Troubleshooting Guide

An official list of common steps to take when encountering various technical issues in Entropy : Zero 2 that may act as a workaround until patched.

About this guide

This troubleshooting guide is meant to diagnose commonly reported issues and describe the most probable solutions. It is organized by symptoms and each section should offer a few different options that might help.

The guide is a work in progress that we will continue to expand. If you had a problem with the game and found out the solution, please comment below about your experience and we can add it!

Hopefully this guide will help you have a smooth experience with Entropy : Zero 2

Be sure to remove any mods or custom content first!

Reporting new bugs or crashes

If you are experiencing a bug, especially a crash bug or an issue that prevents you from playing EZ2, please help us out by filling out this form.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSct7yb52Sby8nrEulNIXo79V1JbOq-R7X_cExIq90VOoAQscA/formResponse

We would appreciate it if you thoroughly read through the Troubleshooting Guide before submitting a bug report. We are especially interested in looking for crashes.

Missing Textures

I get purple and black checkerboards for some textures and/or sprites!

• Set your texture quality above "Low"
  
• Try a different DirectX level (Right click the game in Steam -> Properties -> Launch Options. Then add +mat_dxlevel 95 (alternatives being 70, 80, 81, 90))
  
• Verify your game cache. (Right click the game in Steam -> Properties -> Local Files -> Verify integrity of game files)
  
• Reinstall the game entirely (Right click the game in Steam -> Manage -> Uninstall. Then redownload it.)

If you are still seeing purple and black checkerboards after trying everything on this list, let us know by reporting it in the Steam Discussion forums (be sure to include screenshots!)

AI Disabled

I get a message on the right side of the screen that says "AI Disabled" or "AI Dis"

This message means that AI is disabled. This happens most commonly when the game loads a map with no node graph generated. The nodegraph is data stored per map that helps AI pathfind through the environment. With no nodegraph, the AI cannot function.

I am not in a custom map

1. Verify your game cache. (Right click the game in Steam -> Properties -> Local Files -> Verify integrity of game files)
   
   • Most likely getting AI Disabled when loading a save into a stock / campaign map means that Steam did not correctly download the file. This is normal when downloading files from Steam; sometimes a file fails to download or Steam stops unexpectedly and the download is not completed.
     
   • Steam provides an option for all games to check if all files are downloaded and redownload
2. Reinstall the game entirely (Right click the game in Steam -> Manage -> Uninstall. Then redownload it.)
   
   • If verifying the game files does not work, reinstalling the game might do the same thing if the problem is a missing node graph file.
3. If redownloading files does not work, enter the following command
   

   ai_norebuildgraph 0
   restart
   

   After restarting the map, you should see text at the top of the screen saying "Node graph out of date: rebuilding". You will be back at the beginning of the map and will lose all save state. Reload your last save.
   
4. If you are loading into a saved game from a previous version of EZ2, and that save has been broken by an update, you might want to consider opting into a prior version of the game.
   https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2861987007

I am playing a custom map I made in Hammer

Your node graphs are likely not built yet. In-game, enter the following command

ai_norebuildgraph 0
restart

After restarting the map, you should see text at the top of the screen saying "Node graph out of date: rebuilding".

Game Won't Start

The game can't get to the menu!

• Verify your game cache. (Right click the game in Steam -> Properties -> Local Files -> Verify integrity of game files)
  
• Reinstall the game entirely (Right click the game in Steam -> Manage -> Uninstall. Then redownload it.)
  
• Run the game in windowed, borderless mode. (Right click the game in Steam -> Properties -> Launch Options. Then add -window -noborder)
  
• Try a different DirectX level (Right click the game in Steam -> Properties -> Launch Options. Then add +mat_dxlevel 81 (alternatives being 70, 80, 81, 90, 95))

Game Crashing Whilst Playing

My game is crashing to the desktop!

If your game is crashing and you are given an error window that says something like "Engine Error IVP Failed at..." and/or your save files are corrupted after crashing to the desktop, then unfortunately this means the physics engine crashed. There is no workaround to this currently other than perhaps trying to find an uncorrupted save file, or start your current chapter over from the menu (though this will remove Wilson if you have him).

We apologise for this inconvenience, and we're currently looking into this issue as a priority, and appreciate your patience.

NEW
Type "ent_remove_all prop_ragdoll" in the console before you reach the area you crash in.

However, it may be worth trying these steps regardless to see if it fixes crashing outside of these instances:

• Verify your game cache. (Right click the game in Steam -> Properties -> Local Files -> Verify integrity of game files)
  
• Reinstall the game entirely (Right click the game in Steam -> Manage -> Uninstall. Then redownload it.)
  
• Run the game in windowed, borderless mode. (Right click the game in Steam -> Properties -> Launch Options. Then add -window -noborder)
  
• Try a different DirectX level (Right click the game in Steam -> Properties -> Launch Options. Then add +mat_dxlevel 81 (alternatives being 70, 80, 81, 90, 95))

Achievement Won't Unlock

There are three major reasons why an achievement might not be unlocked. Either the criteria for the achievement to unlock have not been met, all achievements are disabled because of cheats, or the achievement unlocked but could not publish to Steam.

For the sake of this guide, we will assume if you are reading this that you have met the criteria for unlocking an achievement, but it still has not unlocked.

Using Cheats

If you have used developer console commands at any point in your playthrough, achievements are invalidated for the rest of the playthrough. This includes if you load from a save. This is not a bug, this is how achievements are intended to work.

If you are not unlocking achievements because you used cheat commands, here are the steps to recover:

1. Open the developer console
   
2. Enter the command "sv_cheats 0"
   
3. Either load a save from before cheats were enabled, or start the game from a chapter with the "New Game" main menu option. Warning: If cheats were enabled at any point prior to the saved game being saved, achievements will be disabled

Steam Connectivity Issues

It has been observed that if there are issues connecting to Steam during play, an achievement may be unlocked but might not actually publish to your profile. This is especially problematic because achievement progress is saved in gamestate.txt and the achievement might not publish a second time if you retry after the first failure.

Here are steps to recover. These steps are written mostly for achievements like "Science Team" which can be unlocked at once. Other achievements like "Radio Recon" or "Please Knock" may need to be restarted to work.

• WARNING: Deleting the gamestate.txt file will reset achievement progress on all achievements with counters such as "Please Knock". Please be sure before you delete gamestate.txt that you are okay losing progress on such achievements.

1. Make sure you have a saved game immediately before the achievement in question is triggered.
   
2. Exit the game if it is running.
   
3. Navigate to your Steam directory and find steamapps/common/EntropyZero2/entropyzero2.
   
4. Delete the file gamestate.txt. WARNING: This will reset progress on achievements that are not fully unlocked
   
5. Relaunch the game.
   
6. Load into your saved game.
   
7. The achievement should unlock.

Missing voice dialogue audio

I cannot hear any dialogue lines

Workshop addons are free to modify or replace any files in the game, including critical scripts that control the audio in the game. If you have subscribed to any workshop addons, it is likely one of them is the culprit.

1. Unsubscribe from all of your subscribed items on the workshop
   
2. Navigate to your Steam directory on your computer. Find the directory Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\1583720 where Steam workshops addons for EZ2 are stored. Delete the 1583720 directory. This will completely clear all workshop content.

How to disable Gamepad UI

Release 1.5 adds a new menu interface called Gamepad UI.

If you need to use the default menu again, you can currently do so by going into the game's properties and typing "-nogamepadui" in the game's launch options.

Version Mismatch

Starting in Release 1.5, the new menu will display a warning when loading a save if the save was from an older version of the game.

When loading your saves, you may see a warning which looks like this:


This is only a warning, it does not necessarily mean there is any problem with your save file. Since version information is only saved in Release 1.5 onwards, all previous saves will give this warning.

Press "Ok" to load the game normally. You should be able to continue your game.

If you do encounter any issues, it is encouraged to revert to a previous version by using the Steam betas tab and choosing an older "Release-" version of the game.



Make sure to opt into a "release-" version and not a pre-release version of the game, which will introduce problems loading saves.

Game will not start on Linux or Steam Deck

As of Release 1.5 onwards, if you are using a Steam Deck/Linux machine, you should be able to launch Entropy : Zero 2 with the Steam Linux Runtime by default.

If you encounter an issue while playing the game on a Steam Deck/Linux machine, make sure E:Z2 is not set to be launched with a specific compatibility tool in the game's properties. If you need to confirm this in-game, you can easily identify whether you are playing Entropy : Zero 2 with Proton by looking at the game's italicized subtitles. Proton does not render these properly and each letter may appear cut off.

If you have verified that you are not using Proton and cannot resolve your issue, please let us know. You could also try switching to Proton and seeing if you can reproduce the issue with it.

[Wagoven]

loading the game, loading between levels, loading saves is very long (waited for about 12 minutes for the game itself, between locations it takes more than a minute)
tried with add-ons and without. the result is almost the same.
the game is on SSD
tried other projects based on Half Life 1-2 - did not notice such problems with loading (although I had to turn the settings to minimum in the same Black Mesa at the moment with the battle with the Queen of Headcrabs, because the projectiles caused freezes)
checked the files. reinstalled too.
saw one old topic from 2022 on Steam (looked through Google), that some files need to be swapped, but the link to the post with the file names is broken...

[Giza]

I can only see the main menu of the game on the top left corner of the monitor screen, what gives. I don't have that problem with any other game.

[Custodes Singularitatis]

my camera fixes on one point so thats means i cant look up or down when i enable cheats, how do fix that?

[gabovarelachacon]

thanks

[gabovarelachacon]

I think but I'm going to check

[gabovarelachacon]

yes but I uninstalled it and it happend before i installed any addon

[1upD]

@gabovarelachacon That sounds like an issue with a workshop addon. Do you have workshop addons installed?

[gabovarelachacon]

I don't know if it is a bug but the main character doesn't stop checking/inspecting his gun please help

[Trivvy™]

@MonolithGaming

Yeah that'll be it.

[squirrel]

Right before where you capture Judith, my game freezes and then crashes. Ran ent_remove_all, validated files, nothing. Any help?