Game only runs once? » Forum Post by Eric Fox

That is nasty, but I have not seen it. Perhaps post your computer specs?

Successfully updated karma reason!

The same problem.
The game runs only once. To run the game have to reinstall. Neither any errors on the screen.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I wonder if it's a Steam thing? Just a thought, try exiting Steam entirely and then re-running?

Successfully updated karma reason!

Can this be related to some weird behaviour I am experiencing?

I don't have crashes - I can run the game fine, but every time I start Galciv III I get the Steam pop-up with the text "Preparing the game to run for the first time"....

Successfully updated karma reason!

Currently I am experiencing similar.

I played a random huge universe fine.
One crash around turn 200 then on to mid 300s until I decided to try the campaign.

Now it crashes every time with no message.

Verifying the game cache always reports two files fail.

I'm going to try a reinstall and see if that helps.

Successfully updated karma reason!

kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

If the game is crashing on trying to start a map after the first session ran fine, check your debug.err file and try backing up and clearing the contents of My Documents/My Games/GalCiv3. There may be some corrupt user data there. Verifying on Steam won't remove those files since they are produced by running the game, not installed with it.

Note that if bad ship design or custom race files come back and the game still crashes after clearing that folder, you may also need to disable cloud sync in case a corrupt file got pushed up there.

Finally, if that doesn't help (or even if it does) please send in your crash dump files to support using the support tool (see here).

Successfully updated karma reason!

Well, it crashes immediately on loading the title screen so I can't even try loading a map. I've done a few "clean reinstalls" where I remove all files (as suggested in https://esupport.stardock.com/index.php?/default_import/Knowledgebase/Article/View/496/161/general-galactic-civilizations-iii-troubleshooting), restarted Steam, did RAM diagnostics... nothing.

The error file is quite large, but these look like the first few errors:

Debug Message: LoadFontInfo failed to create font face: C:\WINDOWS\Fonts\Consola.ttf, face #0. Error: cannot open resource
Debug Message: Initializing 2d screen space effect
Debug Message: Device is now ready
Debug Message: Registering text renderer icons
Debug Message: FXManager, FXElement size: 712 bytes
Debug Message: Shell initialization complete
Debug Message: Shell Initialized
Debug Message: CGalCiv3Shell::RequestInitializationState from: Invalid to: Uninitialized
Debug Message: Running DXAtlasDLL Generator Program
Debug Message: Finished running DXAtlasDLL Generator Program (C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Galactic Civilizations III\Screens\Atlas)
Debug Message: Loading texture atlas
Debug Message: Finished loading texture atlas
Debug Message: Initializing PerPixelHitdata and ScreenControlFactory
Debug Message: ***** Initializing Game *****
Debug Message: OpenDirectory FAILED for directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Galactic Civilizations III\Screens\Schema
Debug Message: Timer Frequency is 0 34061a
Debug Message: CGalCiv3Shell::RequestInitializationState from: Uninitialized to: Initialized
Debug Message: Initializing sound card
Debug Message: Loading mods
Debug Message: Creating anchor win
Debug Message: Create popup manager
Debug Message: No files found matching mask Sfx\*.wav
Debug Message: No files found matching mask Music\*.ogg

Successfully updated karma reason!

kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

Does this folder exist on your machine?

Debug Message: OpenDirectory FAILED for directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Galactic Civilizations III\Screens\Schema

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Asmodean_dk,

reply 4

Can this be related to some weird behaviour I am experiencing?

I don't have crashes - I can run the game fine, but every time I start Galciv III I get the Steam pop-up with the text "Preparing the game to run for the first time"....

Definitely a Steam item. I fix this one of two ways:

a. exit Steam, then run the game again; try this first, if not, go to option below

b. exit Steam, go into your firewall system (McAfee, for instance) and disable it for 5 minutes (or whatever the briefest amount of time is), then run the game.

One of these two should fix the problem. Often, if you do b., then the next time you run the game it probably won't error again (at least until Steam updates). This is a known "bug" in Steam, but easily fixed with one of the two above.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Okay.

Deleting the install of the game, then doing a full reinstall fixes this.

It's not practical as solutions go, but it is a fix if you want to start a new game and leave it open.

I can only guess at why, but I remember once another game (I think it was rage) that had problems dealing with it's own cache files.
One solution was to head in, manually delete them.

Now, I'm not sure if that counts here, but it may be possible to find out what's causing the problem and manually remove that file (or files) rather than go through a full reinstall every time you want to start a game.

Again, it'd just be a short term fix, but if it's one that works and allows you to keep your saves/options, then it's worth looking for.

<edit>

Quoting kryo,

reply 6

If the game is crashing on trying to start a map after the first session ran fine, check your debug.err file and try backing up and clearing the contents of My Documents/My Games/GalCiv3. There may be some corrupt user data there. Verifying on Steam won't remove those files since they are produced by running the game, not installed with it.

Note that if bad ship design or custom race files come back and the game still crashes after clearing that folder, you may also need to disable cloud sync in case a corrupt file got pushed up there.

Finally, if that doesn't help (or even if it does) please send in your crash dump files to support using the support tool (see here).

Only just noticed this after I hit reply (I had the thread open, used the quick reply then everything updated.)

Thanks for looking into the thread, I'll do a few turns of this campaign and see if I can repeat the error.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting kryo,

reply 8

Does this folder exist on your machine?

Debug Message: OpenDirectory FAILED for directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Galactic Civilizations III\Screens\Schema

That particular directory does not exist (the "Schema" part any way).

Still, I find it weird that it runs once anyway. Just stops working for any successive times.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Midarc,

reply 10

Okay.

Deleting the install of the game, then doing a full reinstall fixes this.

It's not practical as solutions go, but it is a fix if you want to start a new game and leave it open.

I can only guess at why, but I remember once another game (I think it was rage) that had problems dealing with it's own cache files.
One solution was to head in, manually delete them.

Now, I'm not sure if that counts here, but it may be possible to find out what's causing the problem and manually remove that file (or files) rather than go through a full reinstall every time you want to start a game.

Again, it'd just be a short term fix, but if it's one that works and allows you to keep your saves/options, then it's worth looking for.

Yeah... clean reinstalls work for me too. Just a pain to wait 30 minutes for a resintall.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Jihad4Jesus => If you are having the same problem as me, where the game will load once on a fresh install, and will then crash every other load after the movie, then you can fix it by doing the following:

Go to: C:\ProgramData\Stardock\Galactic Civilizations III , delete both K2Font files.
I have to do this eveyr time i want to launch the game.

Thank you very much for the help man! The game starts!

+1

Successfully updated karma reason!

That trick seems to work. Thanks.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I'm having the same extremely annoying bug/broken game.

Please fix, Stardock

PS:the trick with "Go to: C:\ProgramData\Stardock\Galactic Civilizations III , delete both K2Font files.
I have to do this eveyr time i want to launch the game. " works for me to, but to do that every time I want to play?! come on Stardock..

PPS: I dont have a "Schema" folder in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Galactic Civilizations III\Screens\ either...

Successfully updated karma reason!

Hi guys,

Just signed up so I can post the progress I've made with this bug. Thanks to the above posters for help narrowing it down ^

I seem to have "fixed" mine now. What I did:

Went to Windows/Fonts folder, and copied the BankGthd.ttf and Consola.ttf files, then pasted a copy into: GalCiv3 main directory, GalCiv3 Fonts directory, and to the My Games/GalCiv3 directory.

I can't tell you which file fixed it, or where I put it.. but now I appear to be able to open the game multiple times without having to reinstall, saving me huge time/effort.

I can't promise everyone's issues will be fixed doing what I did, just relaying the info in case it helps others.

My problem appears to have been some sort of permissions issue in accessing the font files... putting copies elsewhere in the game directory seems to allow it to use those instead. Win

Hope it helps someone!

Cheers

Successfully updated karma reason!

sdrohan

Join Date 10/2012

+735

Thanks for the efforts here. If anyone could send use (support@stardock.com) the K2Font files before they delete them, that would be helpful to tracking it down. Thanks.

Successfully updated karma reason!

DerekPaxton

Join Date 03/2003

+309

The error about the missing schema directory is irrelevant (we don't use that dir anymore).

Does anyone still have this issue with 1.03? If so please post your entire debug.err for us to checkout.

Successfully updated karma reason!