Crashes on startup after splash screen - Brand new laptop 2020!

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Mozz78
  • Views 11981
  • updated
  • Completed - Resolved

Hi,

Recently bought a new Surface Book 3 to get more out of this game but it refuses to get past the splash screen. Splash screen will disappear and shortly after so will the taskbar icon.

Surface Book 3 13.5"

OS: Windows 10 (64-bit)

RAM: 16GB

CPU: Intel Core i7 10th Gen

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 with Max-Q Design

I've seen you need an output log sometimes so here it is:

output_log.txt

Game Version:
Steam Public
Platform:
Windows
10th-Gen Mobile Intel CPU - Splash Screen Crash
Replies 11
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-1
Lee "Noontide" Moon Designer & Community Manager
  • Pending Customer

Hi Mozz78,

I'm truly sorry to hear you're affected by this issue. Unfortunately you're not the only user affected by this issue. The common factor seems to be 10th Gen Intel Laptop CPUs which feature Intel Iris graphics. We've had several reports now from other users which have these CPUs, typically on Microsoft Surface laptops, which suffer the same issue. This is an extremely recent release and we currently have none of these devices ourselves.

At this moment there is no outlook on when we might be able to resolve this issue as it appears to be some deep rooted incompatibility between the Intel Drivers and either the Unity Engine or the third party UI middleware we are using in WFTO. We have currently discovered no workarounds. 


However I have some ideas that I'd like to try with you if that's ok? But first I'd like to get some general troubleshooting data from you. Can I ask you to try the following:


1. Include your Dxdiag output and Launcher.log.  See How to: Submit a Bug Ticket

2. Check event viewer for an Application Error for wftogame.exe when you launch it. Save out a copy of this and upload it to us as follows: 


  • Open event viewer and select the event
  • In the right hand menu click "Save Selected Events"
  • Set a name and ensure the filetype is set to .evtx click ok
  • Toggle "Display information for these languages" and "Show all available languages"
  • Select English (United Kingdom) from the list

3. Try launching WFTO.exe and WFTOGame.exe seperately in compatibility mode for Windows 7, with administrative privileges
4. Try disabling any Antivirus programs you have running.
5. Try updating the Intel Drivers from Intel's website https://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/uk/en/support/products/80939/graphics-drivers.html

6. Try reinstalling all of WFTO's dependencies:
https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet-framework/net452
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=8109
https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/Download/confirmation.aspx?id=14632
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=30679
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=40784
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=48145
7. Update your ticket with a new set of logs so we can see if anything changed
8. Try forcing D3D9 Mode as described here. http://brightrockgames.userecho.com/topics/1096-missing-invisible-or-laggy-ui/

If all the above fails then I'd like to try a few new ideas I've had but not been able to test yet with any affected user:


  1. Check your Device Manager program for display adaptors. You should have two adaptors listed, the Intel Iris graphics and Nvidia GTX 1650
  2. If this is the case try right clicking on the Intel Iris adaptor and disabling it. Then try launching the game.
  3. If there is only the Nvidia graphics or only the Intel Iris graphics send us a screenshot and do not disable your adaptor.

If this doesn't seem to make a difference the only thing I can think of beyond that is poking around in BIOS settings to see if we can disable Intel Iris. 

I'm super interested to know if the above works though as this might be a workaround for players with your setup (a dedicated GPU and the Intel Iris GPU). If not then I know for sure it doesn't work and that helps scope how many users are affected.

Ultimately if nothing works then I would advise seeking a refund for the game if you can. As there's no outlook for a fix in the near future unless an Intel Driver update corrects the issue.


Sorry once more and thanks for your patience,


Lee

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Lee "Noontide" Moon Designer & Community Manager

Hey Mozz78,

I hope you have been keeping well. I wanted to drop in a message as another user has recently reported a similar issue with the same hardware profile. Interestingly this user was able to reach the game on the affected system while it was in Airplane mode. I've yet to confirm this works for other affected users so I thought you might like to give it a go. It's truly a peculiar one as we wouldn't have anticipated a networking issue.

Here's a few steps you can try:

  1. Try launching the game while Steam is in offline mode, on the off-chance it's a steam authentication issue.
  2. If your laptop has an airplane mode try enabling this and launching the game
  3. Try disabling the the network adapter via Windows. First in the networking adapter menu and if that doesn't work then via the device manager. Instructions.

Let us know if any of these work!

Cheers,

Lee

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0
Chris Moschini

I have the exact same problem. Brand new Surface Book 3. Plenty of games work great on it. This game just crashes with no meaningful crash log. Just:

\WFTOGame_Data\Managed\System.Xml.dll (this message is harmless)
Initializing input.

Input initialized.

desktop: 3240x2160 60Hz; virtual: 3240x2160 at 0,0
Initialized touch support.

UnloadTime: 1.522100 ms

And that's it.

This advice that you wreck the computer by disabling the Intel side of the graphics is very bad advice - DON'T DO THIS. The Surface Book 3 is designed as a tablet-half with an Intel Iris GPU in it, which is detachable from the base - that contains the nVidia GPU. Disabling the Intel GPU risks leaving you with no working graphics card. DO NOT FOLLOW THIS HARMFUL ADVICE.

The team needs to fix their software. Unity supports Intel GPUs:
https://software.intel.com/content/www/us/en/develop/articles/optimize-your-unity-games-with-intel-graphics-performance-analyzers.html

So this is a problem with the actual War for the Overworld software. Don't blame it on Unity.

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Lee "Noontide" Moon Designer & Community Manager
  • Backlog

We've updated our knowledgebase article on this issue Game does not start. Crash after splash screen on start up. [Windows 10 - 10th Gen Intel Iris Laptop, Microsoft Surface 7] with a known working solution to this.

It should be noted that we're still unsure as to what the root cause is. But it is exclusive to devices running the latest mobile intel platform. No other platforms desktop or AMD are affected. 

You are correct that Unity does work with Intel GPUs and this is the case for all Intel platforms prior to this one. The game does run on for example Intel's UHD graphics though we do not recommend it. But at the moment all affected devices have this platform in common. That is to say this crash is unique to devices built on the 10th Gen Mobile Intel CPUs.

For now the workaround is to disable your connection to the internet. We don't know why this works as we're not utilising anything that calls back at all during this time, interestingly if you restore internet access during play the whole engine crashes out within moments, which is the exact issue you encounter at the start (it just occurs before the game even truly starts to load). As soon as Unity begins to boot it crashes which is why the output_log unceremoniously ends before even WFTO's version string can be called or the UI can be initialised to render the loading screen.

What's interesting is that the user has to be completely disconnected from the internet, blocking WFTO.exe or WFTOGame.exe via the firewall does not work.

To be clear everything you see in the output_log at that point is Unity's code and not WFTO. You'll find consistent code across all Unity based applications.

For now we're expecting it'll be in one of two places. The GUI Middleware that the game runs which is effectively a web browser (This is next in the boot order) or something which Unity does to call home, perhaps unity analytics which could be resolved in a later engine version but we're at the end of our particul.ar branch.

Either way we will be investigation this issue in more depth in the future.

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Lee "Noontide" Moon Designer & Community Manager

Additionally although we previously recommended that users try to disable their Intel GPU if they have a backup dedicated GPU we no longer recommend this as it has no effect on the issue.

There should be no significant harm caused by disabling your device driver for your GPU as windows will automatically rollback to the generic display driver. (This is exactly what it does while booting in safe mode.Without display drivers) E.g. I confirmed this behaviour before I recommended it by disabling my only display adapter on my PC. But either way it should be a simple matter to recover from safe mode. But of course all steps are done at the user's own risk.

Still, we no longer recommend this anyway and we only recommended it in the case where two GPUs were present.

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Mael Fourny

Bonjour,

J'ai exactement le même problème avec un alienware aurora r12

Processeur 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-11700F @ 2.50GHz, 2496 MHz, 8 cœur(s), 16 processeur(s) logique(s)

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080

Intel wireless Bluetooth

Killer E3100G 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet 

Pour lancer le jeu, je dois :

-mettre en mode avions

-débrancher le câble Ethernet 

-lancer le jeu en hors ligne

-Si je rebranche internet, le jeu ce coupe en 3 seconde

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1
Lee "Noontide" Moon Designer & Community Manager
  • Started

Bonjour Mael Foruny,

Thanks for getting in touch and I'm sorry that you're affected by this issue as well. I updated our knowledgebase article on this topic today following some investigations we did over the weekend now that we have our hands on an affected hardware.


We've been able to confirm that this is a problem in Unity 5.4.6f3 which is the version of Unity WFTO is built on. We tested this with a blank project and confirmed the same behaviour in not just a built version of the game but also with the Unity Editor itself. Which is a huge problem for troubleshooting. We're investigating options now and will inform everyone affected once we have a concrete solution.

Thanks,


Lee

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1
Lee "Noontide" Moon Designer & Community Manager
  • Completed - Next Patch

Hello Mozz78, Chris and Mael,

I'm pleased to report that this issue should now be fixed in the upcoming Patch 2.0.8 which is currently on our beta branch. Please give it a go and let us know if you have any problems. How to: Access the Debug Branch on Steam

We're hoping to roll it out broad spectrum in the coming weeks as we tidy up a few things.

Cheers,

Lee

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0
Chris Moschini

Sounds like good news!

Since the game didn't work - it was a $30 piece of software that blanks my screen briefly and crashes - I returned it for a full refund a long time ago. However, I would like to play this game. So, if you test it out on a Surface Book 3 and verify it works, I will buy it again.

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1
Mael Fourny
Quote from Lee "Noontide" Moon

Hello Mozz78, Chris and Mael,

I'm pleased to report that this issue should now be fixed in the upcoming Patch 2.0.8 which is currently on our beta branch. Please give it a go and let us know if you have any problems. How to: Access the Debug Branch on Steam

We're hoping to roll it out broad spectrum in the coming weeks as we tidy up a few things.

Cheers,

Lee

Hello,

I tried the modification and everything works perfectly! Except for some latency at times.

Thanks again for your help!


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