About the Paradox Launcher

[Deuterium Oxide]

I understand getting frustrated but it's really childish to respond to legitimate complaints with a check mark or an x mark instead of actually answering the person and having some form of an intellectual conversation.

I am not aware of any other PDX employee consistently posting in this thread other than me, and I imagine that I have engaged in conversation on multiple occasions. To whom are you referring?

...this launcher situation is a serious mess and I hope it gets resolved ASAP.

See, this kind of commentary serves well to blow off steam but is desperately useless for me in prioritizing what actionable items need to be done. May I ask for a list of issues you perceive ordered from "most pressing" to "nice to have"? That would be genuinely useful.

 

[8igualdos0s]

@8igualdos0s I don't think Tekla was bashing him for having said opinion she was just saying "Join the club." as in a bunch of us feel the same way about the current situation. Its all good man

She/he was respectfully disagreeing with several people that was complaining about the launcher (14 times in the last 24 hours) . You can see her/his last ratings in her/his profile. I don't know how is she/he, but that behaviour seems odd to me. Ofc, she/he is free to rate whatever she/he want... I was just asking.

 

[8igualdos0s]

My job is to make the launcher a better product and in order to do so the team needs solid bug reports. Ones including OS, distribution platform, launcher version, logs etc. that will help us fix bugs.

Windows 10. Steam. Stellaris 2.5.0. Launcher don't load ANY mod (cosmetic, namelist, flags... Anything).
No problems before this launcher.

 

[Deuterium Oxide]

Windows 10. Steam. Stellaris 2.5.0. Launcher don't load ANY mod (cosmetic, namelist, flags... Anything).
No problems before this launcher.

Please also include the launcher version used (found if you scroll to the bottom of the launcher window). When you say "load" does it mean that no mods are displayed in the launcher or that no selected mods are active in-game? Screenshots would help a lot!

 

[8igualdos0s]

Please also include the launcher version used (found if you scroll to the bottom of the launcher window). When you say "load" does it mean that no mods are displayed in the launcher or that no selected mods are active in-game? Screenshots would help a lot!

Mods are displayed in the launcher and activated, but they are no active in game. Launcher version 2019.10.4., I guess.

I can't think other pictures that could be relevant. In-game pictures would be just vainilla. Thank you.

 

[Deuterium Oxide]

Mods are displayed in the launcher and activated, but they are no active in game. Launcher version 2019.10.4., I guess.

Good. At least you are on the latest version of the launcher. Now, the next order of business would be to check the "dlc_load.json" file that tells the game what DLC and mods to load at startup. If that file looks intact and as expected the launcher output should be good.

Example of file:

{"disabled_dlcs":[],"enabled_mods":["mod/ugc_1878473679.mod","mod/ugc_1878751971.mod"]}

If the file is missing or somehow corrupted, we'll go on and try finding the reason for that!

 

[Deuterium Oxide]

I have meanwhile validated the game files. All good. Looking at the launcher while it fires up it says "downloading a new version" and a second after that it displays the "something went wrong" message. If i had to guess i would say its unable to connect to the download source. Web, network etc all good ofc. It also shows my account linked on the upper right corner.

Thanks for helping out! Right - hopefully the logs can say something about what goes wrong. Could you dig out the "%LOCALAPPDATA%\Paradox Interactive\launcher-v2\cpatch.log" file and look at the final, say 100, lines - That should give us some kind of indication.

 

[Deuterium Oxide]

There you go [SNIP]

Hmmm. Looks like the origin of the problems didn't make the cut. Could you maybe upload the entire thing?

 

[Darth.]

@Deuterium Oxide
I didn't know where to post the suggestion, so figured I'd do it here and tag you.

I would request that the launcher team implement two directories in the launcher: Activated Mods and Mods.

"Mods" just lists all your subscribed mods whether activated or not.

Once you activate a mod, it also appears at the top in the Activated Mods directory. Meaning once you've activated all the mods you want, you can then change their load order around conveniently in the Activated Mods directory.

This would be great for avoiding CTDs thanks to conflicting file changes by mods plus also very useful for Multiplayer since differing load order changes checksum and everyone needs the same checksum.

 

[8igualdos0s]

Good. At least you are on the latest version of the launcher. Now, the next order of business would be to check the "dlc_load.json" file that tells the game what DLC and mods to load at startup. If that file looks intact and as expected the launcher output should be good.

Example of file:

{"disabled_dlcs":[],"enabled_mods":["mod/ugc_1878473679.mod","mod/ugc_1878751971.mod"]}

If the file is missing or somehow corrupted, we'll go on and try finding the reason for that!

This is the content of my dlc_load.json file:

{"disabled_dlcs":[],"enabled_mods":["mod/ugc_682691478.mod","mod/ugc_1591647610.mod"]}

It seems correct, and I also check ugc files in Documents/mod folder.

 

[Deuterium Oxide]

It seems correct, and I also check ugc files in Documents/mod folder.

Hmm. That is the file the game should read in order to find what mods to load, and it does in fact look intact and reasonable. I can only recommend that you report these findings to the Stellaris community reps / support and have the game team look at why the indicated mods are not loaded in-game. Sorry I couldn't be of more help!

 

[M@ni@c]

Hmm. That is the file the game should read in order to find what mods to load, and it does in fact look intact and reasonable. I can only recommend that you report these findings to the Stellaris community reps / support and have the game team look at why the indicated mods are not loaded in-game. Sorry I couldn't be of more help!

I don't think asking the Stellaris support is gonna help. While I haven't encountered it with Stellaris, I did encounter with EU4 that I enabled a mod, launched the game, but the mod was not active. After closing down the game and restarting the launcher, the mod was disabled. Only after the third try did the mod stay enabled. Seems more like some launcher's json file isn't being updated, rather than a specific game or mod issue.

On the topic of json files not updating, on the off chance you haven't heard this elsewhere yet, are you aware that the only way Stellaris modders can get the launcher to know a local mod has been updated (for instance changing the version number from version 2.3 to 2.5) is by deleting the mods_registry.json file? Without deleting the file, the launcher will show the local mod as still using the old game version, and will throw an error when trying to upload/update the mod. Deleting the mods_registry.json file means losing one's entire load order, so people would prefer to avoid that.

 

[Deuterium Oxide]

I don't think asking the Stellaris support is gonna help. While I haven't encountered it with Stellaris, I did encounter with EU4 that I enabled a mod, launched the game, but the mod was not active. After closing down the game and restarting the launcher, the mod was disabled. Only after the third try did the mod stay enabled. Seems more like some launcher's json file isn't being updated, rather than a specific game or mod issue.

On the topic of json files not updating, on the off chance you haven't heard this elsewhere yet, are you aware that the only way Stellaris modders can get the launcher to know a local mod has been updated (for instance changing the version number from version 2.3 to 2.5) is by deleting the mods_registry.json file? Without deleting the file, the launcher will show the local mod as still using the old game version, and will throw an error when trying to upload/update the mod. Deleting the mods_registry.json file means losing one's entire load order, so people would prefer to avoid that.

I was made aware of the issue by the Stellaris community team today, but your explanation of the issue is more lucid. I see that there are two separate issues at play. Item the first: Local mods should not be cached, they can be read quickly from disk anyway. Item the second: Upload should be done regardless of version compatibility. The first of these issues I can understand, the second mystify me. In any case, they shall be remedied.

 

[M@ni@c]

I was made aware of the issue by the Stellaris community team today, but your explanation of the issue is more lucid. I see that there are two separate issues at play. Item the first: Local mods should not be cached, they can be read quickly from disk anyway. Item the second: Upload should be done regardless of version compatibility. The first of these issues I can understand, the second mystify me. In any case, they shall be remedied.

To make sure I wasn't talking BS, as it had been a few weeks since I last tried updating a mod, I just tried updating a mod's descriptor from 2.4 to 2.5 and uploading it to Steam without deleting the json file. While the fact remains the launcher doesn't register the update to 2.5 without deleting the json file, it was able to upload to Steam... Perhaps my own problems in the recent past with trying to update mods, was simply me not having renamed my thumbnails to thumbnail.png yet. Apologies for any wrong information. Now I am wondering why everyone on Discord is saying one should always delete one's json registry file before uploading a mod...

(Regardless, being able to upload mods under an older version is always a good option to have. There's always some group of people who are really unhappy with changes made with the latest DLC + patch, and prefer playing an older version of the game.)

 

[M@ni@c]

Apparently an issue is that although the mod uploads fine, without deleting the json first, subscribers will see the mod as being outdated, saying it's for version 2.3 rather than 2.5.

 

[Treeasaurus_Rex]

@Deuterium Oxide Yea I was wrong then and I apologize! But so far I've not run into a single issue using the 2.3.3 rollback. Ive tried to use the new launcher with 2.5 and 2.4 and 2.4.1 and I've had 0 luck getting it to work after even alphabetizing my mod list. For me the mods seem to be activating properly I just cant get the game to launch with mods period. I try using just one, NSC Season 4, and that mod works fine with a legacy version for 2.3.3 but the 2.5 version doesn't even allow it to launch. Im currently having a blast but I'm not able to use the Lithoid pack with 2.3.3 for obvious reasons. I hope everyone over at PDX got some good rest last night and I thank yinz for all your hard work!!

 

[8igualdos0s]

Hmm. That is the file the game should read in order to find what mods to load, and it does in fact look intact and reasonable. I can only recommend that you report these findings to the Stellaris community reps / support and have the game team look at why the indicated mods are not loaded in-game. Sorry I couldn't be of more help!

Ok thank you.

But I had no problems with Stellaris and mods before. Never. And now I can't load even a single namelist or music mod, since this new launcher's implementation. Occam's razor principle comes to my mind...

 

[M@ni@c]

User uses the 2.3 version of my mod. Asks if it works for 2.5.
I say yes, but I'll update to 2.5 now anyway, and let you be my guinea pig.
I update the mod, changing the version mentioned in the descriptor from 2.3 to 2.5. I don't delete the json file.
User now reports that although the mod is enabled, it simply doesn't do anything in-game. But prior to my update, it did. As expected, the mod still shows as 2.3 in the launcher.
I then reupload, now first deleting json. Now user reports the launcher shows it as 2.5 and it does work in-game.

So for me at least, I do need to delete json for my mods to be usable by subscribers.

 

[toynbeeidea]

The installer for the GOG version of Linux has been wrong since 2.4.

The installer bypasses "dowser" entirely, instead the icon and start menu execute the "stellaris" executable directly, which means no mods. "dowser" can be launched manually, but the "activate mods" switch is firmly pegged to the "off" position, which still means no mods.

 

[Deuterium Oxide]

The installer for the GOG version of Linux has been wrong since 2.4.

The installer bypasses "dowser" entirely, instead the icon and start menu execute the "stellaris" executable directly, which means no mods. "dowser" can be launched manually, but the "activate mods" switch is firmly pegged to the "off" position, which still means no mods.

I've notified the Stellaris team and they have verified the issue. I don't have a timeline for the fix, but one will be forthcoming.