Possible fix for not being able to start the game

[Hikari-chan]

After messing about and hunting around in the forums for a fix for getting the game to even start (as it did not do that for me), I came upon a thead which mentioned the trademark character (®) in the game install directory, coupled with some default language settings were breaking the game from starting.

The first thing I tried to do was to remove the ® from the game directory name. This made Steam cough up an error along the lines of 'executable not found', which led me to believe there was a hard link somewhere which was still searching for the path with the ® character.

The fix was eventually to shutdown steam, go to the game's install directory, and look for a file called 'steam_appid.txt', or something along those lines, which held the appid for this 'app'.

(Mine is 311770, I know not whether this is the same for everyone)

update 03/03/2018: It would appear that everyone gets the same steam app IDs, so the above is not relevant anymore. Just look for appmanifest_311770.acf

I then went into my steam/steamapps directory, and searched for a file called

appmanifest_311770.acf

I opened this file with notepad (after making a backup, of course!) In it are a few "key" "value" fields, and that was where I found a key named installdir, which still had the ® in the name.

I removed the ® in the installdir value field, saved the file and closed it.

I then removed the ® in the steamapps/common/LEGO® Pirates of the Caribbean directory name, so that it was equal to the value of the installdir key. ("LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean" in my case.)

I then restarted steam (not only closing via the cross in the top-right, but using the 'exit' command that you can see when right-clicking the steam icon in the taskbar) and was able to play the game right away.

Fixed on Windows 10, though I suspect this fix will work on older versions of windows.

update 03/03/2018: See https://imgur.com/a/t1k2w for some more information with regards to file locations/contents (semi-tutorial thingy)

[Lolojita]

Thanks a lot for posting this, man!
I can't believe devs still include special characters in directories and exe file names...

[GR3GOR]

Эта игра просто супер)))

[scatgoblin]

This is a pretty ridiculous find, thank you!
Worked for me on Windows 7.
Actually, my game directory didn't contain a steam_appid.txt, so I just checked some of the appmanifest_##.acf files - mine was also 311770, so that's probably what everyone's is.

[Reaperfist]

Hello and thank you very much for your help to solve my problem! :) I have searched for a very long time for an solution and now here is it! Nice work and i wish you a happy new year 2016. Regards!

[anodyne]

THANKS SO MUCH MAN! What a find! Works perfectly now

[90]

看不懂英文，有沒有哪位大大可以幫我QwQ

[Yepsilon]

Thank you so much for the tip. I'm on Win 8.1 and the game lauch perfectly now =)

[Nibbins]

This fixes it.
Can't believe this is not fixed by Steam or at least a sticky.

[Freja]

thanks！！！You save my life！！！！

[Blackedoutgamer/Littlecod]

where is that symbol even located at??i know you say where but you dont really specify if you know what i mean my game loads but it gets stuck at a black screen

[replingham153]

i tried to make the change but then it made me reinstall the game :(

[Hikari-chan]

Originally posted by replingham153:

i tried to make the change but then it made me reinstall the game :(

Could it have been the case that Steam was still running whilst doing the changes? I seem to recall Steam not being particuarly happy when modifying files while it was still active.

I've added an image with the files/folders to edit. I hope that it helps!

[Hikari-chan]

Originally posted by Littlecodgaming:

where is that symbol even located at??i know you say where but you dont really specify if you know what i mean my game loads but it gets stuck at a black screen

Sorry for the late response, but I've added an image that shows the files/folders to change to the main post. Hope that it helps!

[stray_pengo]

This fix has worked, Thanks!

(Devs haven't renamed the darned folder for ~3 years now. How lazy is that?)

[Shiba<>Nakano]

i fix it but the game redownload again and the all file