Won't start on PC after playing on steam deck

[NegativeRainbow]

I ran the game on my steamdeck first, then tried downloading it on PC to keep going. When I tried opening the game on PC, yesterday it would just fail to load and steam would go back to the play button, now it's just hanging on the stop button without actually starting the game.

[Mycoscopic]

Hi, I regularly play on both Deck and PC and have never seen this happen before, I'm also not quite sure how it could happen unless it's a cloud save glitch. Any chance the Deck was turned off or put to sleep before the cloud save had a chance to sync? I've had something kind of similar happen with multiple games by doing that.

Could try turning on the Deck again and keeping it on Fallen Leaf in your library until the cloud status says synced, or you could try temporarily turning off cloud saves on the PC side by right clicking Fallen Leaf and going to Properties.

Otherwise it's most likely something up with Steam on the PC end, like a stuck install or update, so you could try uninstalling and installing again.

[NegativeRainbow]

Hm, maybe it's not the save, just find it very weird that the game isn't opening on my PC at all. Just tried uninstalling and reinstalling on my PC and no dice. I have a Ryzen 5900x and a Radeon 6900xt gpu with 32gb of ram on the lastest win11 version. If there's crash logs anywhere I can pull those out for you as well if that helps.

[Mycoscopic]

There is a log file in AppData/Local/Fallen_Leaf, but it's almost certainly going to be empty or not exist with those symptoms. I've certainly run the game with higher ram, CPU, and GPU, and it has run on Windows 11, but not with extensive testing. The game does require DirectX 9.0c to be installed, which is supposed to be taken care of automatically by Steam if you don't already have it. Maybe Steam is getting stuck in the DirectX install process for whatever reason, explaining the hang up. Perhaps a compatibility setting in Steam for Windows 10 would help?

[NegativeRainbow]

Fiddling with compatibility modes in windows didn't seem to do anything.
Just to confirm, do all of the files in the install folder look correct? Already tried installing/uninstalling/validating and all that, but maybe I should dig around and see if I can find a replacement for the directx dll?
I tried reinstalling directx 9.0c with no luck either.

Link to a screenshot of the install folder for me
https://imgur.com/a/gzUKpo7

[Mycoscopic]

It looks correct to me, though I can't check the exact file sizes at the moment. What happens if you try to run the .exe directly from that folder by double clicking it, both with and without Steam running? That would say a lot.

[NegativeRainbow]

exe also wont start, with or without steam running. I had task manager open and I saw it flash up on background processes for a second before terminating.

[Mycoscopic]

Oof, I'm really sorry this is happening to you, and I'm sorry I can't give a more direct answer. This is the first case of this we've heard about and there's so many variables.

Here are the next things that came to mind for me:

1. Maybe there is a resolution conflict with Windows related to an unusual screen resolution. Are you using merged monitors or an unusual aspect ratio, by chance? Regardless, try this. Open the "FL_config.txt" file in the AppData folder, right alongside the save files. On line 9 (right after the "Game Resolution..." line), which should currently be set to 0, set it to 1 instead to make Fallen Leaf open in an unscaled window.

2. Perhaps there is some conflict with your specific Windows update version or certain drivers. Go back to the install folder and right click the .exe, then try to set certain compatibility modes. Perhaps try compatibility mode for Window 10, which is the operating system we tested it the most on. It does also run in Windows 8, so heck, why not try that too if 10 doesn't work.

3. Perhaps the game IS running, but isn't appearing on your task bar and did not correctly get window focus in Windows. Is music playing? If you hold down the left alt key and press tab, does it eventually switch to Fallen Leaf? Sometimes this happens for me on Windows, and it gives very similar symptoms to what you're seeing (Steam just has a "Stop" button.) I know this is very unlikely since it disappeared from Task Manager.

P.S. I was able to check the files in your install directly more closely, and they all look correct, including the file sizes. That D3DX9_43.dll is what should allow DirectX 9.0c compatibility to run without issue, unless there's some kind of permission mismatch. It's a common method for Steam games.

I totally understand if you choose to refund the game, but I'm frustrated that this issue exists and really hope it can be figured out.

[NegativeRainbow]

Thank you so so much for all the help.

1. I'm using two ultrawides (not merged, I'm not that insane) so my resolution is 3440x1440 per monitor. I did try scaled to 5 with no luck, tried again with 1, still no luck. Also tried deleting the config to see if that might help since it was originally formed on my deck, didn't seem to help.

2. Tried a couple compatibility modes, weirdly I don't see one for windows 10? I tried 8, and even XP, but no dice on either of them.

3. No music unfortunately, nothing on the task bar, nothing in alt tab. Like I said before, I do see it pop up on task manager for just a moment as a background process, but it dies just as fast.

4. Nah I'm not going to refund this game. Thankfully it IS working perfectly on my deck, so while I'm a little miffed I can't jump my session over to my PC, I'm still playing through it just fine on deck. Secondly, you have been so helpful with me on this thread that I can't even get mad that it doesn't work on my PC, y'all are a small indie dev, bugs happen, especially with PCs, and you're doing your best, I really appreciate that.

[Mycoscopic]

Ah, dang. I'm afraid I'm out of easy solutions, and you'd need to dive into Windows logs to get a good idea of what's happening here. Because the game is not successfully starting at all, we won't be able to learn anything internally, it's gotta exist between game and operating system/Steam. I wouldn't be surprised if it's a fairly obscure hardware or software conflict.

This is one of several examples of how to get clues for process terminations in Windows (random programs closing): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/debugger/registry-entries-for-silent-process-exit

I would not ask you to go through all the trouble, but if you happen to, a report back would help us out a lot potentially. I'm glad you can still play it on Deck! It's personally been my favorite way to play, but not being able to switch is a pain.

[NegativeRainbow]

Tried some stuff, I'm still not seeing dumps anywhere.

https://imgur.com/a/F9cOkM9

If it helps, I'm negativerainbow on discord, if using a more instant message style forum is helpful, I'm willing to screen share if that helps debug.