[BUG] Incendiary Ammo Has a High Chance of Crashing on Linux Version

[Taut]

I don't know when exactly this bug has been introduced on Linux, but I heard it's been an issue for nearly 10 months now, and I haven't heard anyone else talk about it besides the [Linux] Rendering bug ! discussion board.

Basically, if the player and three other survivors use incendiary ammo and start shooting at the same time, then there is a very high chance the majority of the props will disappear/flicker and will more than likely eventually cause a crash.

The best way to reproduce the issue on Linux is to open up the Survival game mode, choose The Sacrifice campaign, and select The Train chapter. Once done, deploy the Incendiary Ammo and have all the bots pick it up. Afterwards, open the train door to release the Tank and start firing. Shortly after doing so, you should see the disappearing/flickering props. You can see the process in action via the provided YouTube video.

Of course, this bug doesn't occur if I play Survival mode on The Train chapter with three or fewer survivors in total, so perhaps the issue could be caused by having too many particles in the map at any given time. Nevertheless, this could be potentially game-breaking if everyone decides to equip the incendiary ammo and start shooting zombies all at once.

EDIT #1: As an added bonus, I've also tested this out with the Combat Shotgun to see if the bug can still occur with only one player shooting at the Tank, and I can confirm that doing it this way will also cause the props to disappear/flicker as seen in the provided YouTube video. This leads me to believe it's definitely a particle-related issue.

EDIT #2: After a lot of tinkering with the command variables to figure out what I could disable to prevent the props from disappearing/flickering whenever the survivors use incendiary ammo, I found out that setting `cl_tracers` to `0` will allow the fire bullets to be shot and not cause the bug to occur. Proof of this is in the provided YouTube video.

Unfortunately, I'm unable to utilize this command variable in either the game's launch options or the autoexec file, so I'm still forced to use Windows 11 in a virtual machine if I want to play Versus on VAC-Secured servers without the risk of the bug occurring and potentially crashing my game.

[R󠀡F]

From what i have experienced, it doesn't seem to to happen when others use fire bullets but only when i use them.

[Taut]

Originally posted by R󠀡F:

From what i have experienced, it doesn't seem to to happen when others use fire bullets but only when i use them.

Do you mean when no one but you, the player, is firing the incendiary bullets? I've just tested it out by having the three survivor bots stand in the corner near the five chainsaws using the Left 4 Bots add-on, and then I began using the AK-47 with the incendiary ammo equipped to shoot at the Tank in The Train chapter until he died. During that time, I haven't seen any of the props disappear/flicker.

Of course, I've also tested this out with the Combat Shotgun as that's what I assumed you were using, and I can confirm that doing it this way will also cause the props to disappear/flicker as seen in the provided YouTube video. This leads me to believe it's definitely a particle-related issue.

[R󠀡F]

Originally posted by King ♥♥♥♥:

Originally posted by R󠀡F:

From what i have experienced, it doesn't seem to to happen when others use fire bullets but only when i use them.

Do you mean when no one but you, the player, is firing the incendiary bullets? I've just tested it out by having all three survivors stand in the corner near the five chainsaws using the Left 4 Bots add-on, and then I began using the AK-47 with the incendiary ammo equipped to shoot at the Tank in The Train chapter until he died. During that time, I haven't seen any of the props dissapear/flicker.

Of course, I've also tested this out with the Combat Shotgun as that's what I assumed you were using, and I can confirm that doing it this way will also cause the props to disappear/flicker as seen in the provided YouTube video. This leads me to believe it's definitely a particle-related issue.

I have had it randomly during custom campaigns when i forget about the issue and pick up fire bullets. But when i let bots use fire bullets it never happens.

[Taut]

Originally posted by R󠀡F:

Originally posted by King ♥♥♥♥:

Do you mean when no one but you, the player, is firing the incendiary bullets? I've just tested it out by having all three survivors stand in the corner near the five chainsaws using the Left 4 Bots add-on, and then I began using the AK-47 with the incendiary ammo equipped to shoot at the Tank in The Train chapter until he died. During that time, I haven't seen any of the props disappear/flicker.

Of course, I've also tested this out with the Combat Shotgun as that's what I assumed you were using, and I can confirm that doing it this way will also cause the props to disappear/flicker as seen in the provided YouTube video. This leads me to believe it's definitely a particle-related issue.

I have had it randomly during custom campaigns when i forget about the issue and pick up fire bullets. But when i let bots use fire bullets it never happens.

Then I'm assuming the bots you were playing with were using rifles as opposed to shotguns when they had the incendiary ammo equipped. In my testing, I've let the bots shoot the Tank with Combat Shotguns in The Train chapter while I simply did nothing, and that also caused the props to disappear/flicker due to the many particles that came out of the shotguns.

Since I already confirmed that at least one Combat Shotgun is enough to cause the props to disappear/flicker in The Train chapter, I can safely say that either four players with incendiary ammo equipped on any rifle or at least one player with incendiary ammo equipped on a Tactical/Combat Shotgun will have a high likelihood of encountering this bug on Linux.

[R󠀡F]

Originally posted by marie:

Happened to me randomly in Hard Rain map 2 versus mode
I think the engine can't handle that much particle and just freaks out

Windows doesn't have this issue so its not the engine.

[Taut]

Originally posted by R󠀡F:

Originally posted by marie:

Happened to me randomly in Hard Rain map 2 versus mode
I think the engine can't handle that much particle and just freaks out

Windows doesn't have this issue so its not the engine.

I've tried the same test on GE-Proton-8.2, and the props don't disappear/flicker when all survivors shoot the Tank at the same time while having the incendiary ammo equipped. This would've been a good workaround if not for the fact that using Proton won't allow me to join VAC-Secured servers, so I'm forced to either use the Linux version or play Left 4 Dead 2 on Windows 11 in a virtual machine such as QEMU/KVM using GPU Passthrough.

[Taut]

After a lot of tinkering with the command variables to figure out what I could disable to prevent the props from disappearing/flickering whenever the survivors use incendiary ammo, I found out that setting `cl_tracers` to `0` will allow the fire bullets to be shot and not cause the bug to occur. Proof of this is in the provided YouTube video.

Unfortunately, I'm unable to utilize this command variable in either the game's launch options or the autoexec file, so I'm still forced to use Windows 11 in a virtual machine if I want to play Versus on VAC-Secured servers without the risk of the bug occurring and potentially crashing my game.

[R󠀡F]

Originally posted by King ♥♥♥♥:

After a lot of tinkering with the command variables to figure out what I could disable to prevent the props from disappearing/flickering whenever the survivors use incendiary ammo, I found out that setting `cl_tracers` to `0` will allow the fire bullets to be shot and not cause the bug to occur. Proof of this is in the provided YouTube video.

Unfortunately, I'm unable to utilize this command variable in either the game's launch options or the autoexec file, so I'm still forced to use Windows 11 in a virtual machine if I want to play Versus on VAC-Secured servers without the risk of the bug occurring and potentially crashing my game.

You can try placing it in gamemodes.txt.

[Ho99o9]

i have the same issue you find the solution???

[Taut]

Originally posted by ᴶᵘᵈᵃˢ:

After a lot of tinkering with the command variables to figure out what I could disable to prevent the props from disappearing/flickering whenever the survivors use incendiary ammo, I found out that setting `cl_tracers` to `0` will allow the fire bullets to be shot and not cause the bug to occur. Proof of this is in the provided YouTube video.

[Jo]

holy sh*t, i never really knew that bullet tracers caused it before.

[nammie]

Hey, excuse me, can anyone elaborate on this? Is this even possible?

Originally posted by R󠀡F:

You can try placing it in gamemodes.txt.

Today I crashed twice on the same server and map and I've been on a frenzy trying to fix it. I had this bug occur to me many times before but never found a fix. Finally, the solution is right here, but I don't know how to implement it.

With my own research I managed to get as far to install VPKEdit and rebuild pak01_dir.vpk with an edit to gamemodes.txt. Game launched, maps loaded but the fix didn't work, probably because I'm just guessing how it's done and where the cvar goes.

Please help, I'd rather not run a native game via Proton, even if it gets rid of the surprise crashes and that awful radial menu.

[Tim]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.