Black Screen, Infinite Loading Screens, Crashes & Other Fixes

[Myzzrym]

Infinite Loading Screen

Are you having issues with loading screens? As in you sat there for more than 10 minutes, had time to get a coffee, thought about your life and mused about the meaning the universe?

First of all, make sure you have your graphic card drivers updated. If that doesn't fix it, uninstall any mods you may have installed for Solasta.

Modding is great, and we all love it - but hacking the code to mod the game can always lead to significant instabilities.

After that, the usual solution is to verify your Game Files Integrity on Steam

• Sometimes, Steam doesn't download the patch properly but still pretends that the download is finished (Steam with those Nat 20 Deception rolls). Because of that, your game is effectively corrupted and you'll end up running into an infinite loading screen at some point - or even just when launching the game.
• Verifying your Game Files Integrity forces Steam to re-check the game folder, and download the missing files when it realizes it made a woopsie.
• To verify your Game Files Integrity, simply:
  • Make sure you quit the game before doing anything
  • Open your Steam Library
  • Right click on SOLASTA Crown of the Magister
  • Click on "Properties..." (at the bottom)
  • On the top of the Properties window, select "Local Files" (3rd tab)
  • Click on "Verify Integrity of Game Files..." (4th option)
  • Done! Now you just have to wait for Steam to verify / download the missing files

Here is an image guide to verify integrity: https://www.solasta-game.com/storage/cms/OX5xveUinIV9VtDbWn5Y1bhArSbn83WzoaEq4PGS.png

Note: If your Antivirus is Total AV, it has a false positive and quarantines AkSoundEngine.dll which prevents Solasta from working. Make sure you whitelist this .dll in Total AV and verify files integrity.

If this didn't work, here is solution #2:

• Deactivate Steam Cloud on Solasta (Right click => Proprieties -> General -> Steam Cloud)
  
• Make a backup copy of your Solasta folder somewhere (it can be found in C:\Users\...\AppData\LocalLow\Tactical Adventures\Solasta) and then delete it (the original folder, not the backup)
  
• Launch the game again to see if it works

If it worked: It's highly likely that one of your save, character or custom dungeon files is corrupted. Try copy / pasting the files that you want to restore from the "Characters", "Saves" or "User Content" folder and check if you can still relaunch the game properly. If not, than one of the file you restored is corrupted and needs to be deleted (so don't restore too many at once or you might have trouble finding out which file is the cultprit). From there on it's a question of trial and error :(

If it didn't work: This may happen if you have multiple versions of Solasta installed on the same PC. Make sure you uninstall all versions of the game (MS Store / Steam / GoG) and only re-install the game on one platform (Steam without the cloud activated preferably) and check if it launches properly.

Menu stops responding after clicking on the Dungeon Maker

This can happen if multiple versions of the Solasta are installed on the same PC (MS Store / Steam / GoG). Make sure you uninstall all versions, make a backup copy of your Solasta folder (C:\Users\...\AppData\LocalLow\Tactical Adventures\Solasta) and then delete said Solasta folder. After that, reinstall Solasta on one platform only, it should work now.

Black Screen / Weird Cloud When Starting Campaign

Some people are running into an issue when they first launch the campaign - after loading with the Tavern Concept Art screen in the background, they get... either a black screen, or a weird skybox showing some clouds.

This issue happens because Windows N SKU specifically removes the media foundation media stack from Windows which means that anything that relies on the media stack (like Unity based games) will not function.

The Media Feature Pack (which in recent versions of Windows N is under the optional features settings) will install the missing media foundation (and windows media player) back into Windows N and the game should work

Solution #1: Go to your nvidia control panel, on "manage 3d settings" page hit the "restore" button to revert to default settings

Solution #2: Download and install Windows Media Feature Pack here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/mediafeaturepack

Solution #3: Rename/delete CotmIntroduction.mp4 that can be found in \Steam\steamapps\common\Slasta_COTM\Solasta_Data\StreamingAssets\

I get Unity Crash popup (Solasta Logo with an Exclamation Mark)!

These are unfortunately native unity crash, which is the engine we're using for Solasta - and that we have very little control over. Some people managed to fix their crash doing the following, but we can't guarantee that it's going to work for you:

1. Open Windows Powershell as an admin
2. Type : "sfc /scannow" to make a verify of all windows files

None of those solutions worked!

Well that sucks :( In that case please send us your PlayerLog file at [e-mail]. You can find this file in C:\Users\...\AppData\LocalLow\Tactical Adventures\Solasta. To be safe, you can also send us your "Logs" folder if there is anything, as well as the Player.txt and Player-prev.tx

[Sage]

Yes of course i am aware that your studio is small and i love what you created. I was really disapointed with bg3 EA and was please tly surprised with solasta. Nevertheless being playable is a basic necesaty. You can create the best game ever if it is not playable it will not become succesfull. As said i went from a big fan to extremly annoyed cause the game destroyed two over 20 hours playthrough and i am really uninterested to start again. I will highly likely try a last time on full release but if that happens again it will be that for ever. In life you get rarely a aecond chance not to mention a third one.

[mclancy10006]

I am in infinite load screens now after verifying files. The first time I followed all the steps including verify but could not get it to work without starting over. The second time I was able to go back a few saves earlier and load those. In addition to the infinite loads I also have some transitions when I get to a new area none of the navigation controls work. You see the terrain and the characters, but other than Journal/Menu type stuff no other keys or mouse functions do anything. The terrain is a bit fuzzed and if you can select one character it seems to come back to life.

[EdrickV]

Originally posted by mclancy10006:

In addition to the infinite loads I also have some transitions when I get to a new area none of the navigation controls work. You see the terrain and the characters, but other than Journal/Menu type stuff no other keys or mouse functions do anything. The terrain is a bit fuzzed and if you can select one character it seems to come back to life.

When you first arrive at a map, none of your characters are selected, so many controls won't do anything since you'd be telling "nobody" to do something. First thing I do on a new map is hit the tilde key to select all characters before doing anything else. And as mentioned before, saving while no characters are selected will create corrupt saves. (It's a known bug I expect will be fixed for 1.0.)

Oh, and when you get a corrupt save warning, before doing anything else you ought to make a copy of your saved games, or at least the autosaves. Loading an autosave can create a new autosave that overwrites your oldest autosave, and if the one you try to load is corrupt, the one it saves will be corrupt. Thus you could end up destroying your good autosaves. (That happened to me, and is why I don't trust autosaves anymore. Manual named saves are the way to go.)

[Sage]

Originally posted by Death2Gnomes:

Originally posted by Cait Sith:

Tried it all and did not work.
So i spend like 46 hours (based on ingame time, but that was probably running while i was AFK) on the first run, had now to restart cause of the update and now after 10 hours would need to restart cause of this error. I don't know aobut you but i hate to to restart and that will be my last playthrough in EA and will check the forum before i play it when its finished. Sorry for that the story is far to linear that i want to play it three times exactly the same. Especially as there are only 6 classes its not like there is much diversity not to mention races. I play since 24 years. I have seen enough elfs and dwarfs to last a lifetime. And humans being unplayable as there is not variant human....

I often wished lotr was not succesful then maybe people would imagine something by them self and not just copy paste tolkien. I am aware that is DND's fault not the developers, but they could have taken more intersting races unless i am alone with my bored state about them, but based on modern fantasy novels where there is no elf or Dwarf MC i would be shocked if i am the exception. Or take GW2 i don't know how often people said finally somehting new and creative. Not that it was so creative but compared to elfs and dwarfs is like a light year leap. :)

This game went form 5 stars to 2 and reminds me why i hate the outsurcing of beta testing called EA or full release for the tripple A titles.

I dont consider this a AAA title, double AA yea. AAA titles have better QA testing than this game has had, I know cuz i did it for 7d2d

That was the joke. Indie games call i Early access like solasta while tripple AAA titles call this full release when it actually is in beta testing stat? :)

[Alivender]

The path to the video is actually:
\Steam\steamapps\common\Slasta_COTM\Solasta_Data\StreamingAssets\
not that it matters, removing the video doesn't fix the issue.

Also it might be worth mentioning, the game worked just fine just before I downloaded the 1.0 update. It's the 1.0 update that introduced this issue for me.

[Myzzrym]

Pressing escape twice also didn't solve anything I'm guessing? You're just stuck in a permanent black screen, no crash?

If so, I'll need your GPU model (how much ram etc)

[Alivender]

Hey everyone, I deleted this video
Steam\steamapps\common\Slasta_COTM\Solasta_Data\StreamingAssets\CotmIntroduction.mp4 and the game launched! I hope it works for the rest of you too.

My PC specs:
Operating System: Windows 10 Home N 64-bit (10.0, Build 19042) (19041.vb_release.191206-1406)
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-9600K CPU @ 3.70GHz (6 CPUs), ~3.7GHz
Memory: 16384MB RAM
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER
Display Memory: 16189 MB

And this is what the game looks like with the bug: https://imgur.com/a/CVu5xaL

[Alivender]

Hey Myzzrym, the issue was indeed the missing Media Feature Pack for me. I tried to install it from the link in your pinned message but it kept failing to install (not your fault, I know, just microsoft things), but I found an alternative method that worked for me, which you might want to pin up as well. Here:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/media-feature-pack-for-windows-10-n-may-2019-e3b42214-1186-503a-4f57-0e8d538bc025

Now I can play and watch the videos in game! Woohoo! I love this game, so I'm super pumped we found the fix! Into the badlands I go! Much love.

[Burning Beard]

I've tried everything but the Media Feature Pack, which I cannot download since I'm using win 7 (which was never a problem before this update). Since microsoft no longer supports win 7 am I just screwed, or is this an issue your team can address in an update?

[Myzzrym]

Originally posted by Burning Beard:

I've tried everything but the Media Feature Pack, which I cannot download since I'm using win 7 (which was never a problem before this update). Since microsoft no longer supports win 7 am I just screwed, or is this an issue your team can address in an update?

Did the other workaround not work at all?

[Burning Beard]

Originally posted by Myzzrym:

Originally posted by Burning Beard:

I've tried everything but the Media Feature Pack, which I cannot download since I'm using win 7 (which was never a problem before this update). Since microsoft no longer supports win 7 am I just screwed, or is this an issue your team can address in an update?

Did the other workaround not work at all?

Ok! Deleting the CotmIntroduction.mp4 file instead seemed to do the trick, I can at least progress to the tutorial areas.

[EdrickV]

For better Windows 7 fix ideas, I'd say install and/or update Windows Media Player, maybe try installing ffdshow, or other media codecs. (The video specifically uses MP4 container, AVC video, and AAC audio, full details below.) That's not the only video, so the problem is likely to come up again much later on if not fixed.

General
Complete name                  : D:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\Slasta_COTM\Solasta_Data\StreamingAssets\CotmIntroduction.mp4
Format                         : MPEG-4
Format profile                 : Base Media / Version 2
Codec ID                       : mp42 (mp42/mp41)
File size                      : 78.8 MiB
Duration                       : 1 min 4 s
Overall bit rate mode          : Variable
Overall bit rate               : 10.3 Mb/s
Encoded date                   : UTC 2020-03-05 14:35:54
Tagged date                    : UTC 2020-03-05 14:36:27

Video
ID                             : 1
Format                         : AVC
Format/Info                    : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                 : Main@L4.1
Format settings                : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC         : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames : 4 frames
Codec ID                       : avc1
Codec ID/Info                  : Advanced Video Coding
Duration                       : 1 min 4 s
Bit rate                       : 9984 kb/s
Width                          : 1920 pixels
Height                         : 1080 pixels
Display aspect ratio           : 16:9
Frame rate mode                : Constant
Frame rate                     : 25.000 FPS
Color space                    : YUV
Chroma subsampling             : 4:2:0
Bit depth                      : 8 bits
Scan type                      : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)             : 0.193
Stream size                    : 76.3 MiB (97%)
Language                       : English
Encoded date                   : UTC 2020-03-05 14:35:54
Tagged date                    : UTC 2020-03-05 14:35:54
Color range                    : Limited
Color primaries                : BT.709
Transfer characteristics       : BT.709
Matrix coefficients            : BT.709
Codec configuration box        : avcC

Audio
ID                             : 2
Format                         : AAC LC
Format/Info                    : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity
Codec ID                       : mp4a-40-2
Duration                       : 1 min 4 s
Source duration                : 1 min 4 s
Bit rate mode                  : Variable
Bit rate                       : 317 kb/s
Maximum bit rate               : 444 kb/s
Channel(s)                     : 2 channels
Channel layout                 : L R
Sampling rate                  : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                     : 46.875 FPS (1024 SPF)
Compression mode               : Lossy
Stream size                    : 2.43 MiB (3%)
Source stream size             : 2.43 MiB (3%)
Language                       : English
Encoded date                   : UTC 2020-03-05 14:35:54
Tagged date                    : UTC 2020-03-05 14:35:54

[boredomincorporated]

I'm also having this issue(just clouds on start) on windows 7. Microsoft doesn't let you download any codecs anymore but found some 3rd party installers, however they didn't fix the problem. Also I can play the video files manually fine, just not in game for whatever reason. Double tapping escape also doesn't help. Renamed the video file and that lets me get into the game at least. GPU is a Radeon RX 580 series.

[coleislazy]

if you are having problems with the movies not playing and hanging the game (right after you create a party and start the game) go to the nvidia control panel, on "manage 3d settings" page hit the "restore" button to revert to default settings. this fixed the issue for me. i had changed settings for capping fps and vsync settings and one of those seemed to prevent movies from playing, not just in this game but in several other games and applications as well.

[Stuka]

No windows media pack available for the latest update of windows and trying to install the previous pack throws up an error.