The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.

[oceanmaster.wang]

Anyone see this error when try to open this game in Steam?
My system is windows 10.

Thanks!

[oceanmaster.wang]

Anyone gonna help? I haven't been able to play this game for a sec after purchase

[SL7205]

I'm having this issue as well. Is there anything to do with the fact that I use Windows 10 Insider Build?

[cliffski]

Hi, does the game get as far as creating folders here:
\my documents\my games\production line?
Does it work if you launch it as administrator (from windows explorer, not steam).

[SL7205]

No, that folder doesn't existed. Running with admin rights make no changes.

Thanks.

[cliffski]

Hi, sorry for the delay. If the folders are not created then the game is effectively never being run, which sounds like either some error with windows itself, or some security software blocking the game from launching

[oceanmaster.wang]

@SL7205, just curious does your windows user name contain any non-ascii character? I'm curious whether it is caused by the username in path.

[SL7205]

@oceanmaster.wang nope. And the game just works on its own after I updated the Windows.

[oceanmaster.wang]

I finally found the cause and fixed, sharing the solution here and hope it can help others.

*CAUSE*
The root cause of this issue is when your system (windows 7 or windows 10 upgraded from windows 7) are originally installed with non-english as your primary language, and that will create an "my documents" directory in your local language but with a "documents" hyper link pointing to it. Therefore the real filename of the "documents" directory is stored in a non-english language, but it should also be accessible with "my documents" since the link points to it.

However, the implementation of production line seems trying to load the real name of the directory and then make new dir names based on it, and it causes problem because the language doesn't support well for multi-bytes languages (eg: chinese), and that will make the manipulated path non matching to the "my documents" directory stored in your local language.

*SOLUTION*
Find your "My documents" or "Documents", right click the folder and open "properties", you should find a tab called "location", open it and it shows the real storage path, very likely pointing to a path with your local languages.
Change this path to a full english path, eg: "C:\Users\<user_name>\OneDrive\Documents" and save. Don't worry, windows will automatically copy all contents from old location to the new location.
And the issue should be fixed.

By the way, I found this also solves the issue for a few other games.
Enjoy the game!