Game not starting - shows I'm playing (green border), then closes (back to blue border)

[[emu]norsairius]

I was very excited to play this game, but here's what happens when I go to play the game:
1. (From my game library in Steam) I click "Play"
2. The border around my avatar in the bottom-right of the Steam window turns green to show that I'm playing Dark Souls
3. Nothing loads, no screen flickering, nothing
4. Border around my avatar goes back to blue

I checked the task manager and went to click play again, the Dark Souls game EXE shows up, but then it disappears.

Any ideas? I really enjoyed Demon's Souls and I was excited to finally play this one, but it just won't load! I oddly get this same issue with GTA IV.

[h3x]

What operating system are you running? Windows 8 is known to have issues with GFWL (there are workarounds), but if you are on Vista or Win7, you should be fine.

[[emu]norsairius]

I'm running Windows 7, so I have no idea what could be going wrong :/ I've uninstalled/reinstalled the game, updated/reinstalled video drivers, tried running the game as an administrator and in compatibility mode, etc. No luck. Seems I just paid money for nothing.

[h3x]

When I saw you mentioned GTA IV, I think I may have a solution. Both GTA IV and Dark Souls use Games for Windows Live (GFWL); so I'm pretty sure your GFWL client is out of date.

What you need to do is uninstall both parts of the old GFWL from your PC's control panel, then go to the Dark Souls install directory and enter the REDIST folder.
(Steam\steamapps\common\Dark Souls Prepare to Die Edition\REDIST)

First, enter the DirectX folder and run DXSETUP.exe. Then back up, enter the other folder named GFWL and run Gfwlivesetup.exe. You should not have to restart.

Let me know if this works or not.

[The Turtle Pope]

I had a similar problem. Hit play and nothing happened, but my steam portrait turned green and the Dark Souls processes showed up in the task manager. Reinstalling GFWL didn't do anything but installing the DSfix seemed to get the game to run.

[[emu]norsairius]

Originally posted by AweSampo:

When I saw you mentioned GTA IV, I think I may have a solution. Both GTA IV and Dark Souls use Games for Windows Live (GFWL); so I'm pretty sure your GFWL client is out of date.

What you need to do is uninstall both parts of the old GFWL from your PC's control panel, then go to the Dark Souls install directory and enter the REDIST folder.
(Steam\steamapps\common\Dark Souls Prepare to Die Edition\REDIST)

First, enter the DirectX folder and run DXSETUP.exe. Then back up, enter the other folder named GFWL and run Gfwlivesetup.exe. You should not have to restart.

Let me know if this works or not.

Argh, this unfortunately did not work... good catch though, I didn't make that connection. GTA IV used to work, but I don't know when it stopped, it was a long time ago.

I'll have to try other things to see if I can fix this later this weekend. Too busy during the week to sit down with this one, haha.

Thanks for the idea!

[[emu]norsairius]

Originally posted by Foxcrono:

I had a similar problem. Hit play and nothing happened, but my steam portrait turned green and the Dark Souls processes showed up in the task manager. Reinstalling GFWL didn't do anything but installing the DSfix seemed to get the game to run.

Just tried this as well. Unfortunately, nothing. :( It's pretty upsetting.

The theory with Games for Windows Live seems to hold some water though. I just tried Bioshock 2 as well which uses GFWL and that did exactly the same thing. Avatar border turns green, looks like I'm playing it, wait for a while, goes back to blue.

I'm gonna have to take a closer look at that this weekend.