Launch issue resolved on my side: one path to explore

[xelior]

TLDR: one specific configuration of a vJoy device will crash the game on my end, see (2) at the end of the post for further details.

Hello everyone,

 

I bought Cliffs of Dover Blitz + Tobruk some hours ago and like many other people I couldn't launch the game. The game would open a black screen with the logo in the middle and then crash to desktop with no error message. After hours of headaches I resolved my problem and did further tests so I can come back and maybe help with this complex issue.

 

In the following I will (1) describe how I found the culprit and then I will (2) explain the tests I did and what is giving issues.

1)
When I discovered the launch issue, I did lot of research and tried everything I could find:

- Disabling the AV (+ adding exceptions)

- Disabling any overlays (steam, rivatunner)

- Disabling steam input

- Activating the log (sadly nothing was getting written inside log.txt)
- Activating compatibility mode (windows 7)

- Running as administrator

- Double checking my libraries/frameworks are up-to-date

- Other things I probably forgot...

None of them worked. I then had the idea of using the HidHide software in which we can hide HID devices (joysticks in our case) of our choice to applications (e.g. hiding a joystick to a game so it doesn't get recognized). In my setup I'm using a X52 joystick, a T-Rudder pedals, a Xbox Controller and multiple configured vJoy devices.

I started by hiding all of my joysticks and the game was now launching without issues. Long story short the number of active joysticks didn't seem to affect the issue and I found one (and only one) of my vJoy devices was crashing the launch of the game.

 

 

2)

At this point I tried to understand why this particular vJoy device was problematic. I created a new vJoy device with a similar configuration. Trying to launch the game with only this new vJoy device active was crashing the game as I expected. From there I messed around with the configuration of the vJoy device and tried a lot, a lot, of combination. What I found is that the vJoy device will crash the game on this specific configuration: X or Y axis is activated (but not both) AND Force Feedback is also activated. Messing around with any other axes, button numbers or POVs setting won't affect the outcome. Having X or Y axis activated, but Force Feedback deactivated won't crash the game. Having both X and Y axes deactivated won't crash the game whatever the configuration for the other axes, button numbers, POVs is.

 

So to emphasize my finding in a compact way, from my use case, a vJoy device configured as (X OR Y activated, but not both) AND (Force Feedback activated) will crash the game.

Now how much this is helpful to resolve the issue, I don't really know... but hopefully it can help another user in the same use case.

Cheers.

[Buzzsaw]

22 hours ago, xelior said:

TLDR: one specific configuration of a vJoy device will crash the game on my end, see (2) at the end of the post for further details.

Hello everyone,

 

I bought Cliffs of Dover Blitz + Tobruk some hours ago and like many other people I couldn't launch the game. The game would open a black screen with the logo in the middle and then crash to desktop with no error message. After hours of headaches I resolved my problem and did further tests so I can come back and maybe help with this complex issue.

 

In the following I will (1) describe how I found the culprit and then I will (2) explain the tests I did and what is giving issues.

1)
When I discovered the launch issue, I did lot of research and tried everything I could find:

- Disabling the AV (+ adding exceptions)

- Disabling any overlays (steam, rivatunner)

- Disabling steam input

- Activating the log (sadly nothing was getting written inside log.txt)
- Activating compatibility mode (windows 7)

- Running as administrator

- Double checking my libraries/frameworks are up-to-date

- Other things I probably forgot...

None of them worked. I then had the idea of using the HidHide software in which we can hide HID devices (joysticks in our case) of our choice to applications (e.g. hiding a joystick to a game so it doesn't get recognized). In my setup I'm using a X52 joystick, a T-Rudder pedals, a Xbox Controller and multiple configured vJoy devices.

I started by hiding all of my joysticks and the game was now launching without issues. Long story short the number of active joysticks didn't seem to affect the issue and I found one (and only one) of my vJoy devices was crashing the launch of the game.

 

 

2)

At this point I tried to understand why this particular vJoy device was problematic. I created a new vJoy device with a similar configuration. Trying to launch the game with only this new vJoy device active was crashing the game as I expected. From there I messed around with the configuration of the vJoy device and tried a lot, a lot, of combination. What I found is that the vJoy device will crash the game on this specific configuration: X or Y axis is activated (but not both) AND Force Feedback is also activated. Messing around with any other axes, button numbers or POVs setting won't affect the outcome. Having X or Y axis activated, but Force Feedback deactivated won't crash the game. Having both X and Y axes deactivated won't crash the game whatever the configuration for the other axes, button numbers, POVs is.

 

So to emphasize my finding in a compact way, from my use case, a vJoy device configured as (X OR Y activated, but not both) AND (Force Feedback activated) will crash the game.

Now how much this is helpful to resolve the issue, I don't really know... but hopefully it can help another user in the same use case.

Cheers.

Thanks for your post and the detailed analysis of what your problem is.

 

However have to mention:

 

3rd Party Joystick software will sometimes crash the game.

 

Force Feedback enabled will not... many people, including myself use Force Feedback joysticks without a problem.

 

You should also disable your X-Box controller... and don't forget to disable the X -bpx controller in the Steam controls.  These will also cause crashes.