Can't Test Play

[GuncannonD]

I just tried making a game for the first time (following instructions from a YouTube tutorial). Everything is fine until I get around to testing my game. Pressing Test Play brings up the loading window, but it never loads (on the tutorial video, it loads near-instantly). The same thing happens with the sample games.

I'm running a brand new PC with high-end specs (i7 8700k, GTX 1070, 16GB RAM), so that can't be an issue.

Perhaps is there some additional library software I need to install?

[SquarePixel]

Hi GuncannonD, could you check if VC2010, 2012 and 2015 are all installed and up to date?

[GuncannonD]

Originally posted by SquarePixel:

Hi GuncannonD, could you check if VC2010, 2012 and 2015 are all installed and up to date?

I did have all of those (plus VC2017) installed, and all updates indicated that they were already up to date. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling them, and nothing changed.

I did notice, by watching what happens in Task Manager, that "player.exe" appears in the program list for half a second before disappearing (crashing?) when I try to playtest. The same thing happens when I tried to run the Benchmark game for the tkool.jp website. I also tried running the Benchmark game as Administrator, but that didn't change anything.

Is it possible that it's related to this bug ( https://steamcommunity.com/app/837510/discussions/1/1762481957303246740/ )? Though, in my case, the game seems to be crashing near-instantly, without giving me any notification/error message.

[GuncannonD]

Here's the error report that comes up when I try to playtest a game: https://imgur.com/a/KEQXhHU

[Bellamy]

Sorry for not being able to respond during the weekend!

We're looking into it. A new build will be out soon, so we will want you to test with that and let us know if that resolves your issue.

While waiting for the next update, can you let us know the following:

1. Do you have anti-virus installed, and if so does disabling it resolve the issue?
2. Does disabling the steam overlay resolve the issue for you?
3. Also, make sure you have updated your video driver to the latest version. My personal machine is very similar to yours and I do not experience this issue, so we would like to determine what about your environment is causing the conflict.

Originally posted by GuncannonD:

Here's the error report that comes up when I try to playtest a game: https://imgur.com/a/KEQXhHU

[GuncannonD]

1. All I have is the standard Windows Defender setup. I tried disabling it, but it didn't fix the issue.
2. Disabling Steam Overlay didn't fix it. I'll note that player.exe crashes even with the benchmark game (which I'm assuming uses a standalone version of the player, not the one in the Steam install),
3. I just updated my Geforce drivers again (the previous version was from last week), which didn't fix the issue.

I'll wait for the new test build. Let me know if you want me to share any other error logs.

[Bellamy]

Thanks for that! The new patch will be out this week, so the wait won't be long.
If the new build doesn't resolve the issue, then we will definitely want your logs!

Originally posted by GuncannonD:

1. All I have is the standard Windows Defender setup. I tried disabling it, but it didn't fix the issue.
2. Disabling Steam Overlay didn't fix it. I'll note that player.exe crashes even with the benchmark game (which I'm assuming uses a standalone version of the player, not the one in the Steam install),
3. I just updated my Geforce drivers again (the previous version was from last week), which didn't fix the issue.

I'll wait for the new test build. Let me know if you want me to share any other error logs.

[GuncannonD]

Unfortunately, the new beta build didn't affect anything. Since player.exe crashes/fails to open even with the benchmark, the problem seems to related specifically to player.exe (regardless of where it is), rather than the PGMMV editor.

Attached are the editor log for PGMMV (from me opening one of the sample games, attempting to test play it (where, as usual, the player fails to open), then closing the editor):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1igDFOuBXUTFjeFsAWh5NzH5x5BA2nePK/view?usp=sharing

As well as the action log for PGMMV's player.exe after I attempted to test play:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FqFfN_l84b6l_2k_1LDoTWy6ukn0SoVW/view?usp=sharing

Here are my system specs (this is from a prebuilt PC from iBUYPOWER):

CPU: Intel Core i7-8700k
Memory: 16 GB
OS: Windows 10 64-bit
GPU: Nvidia Geforce GTX 1070 Ti
Antivirus: Just the standard Windows Defender (I've also tried disabling it, which didn't fix the problem)

I bought this PC a few weeks ago, so I haven't done many tweaks to Windows or installed any unusual apps that could be causing the problem.

[GuncannonD]

I'm just wondering if there's any update on what this problem is? I can use the PGMMV editor just fine, but I can't test play or run compiled games. So the entire software is useless to me for the moment.

[Bellamy]

Sorry for the silence! We're still looking into it, and it is proving difficult to track down despite a number of people having this issue.

The likely candidates are a corrupted install of the dependency modules (VC 2010, 2012, and 2015) or some other conflict between your system & the player application.

If you can send us the action.log (if you have one), that will be the log entries from the player application:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Pixel Game Maker\player-win\action_log.txt

I'm working on a guide for how to use it (likely will post up tomorrow), but you can also use the software "Dependency Walker" to check if the Player.exe is in fact finding all of it's dependencies.

Originally posted by GuncannonD:

I'm just wondering if there's any update on what this problem is? I can use the PGMMV editor just fine, but I can't test play or run compiled games. So the entire software is useless to me for the moment.