[SOLVED] [Linux] Life Is Strange: Before The Storm won't start

[ppietro]

Hi everyone,

Interesting issue - Life Is Strange: Before The Storm has developed an odd tic. It now refuses to start. The Feral Interactive splash screen appears - everything seems normal - but when you click Play, nothing happens. Looking at the process status - I can see all of the game processes running - but no screen. Nothing is showing up on the stdouts, either. It just isn't initializing the screen. The only way to exit the game is to manually kill off all of the processes one by one.

The weird part is - nothing had changed recently on my system except for the usual security updates.

Here are my specs:

Operating System Version:
Ubuntu 16.04.6 LTS (64 bit)

Processor Information:
CPU Vendor: GenuineIntel
CPU Brand: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2500K CPU @ 3.30GHz

Video Card:
Driver: NVIDIA Corporation GeForce GTX 1060 6GB/PCIe/SSE2
Driver Version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 435.21
OpenGL Version: 4.6

Yes - I realize that my system does not meet minimum requirements, etc. But - it hasn't been a problem until recently.

---------------------------

UPDATE: I SOLVED THIS!!!

Oddly enough, I had to turn off "Send Usage Statistics to Feral Interactive". Once I did that - everything returned back to normal.

No idea why that's suddenly an issue - but that solved it!

I normally don't mind sending usage statistics, etc. I'll be happy to turn this back on when I can.

Cheers,
Paul

[ppietro]

2022 UPDATE with FIX: Now it won't start at all. The Feral Interactive splash screen appears then immediately vanishes.

Stats:

Operating System Version:
Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS (64 bit)

Processor Information:
CPU Vendor: GenuineIntel
CPU Brand: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2500K CPU @ 3.30GHz

Video Card:
Driver: NVIDIA Corporation NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB/PCIe/SSE2
Driver Version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 515.65.01
OpenGL Version: 4.6

So - the quick fix is to disable the Feral Interactive Splash Page. You can do that by editing the file

~/.local/share/feral-interactive/Life is Strange Before the Storm/preferences

and changing the variable:

<value name="GameOptionsDialogShouldShow" type="integer">1</value>

to

<value name="GameOptionsDialogShouldShow" type="integer">0</value>

This should start the Linux Native version of the game.

Digging deeper, it turns out there's missing APIs in recent versions of glibc. If you're curoius, there's a webpage that details a kind of complex fix:

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/9gt0ef/if_life_is_strange_before_the_storm_does_not_run/

Not the original code - but the fix in the comments did get it working for me. Not sure about the ramifications of the change though. Try that at your own risk.

Hope this helps!

Cheers,
Paul

[NaN]

Hey, setting the GameOptionsDialogShouldShow in the Preferences didn't work for me, but the glibc API fix did.
I also sent a bug report to the Feral Interactive support. Hopefully they'll fix it eventually,

I wrote a blogpost (EDIT: Reddit Post) if you are interested in more details:
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/121yhpm/why_the_native_port_of_life_is_strage_before_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

[ppietro]

For those following at home, the fix that worked for me in Arch, etc. is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/9gt0ef/comment/i70swyb/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

You still have to follow the rest of the instructions from the original post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/9gt0ef/if_life_is_strange_before_the_storm_does_not_run/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Thanks for filing the bug with Feral and digging a little deeper Julian. Hopefully, they'll make a fix.

It looks like the code you posted in your blog is very similar - and probably plays with the environment a bit better - but since I already did the first one, I'm going to leave it for now.

Interestingly enough, Feral Support seems to be directing users to the same Reddit fix above. According to one follow-up comment: "Hi, thanks for the help, as I seem to have the same issue on KDE Neon. Feral support directly sent me here..."

Cheers,
Paul

[ppietro]

Last little tidbit - if you want to try the "disable splash page" fix, and it isn't working for you, you might be running into an additional warning. On my Arch system, this was a warning about unsupported Linux distribution. Apparently, the warnings override the master GameOptionsDialogShouldShow switch. I was able to fix this by changing

<value name="LnxDistributionUnsupported" type="integer">0</value>

to

<value name="LnxDistributionUnsupported" type="integer">1</value>

in addition to the changes above.

Cheers,
Paul

[NaN]

Oh, thanks for that last little info. I'll try that :D

[NaN]

Okay, I tried it - and it still wasn't enough to make the game start. I suppose there is additional (important) data that is being queried from the internet, and written to the preferences on the first successful start of the "Game Options Dialog".
Btw: Every time testing, I start with a fresh preferences file by renaming the existing one and launching the game to generate a new one - I didn't even have the GameOptionsDialogShouldShow and LnxDistributionUnsupported settings in the file, I had to add them manually.

[ppietro]

There's a number of those warnings that will pop up. It's not just for unsupported LInux Distro - IIRC, there's also one for power mode. And there may be others.

Apparently - the way the Feral launcher works is - if there's one of these "error" dialogs - it overrides the master GameOptionsDialogShouldShow switch. Also - there's a different switch if you're using Big Picture mode.

Cheers,
Paul

[NaN]

Seems like they really should fix the issue with that API call(s).
Imho, they won't. The amount of players wanting to play it on Linux natively is probably too small, especially with the game working with Proton.

[ppietro]

Yeah - that would be the optimal solution! The workarounds are simply that - a workaround.

Sidebar question: Does it work better natively or via Proton for you? I'm going to give it a try this weekend on my Arch system.

Cheers,
Paul

[NaN]

Sorry for the late answer - I never tried it on Proton, but according to the reviews on protondb.com, the performance should be worse when using Proton.

[F.Ultra]

Just posting the fix for the missing API call in newer glibc:s here in case the reddit post ever dissapears:

#1 edit a text file say test.c and add the following code:

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <dlfcn.h>

void *
__libc_dlopen_mode (const char *file, int mode)
{
  printf("__libc_dlopen_mode %s \n", file);
  return dlopen (file, mode);
}

void *
__libc_dlsym (void *handle, const char *name)
{
  printf("__libc_dlsym %s \n", name);
  return dlsym (handle, name);
}
 

#2 compile this to a shared library:

gcc test.c -g -O0 -shared -fPIC -o lisbts_patch-0.1.so

#3 move the newly created shared library to a place where the game can find it:

sudo cp lisbts_patch-0.1.so /usr/local/lib/

#4 edit ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Life is Strange - Before the Storm/LifeIsStrangeBTS.sh , look for these rows:

# Brute force fix for some small thread sizes in external libraries
if [ -e "${GAMEROOT}/${FERAL_LIB_PATH}/libminimum_thread_stack_size_wrapper.so" ]; then
        LD_PRELOAD_ADDITIONS="../${FERAL_LIB_PATH}/libminimum_thread_stack_size_wrapper.so:${LD_PRELOAD_ADDITIONS}"
fi

and add LD_PRELOAD_ADDITIONS="/usr/local/lib/lisbts_patch-0.1.so:${LD_PRELOAD_ADDITIONS}" after it like say:

# Brute force fix for some small thread sizes in external libraries
if [ -e "${GAMEROOT}/${FERAL_LIB_PATH}/libminimum_thread_stack_size_wrapper.so" ]; then
        LD_PRELOAD_ADDITIONS="../${FERAL_LIB_PATH}/libminimum_thread_stack_size_wrapper.so:${LD_PRELOAD_ADDITIONS}"
fi

# Add in the patch for new glibc:
LD_PRELOAD_ADDITIONS="/usr/local/lib/lisbts_patch-0.1.so:${LD_PRELOAD_ADDITIONS}"

[NaN]

Publicado originalmente por F.Ultra:

Just posting the fix for the missing API call in newer glibc:s here in case the reddit post ever dissapears:
...

Thanks for saving that here ^^
IMHO, this thread should be pinned.

[ppietro]

Just to document - here's the way I applied the patch.

1. Created a directory:
   

   mkdir ~/lisbts_patch

2. Within this directory, created a file called "lisbts_patch-0.1.c" with the following code:
   

   #include <stdlib.h>
   #include <stdio.h>
   #include <dlfcn.h>
   
   void *
   __libc_dlopen_mode (const char *file, int mode)
   {
     printf("__libc_dlopen_mode %s \n", file);
     return dlopen (file, mode);
   }
   
   void *
   __libc_dlsym (void *handle, const char *name)
   {
     printf("__libc_dlsym %s \n", name);
     return dlsym (handle, name);
   }
   

3. Compiled it with the following command:
   

   gcc -Wall lisbts_patch-0.1.c -g -O0 -shared -fPIC -o lisbts_patch-0.1.so

4. Edited "launch.sh" in the directory "~/.steam/steam/steamapps/common/Life is Strange - Before the Storm" and added the new library to LD_PRELOAD. e.g.
   

   LD_PRELOAD="libLiSBtS_MoreDepthPrecision.so:/full/path/to/the/lisbts_patch-0.1.so:${LD_PRELOAD}"
   

This has worked for me.

Cheers,
Paul