Empires, Field of Glory 2, Sengoku Jidai: Shadow of the Shogun, Commander: The Great War, Warhammer 40K Gladius: Relics of War, and Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa all had non-functioning launchers. Carrier Deck's launcher, strangely, was working fine without a hitch. Further testing showed that Field of Glory: Empires would run fine if I bypassed the launcher and launched the game directly, though for other games it seemed they automatically tried to fire the launcher and would hang.

This is...irritating, to say the least. Would appreciate some assistance with this ASAP. I've attached my DxDiag files and MSInfo files just in case it'll prove useful - please let me know if anything else is required to diagnose this issue.

[zakblood]

install as admin and run as admin adds the correct permissions to your antivirus and firewall programs unless you're running a really poor one like AVG, poor AV programs, eg game unfriendly bit defender, avast, f secure etc etc

welcome to the forum btw

for steam follow the same advice, run steam and the game as admin

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https://windowsreport.com/run-steam-administrator/

[Tomn]

I've set up Steam to run as admin by default for a while now, and running the programs themselves as administrator was one of the first things I tried. The only difference it made, if it made any difference at all, was to make the buttons on the launcher responsive for the space of about a second before it froze up. Frantic clicking on the buttons while they were responsive proved unsuccessful.

I also am not currently running any AV other than the standard Windows package as that was the second thing I checked. No dice.

Edit: Also, I'll add again that this was a recent thing - I'm not sure what exactly has changed or when but my games were working fine relatively recently.

[zakblood]

Operating System: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (10.0, Build 18362) (18362.19h1_release.190318-1202)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz (2 CPUs), ~3.0GHz
Memory: 8192MB RAM

User DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)

Card name: AMD Radeon HD 6700 Series
Display Memory: 4850 MB
Dedicated Memory: 1010 MB
Shared Memory: 3840 MB
Current Mode: 1280 x 1024 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor Model: DELL 1708FP
Monitor Id: DEL4023
Native Mode: 1280 x 1024(p) (60.020Hz)
Driver Date/Size: 11/4/2015 out of date

Free Space: 6.4 GB low on space, most games and windows itself need a temporary storage and working space of between 10 to 20 GB, swap file, temp and page file etc

as windows 10 is in it's 5th or 6th version and again if this is a upgrade from windows 7 or 8, there will be a shed load of junk on the pc waiting to be removed

clean this out and reboot and retry, good luck

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https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4028075/windows-delete-your-previous-version-of-windows

[Tomn]

Well, the space was cleared out and the computer was rebooted, but again no dice. Nothing much I can do about the driver, though - it may be old, but that's the latest driver that's available for a card that stopped being supported a while back. I know, I know, it's a potato (literally brought the computer over a decade ago by now), but it is what it is.

[pipfromslitherine]

Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling one of the misbehaving games? It could be that the reinstall would fix whatever is going on.

Cheers

Pip

[Tomn]

Tried that out, still no dice. Dunno if a reinstall would be the issue when almost all games have the same symptoms - seems like there's something about the launcher itself choking. Only one game out of those I tested out avoids the issue, Carrier Deck.

[zakblood]

as your atm almost the only one with a issue with so many games etc, there's been a odd one or 2, but they all got sorted with pre requisites re installs etc, not sure really what other advice to offer, other than reinstall all the parts of the games, prerequisites etc for everything and see if that fixes it, a hard drive scan for corruption etc and then a windows scan for the same

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https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/windows-10-error-checking-tool-and-sfc/5a282b1e-eebe-4d18-8d74-722638fd3146

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https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-scan-a-hard-drive-using-error-checking-2624497

[pipfromslitherine]

What happens if you unplug your machine from the internet and then try running? Do you still get the same issue with the launchers.

On a related note, all the games should run fine if you run them directly from the EXEs - is this what you are seeing?

Cheers

Pip

[Tomn]

Hi Pip,

Unfortunately, unplugging from the Internet doesn't seem to change anything. Was rather hopeful about that one. You are correct that running directly from the EXE and bypassing the launcher seems to work, but of the games I tried only Field of Glory: Empires allows you to do that - the EXEs for all other games seem to insist on running the launcher, unless I'm looking in the wrong places.

[pipfromslitherine]

The game EXEs don't require the launcher to run afaik. I just tried with Field of Glory 2 and it works fine, provided that Steam is already running.

Cheers

Pip

[Tomn]

That doesn't seem to be the case for me. I'm looking into the Field of Glory 2 folder in Steamapps now and there's two applications in there, "autorun" and "FIELDOFGLORY2". Autorun brings up the launcher and hangs, as expected - FIELDOFGLORY2, on the other hand, fires up the Steam "preparing to launch Field of Glory 2" notification before jumping to the launcher, which then hangs. This seems to be the case for every other game save Field of Glory: Empires.

[zakblood]

ok now for steam apps, clear cache and cookies in the browser part of the steam menu called web browser, then the download cache as shown in the link

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https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3134-TIAL-4638

this will reboot steam where you will have to enter your username and password again so make sure you know it beforehand, then load any game and see if that helps

[Tomn]

Yeah, that had no effect. Not entirely certain why it would, given that the issue seems to center around Slitherine's proprietary launcher and not Steam, nor as far as I can determine the games themselves.

[zakblood]

when clearing the download cache, it also re downloads the prerequisites and steamworks parts also, so worth a try and sorry none of it has worked, clutching at straws tbh, as not come across anyone with the same issue which none of the above advice worked for tbh

[pipfromslitherine]

You are correct about the EXE behaviour, I still had some dev settings turned on. Hmmm. You say you are not running an AV or firewall, which would be my first guesses. My second would be that (somehow) your install of Internet Explorer has gotten corrupted, which you may not have noticed if you use Chrome etc as your main browser, but which may be causing the HTTP component of the launcher to fail.

Cheers

Pip

[Tomn]

No AV or firewall beyond standard Windows Security, no. I tried turning off my firewalls to see if that helped, but I'm afraid not. As for Internet Explorer...do you mean Edge? I AM running Windows 10 and I don't think IE has been a thing for a while. Just fired up Edge to see if there's any issues and I can't see anything offhand. Not sure how I'd go about checking to see if it was corrupted or how to fix it if it was. Don't believe I have IE installed as far as I can tell, it's just Edge.

[pipfromslitherine]

Perhaps try this:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/hel ... t-settings

Cheers

Pip

[Tomn]

Well, that was an adventure. Had to run a search to find the actual IE app since it wasn't listed anywhere on program files, and on firing it up it proved painfully slow, like opening a long-forgotten tomb filled with the dust of centuries. Took five to ten minutes for it to load enough to actually go through the solution linked there, so maybe there actually is something wrong with IE. Unfortunately the solution provided in the link did nothing to fix it, and there's still no change. As I understand it Microsoft stopped supporting IE a while back - might this contribute to the problem?

Also, you mentioned bypassing the launcher using dev mode - as a temporary fix, is there some way I could do the same?

[pipfromslitherine]

It sounds like there is a problem with your IE installation, and that is causing the launcher to hang (have you tried waiting to see if it comes back to life eventually?).

You could try uninstalling and then reinstalling it entirely: https://www.majorgeeks.com/content/page ... ws_10.html

I will check whether we can enable the EXEs on your machine without it being a security issue for Steam.

Cheers

Pip