Ironman mode disabled

[derly2004]

I also have the same issue which I first encountered yesterday. Ironman mode was disabled. I could not start any new Ironman game nor load any Ironman save. The Ironman checkbox and the Play button were greyed out with "Ironman mode needs EU4 to be unmodified and validated." It did not seem to be a steam cloud problem since I could still see my games saved to steam cloud. I have no mods installed and have all the current DLCs up to CoP.

Initially I did a clean reinstall and that solved it for me. However, when I loaded up the game today, the issue came up again. Really don't understand why this happened, as I had no problems playing a few days ago.

Issue still pending. I went and did another clean reinstall, which temporarily solved the issue and was able to play Ironman mode. However, once I rebooted my computer, the "Ironman mode needs EU4 to be unmodified and validated." problem resurfaced. Hope someone can shed some light on this mystery, as I don't want to reinstall the game everytime I want to play Ironman mode.

 

[AndrewT]

Also, how can I check if the Steam Client Ports are open?

There are any number of public websites out there that will check that a given port or range of ports are really open. I'd use at least 3 different such sites, as they're not 100% reliable.

 

[AndrewT]

Issue still pending. I went and did another clean reinstall, which temporarily solved the issue and was able to play Ironman mode. However, once I rebooted my computer, the "Ironman mode needs EU4 to be unmodified and validated." problem resurfaced. Hope someone can shed some light on this mystery, as I don't want to reinstall the game everytime I want to play Ironman mode.

Well, that is really odd. Obviously not everyone has to do this. What firewall and anti-virus do you have? Have you allowed eu4.exe and eu4_launch.exe through both, since the last update of EU4?

 

[JamesthePole]

Same as issue for me, just started this morning. I can see my Ironman saves, just can't load them as the game seems to think I've got mods/incompatible version. Cannot start a new Ironman, either.

 

[bleakie]

There are any number of public websites out there that will check that a given port or range of ports are really open. I'd use at least 3 different such sites, as they're not 100% reliable.

Just found a reliable way to check it. Open the command screen (Start menu -> type "cmd"), then type "netstat -an" (without the quotations).

The game returns to normal for me again. Hopefully this problem will not be recurring.

 

[derly2004]

Well, that is really odd. Obviously not everyone has to do this. What firewall and anti-virus do you have? Have you allowed eu4.exe and eu4_launch.exe through both, since the last update of EU4?

Further investigation seems to point to Windows Firewall as being the culprit. The Ironman issue goes away once I disable Windows Firewall. Currently trying to fiddle with the firewall settings, which is in no way user friendly.

Edit: Definitely seems to be a firewall issue. Ironman mode works again after I removed the exceptions for Steam and EU4 and recreated them.

Edit (21/5/2014): Just to clarify, the firewall fix did not last long. A few days later after I posted this, ironman mode went down for me again and has been flipping between enabled and disabled every other day. It's like trying for the lottery, one time it works, the other time it doesn't. Sorry for not updating this post earlier, but I have been busy and have somewhat given up on fixing the ironman problem, though I strongly suspect that it is a steam problem, since when ironman mode is disabled, I find that the statistics for total hours played of my games are not displayed when the steam client is opened.

Oh and about opening ports and what not, I've tried bypassing my router and physically connecting to my home internet socket with firewall disabled and ironman mode is still disabled. My latest attempt was to launch steam using the "-tcp" launch option, seemed to work sometimes but don't know if it will persist.

 

[bleakie]

Just encountered the same problem again. Resetting the exceptions in the firewall no longer works.
Just checked the network ports.

TCP 27015 is open.
But the closest one in UDP is UDP 27036, which is just outside the range of steam client ports (UDP 27000 to 27030 inclusive)

Even closing Windows Firewall entirely does not work. Something else must be broken.

 

[bleakie]

Also see this Steam bug report:

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta/discussions/0/810938810517953311/

 

[Osman Pasha]

I did everything, but nothing works... It's just killing me. I don't know what's the problem now, it used to work all the time.

 

[AndrewT]

Just found a reliable way to check it. Open the command screen (Start menu -> type "cmd"), then type "netstat -an" (without the quotations).

The game returns to normal for me again. Hopefully this problem will not be recurring.

All that does is tell you what ports your machine is listening on. It's nothing to do with whether an external connection using those ports can get through your firewalls.

I did everything, but nothing works... It's just killing me. I don't know what's the problem now, it used to work all the time.

What does "everything" consist of exactly? You've done a full clean reinstall of the game? Of Steam? All Steam settings are OK? Tested without firewalls active? Tested that Steam ports are accessible from outside?

 

[Osman Pasha]

I have done a full clean reinstall of the game, deleted every folder and reinstalled. All steam settings are checked, nothing wrong. I tested without firewall, but it still doesn't work. I am sure that steam ports are accessible from outside because it works sometimes. It only works when I reinstalled the game, but the next time I open it, it's still grayed out.

 

[loveactually]

happened to me several times already
strange this is, EU4 ironman mode is disabled. so i closed EU4 and ran CK2. ironman in CK2 is working normally
then i switched back to EU4 and it is still disabled.

this is not firewall problem, steam or anything. i came into conclusion that this is the fault of this stupid game.
sorry for my words, i raged so many times because of this. f***

 

[bleakie]

All that does is tell you what ports your machine is listening on. It's nothing to do with whether an external connection using those ports can get through your firewalls.

When you use the command while the game is running, then you can see what ports the game is using. This is sufficient to determine whether the necessary ports are open.

 

[Osman Pasha]

this is not firewall problem, steam or anything. i came into conclusion that this is the fault of this stupid game.
sorry for my words, i raged so many times because of this. f***

It worked today, but just once. I really don't know what's the issue here...
Same, it made me rage so much. Took hours trying to get the solution to this problem.

 

[AndrewT]

happened to me several times already
strange this is, EU4 ironman mode is disabled. so i closed EU4 and ran CK2. ironman in CK2 is working normally
then i switched back to EU4 and it is still disabled.

this is not firewall problem, steam or anything. i came into conclusion that this is the fault of this stupid game.
sorry for my words, i raged so many times because of this. f***

Did you see post #26 above? It definitely can be a firewall issue. I'm not saying it must be in your case too, but we can't assume that everyone with the same symptoms must have the same root cause.

 

[loveactually]

Did you see post #26 above? It definitely can be a firewall issue. I'm not saying it must be in your case too, but we can't assume that everyone with the same symptoms must have the same root cause.

i already turned off the firewall before, still it didn't work.
i wrote that it was working for CK2, but didn't work for EU4. strange, isn't it? CMIIW, but it seems that both of them use same port, no?

 

[Osman Pasha]

Does anyone still have problems on this? It didn't work again! What exactly is the problem here? It must be a port problem, but how do you fix this exactly?

 

[AndrewT]

Here are what ports the Steam client uses
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8571-GLVN-8711

But just because disabling the firewall fixes it for some people (eg post 326 above) does not mean it must be a port issue for everyone.

 

[DavidRoyman]

I'd really love to know a solution for this.

Ports are open, firewall set up both to allow Steam and EU4.
Tried to reinstall EU4, verified the game files.
Checksum is still 0ef1.

I'd really love being able to play again.

 

[Zan Thrax]

Okay, so if the game was working this morning, and now it's not, despite a reinstall (which I guess means all my message and audio options are now returned to default settings), what, -precisely- do I need to do to get the game to allow me to play Ironman? If there are ports that may have magically become blocked in the last three hours, how do I determine that? Is this a Steam problem or an EUIV problem?