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AndrewT

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This thread is to provide a single repository of confirmed information on the various technical problems afflicting C:S players at the moment. All contributions to this thread are welcome, but MUST be in the form of a technical (not gameplay) problem/bug, with a TESTED solution, OR a comment on one of those: either supporting, disagreeing, or modifying it. Other posts will be deleted - we want this to be short, sharp and correct!

ALWAYS run a Steam verify until it finds no problems, then test, before embarking on any attempted fix.

Windows:
  1. ColossalFramework.Steamworks.SteamInitializationException: Steam initialization has failed beyond repair or you do not own the game
    I've fixed this with a Steam refresh:

    - uninstall this game from Steam
    - exit Steam
    - manually delete everything in the Steam folder EXCEPT steam.exe and the /SteamApps/ folder
    - run steam.exe to rebuild all that
    - install this game again

  2. Game fails to run under Windows 10 (may have run once OK)
    In Steam right-click on this game and choose Properties. Click on Set Launch Options, and paste this in there:
    -force-d3d9

  3. "Unknown error" or "unsupported platform" on startup
    This is always caused by trying to run the game under 32bit Windows. The game's published minimum requirements explicitly state that 64bit Windows is required:
    https://www.paradoxplaza.com/cities-skylines
    If you have Vista, 7, 8 or 8.1 your Windows license covers both 32bit and 64bit versions of Windows, so there's no cost to download and switch. But there is the pain of doing a full Windows re-install, never pleasant I know!

  4. Pixellated green screen during play
    As seen here. Is fixed by updating video driver from the vendor's website, NOT from Steam or Microsoft. Has only been seen with old AMD video drivers.

  5. No Shadows being displayed in the game
    In Steam right-click on this game and choose properties. Click on *Set Launch Options*, and paste this in there:
    -force-d3d9
    Try the game then please.

  6. GC Exception error
    Has been found to be triggered by anti-virus apps including Kaspersky, ESET and Avast! so far. Full uninstallation seems to be necessary.

    UPDATE: has now also found to be caused by the FaceIT anti-cheat app, as used by Counterstrike, World of Tanks, and other MMP games. Exit FaceIT before you play this game; if that doesn't help you may need to use the free Revo Uninstaller to get rid of all trace of it.

  7. The Mouse Cursor is offset from where it appears to be
    In the game's Options menu, set V-sync to "don't sync".

  8. The Policy Panel disappears sporadically.

    Probably you have an AMD video card, which has this problem for some people.
    In Steam right-click on this game, Properties, Set Launch Options. Paste this in:
    -force-d3d9
  9. Game crashes at start with a BEX64 error. No output_log.txt written.
    Caused by a recent update to the AVG anti-virus app. Just disable AVG and the game will run just fine. Investigating whether adding cities.exe to AVG's whitelist helps.


  10. Game crashes at start. This error near start of output_log.txt
    IndexOutOfRangeException: Array index is out of range.
    at UnityEngine.Display.RecreateDisplayList (System.IntPtr[] nativeDisplay) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0


    For nVidia users: go into the nVidia Control Panel, Display, Adjust Desktop Size and Position. In the Scaling tab there change Select a scaling mode from Aspect Ratio to No Scaling.

    https://gaming.stackexchange.com/qu...-when-playing-older-43-games-on-a-wide-screen


    For AMD users: go into AMD Radeon settings and under 'display' change scaling mode from 'preserve aspect ratio' to 'full panel'.


MAC OS X:

  1. Green pixellated screen on game startup. Disable the Steam Overlay for this game only. Works every time.

  2. 16:9 external display forces Cities to render in a 16:9 aspect ratio, but the Nvidia card is optimized for 16:10.
    Forcing to run in 16:10 aspect fixes the problem.

  3. Game crashes randomly under OS X 10.11.x . If the Mac has an nVidia video card, manually update the driver from the nVidia site. As of early 2016 the current driver is here.

LINUX:

New Game button greyed out
... able to resolve this issue temporarily by disabling every monitor but the primary one.

Assets not loading, Cannot choose map, no overlay when building roads.
You need to install fglrx drivers.

Game reboots entire computer.
Happened with any Unity game under kernel 3.1.2 (OS: Manjaro 0.8.12 Ascella (Arch Linux based)) . Upgrading to 4.0 fixed the problem.

Game no longer runs on Debian at all.
A recent update to Debian has caused this. Will not be fixed as the only supported distro for the game is Ubuntu.


PLATFORM-AGNOSTIC

How to get workshop mods available in the offline mode:
Active mod subscriptions from Workshop are located in folder: \SteamLibrary\SteamApps\workshop\content\255710
Paste the specific folder (not just the .dll) of the mod you'd like to have available offline to \Users\YourUsername\AppData\Local\Colossal Order\Cities_Skylines\Addons\Mods
Then you should be able to see them under mods in offline mode.


Saved Games missing or will not load:
Delete all savegames in the content manager that don't have a real thumbnail picture. If there is no picture at all or just a white one the respective savegames is corrupted. Delete it, restart the game and your remaining savegames should work again.


NEW GAME button is greyed out:
Another possible cause of this is having every single map in Contents-Maps de-selected. You must have at least one map available for the game to create a city on!


LOAD GAME button greyed out.
All save games are disabled (see Content Manager-Savegames) or corrupt or incompatible with the current game version.


IF YOU ARE NOT CONFIDENT IN DOING ONE OF THESE PROCEDURES, STOP AND ASK FOR HELP.

KNOWN LOAD SWITCHES:

-noWorkshop
-disableMods
-force-opengl
-force-glcore
-force-d3d9
-screen-width 1280
-screen-height 1024
-screen-fullscreen
-popupwindow (windowed mode)
-limitfps x (set a target fps)
-force-gfx-direct (force Unity to run the rendering in a single thread)
-autoconfig
-- -window-mode exclusive (may help with fps performance issues
 
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On Linux I had the problem that after installing the game and starting it via Steam the sceen went black for 1-2 seconds, then returned to the Steam client. No error message. The solution for me was to manually force an update of the Steam client vie its menu.
 
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New Game button greyed out
In some cases fixed by running the game as Admin. In Steam right-click on this game and choose Properties. In the Local Files tab hit Browse Local Files. You'll see a file Cities.exe (it may display as just Cities). Right-click on that and choose Properties, Compatibility. Tick "run as Admin" and Apply. OK that screen.

If that fails, there seems to be some contribution from the network - I have one case of a person who gets it when in one physical location and not another. UNTESTED is running Steam in offline mode, or simply disconnecting from any network.

Nope. This does not work
 
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On Linux I had the problem that after installing the game and starting it via Steam the sceen went black for 1-2 seconds, then returned to the Steam client. No error message. The solution for me was to manually force an update of the Steam client vie its menu.
Well, that's a fairly generic issue and fix - I suppose we could say that the first thing you should always do is run a Steam verify, almost regardless of platform and problem.

New Game button greyed out
In some cases fixed by running the game as Admin. In Steam right-click on this game and choose Properties. In the Local Files tab hit Browse Local Files. You'll see a file Cities.exe (it may display as just Cities). Right-click on that and choose Properties, Compatibility. Tick "run as Admin" and Apply. OK that screen.

If that fails, there seems to be some contribution from the network - I have one case of a person who gets it when in one physical location and not another. UNTESTED is running Steam in offline mode, or simply disconnecting from any network.

Nope. This does not work
It does work sometimes, as I said. So it stays.

Add disabling DEP for Windows users there.
This as well as disabling AV? Instead of? Is this attested?
 
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Black Screen at game startup.
output_log.txt contains this line
Fallback handler could not load library D:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Cities_Skylines/Cities_Data/Mono/.\D:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Cities_Skylines/Cities_Data/Plugins/ColossalNative.dll
  • Uninstall all Visual C++ 2010 programs and all of the Visual C++ 2010 redists in the Uninstall Programs list.
  • [removed at CO's request. It's unknown at this stage whether the fix works without this step]
  • Restart computer.
  • Delete and reinstall Cities Skylines.
  • Manually install the 2010 x64 redistributable from the _CommonRedist/vcredist folder in the Cities Skylines common steam directory
  • Restart computer again

Just attempted this. Didn't resolve the issue unfortunately.
 
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I've just had to delete several posts here.

This is not the place for problem reports. We're after fixes only please, and confirmation or problems with those fixes.


I've edited the title to make it clearer.
 
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Just attempted this. Didn't resolve the issue unfortunately.
It requires Step 2 to work, and I've had to remove that for ... reasons.
 
I had a bug myself and figured out how to solve it. So I thought I better share it, to help other people.

Bug: Crash to Desktop if you start up a new game. It crashes right after the "bing" when the should have loaded. In two of three cases no errormessage was displayed. The third time it said "not enough RAM", but I have 4GB DDR3.

Solution: Increase Windows "swap file" (paging): I had it set to 1GB because I needed the space on my SSD for a while, after reseting it to automatic, Cities Skyline started working.
 
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OK; First of All- I tried BOTH of the techniques layed out for MacOS "START GAME IS GRAYED OUT" Work arounds, Neither worked

Secondly; I spent $30 on this game, I want it to just work when I turn it on. I don't want to go messing around with admin functions and config files. If I give you money I expect you to work out the most basic functionality beforehand. Please fix this.
 
Ah ok. Sounds like you guys have figured out the issue then/will it be resolved in a near-future patch?

(if this comment isn't suited for this thread feel free to delete it)

OK; First of All- I tried BOTH of the techniques layed out for MacOS "START GAME IS GRAYED OUT" Work arounds, Neither worked

Secondly; I spent $30 on this game, I want it to just work when I turn it on. I don't want to go messing around with admin functions and config files. If I give you money I expect you to work out the most basic functionality beforehand. Please fix this.
Both these issues will be fixed in the first patch, we are told.
 
A lot of people are complaining, as I was, that the arrows on asset menus are not working. This workaround suggested by dagu worked for me. You should probably include it on your list.