Failed to start game after launcher - brand new player

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Technical Support
1

Issue Description:
I have just bought the game, so brand new player and loading through Steam. The game will not load having pressed play in the launcher.

Error Displayed (If Applicable):
no errors are displayed

Steps to Reproduce:
Happens very time. I press play in steam, which brings up the Darktide Launcher. Launcher confirms that I meet minimum requirements. I then press play on launcher, and it will build shaders up to 100%, then nothing happens. The computer has not crashed, but there is no game app.

Checking task manager, it shows Darktide in the background resources only (not as a running app). the wait chain for this shows that Darktide is in deadlock.

I have tried: verifying files, reinstalling game, checking that the compatibility for each is UNTICKED run as administrator, I have done a clean install of my GFX drivers and deleted the Fatshark folder in the Roaming data.

Interestingly - I can load the game through the Darktide Binary (skipping the launcher phase), and it will go through cutscene and get through credits to the opening spash screen. I press space to Enter and it gives a back_end error - which I assume is because the account is not linked through the launcher. I think the game can run, but somehow the launcher is not correctly loading it.

Mission Name (If Applicable):
N/A

Platform:
Steam

Player ID:
new player - so don’t know?

Approx. Time of Issue & Timezone:
GMT+1, and this has been since I bought it 2 days ago, tried evenings and lunchtimes

Reproduction Rate:
Constant (100%)

Upload Supporting Evidence:

Screenshot 2023-10-18 124946 Darktide
Screenshot 2023-10-18 124946 Darktide754×496 68.8 KB

[PC] Paste Crash Report, or Upload Console Log & darktide_launcher.log:
[Instructions: How To Provide a Crash Report, Console Log, or darktide_launcher.log]
darktide_launcher.log (16.9 KB)
console-2023-10-18-12.14.06-c248263b-fc91-46dc-b579-23d51b9076b0.log (3.7 KB)

2

I’ve seen more users get stuck very early in the setup phase of the game.

We have added so we can detect such deadlocks, but not sure if this will be added to the patch we will release very soon or the one after that.

This will only help us to detect the issue since we then can trigger a crashdump during this phase which we then can analyze.

3

Thank you for the response, it is appreciated.

Sounds like there is a problem and the next patch or two might add the ability to detect and crashdump so at least you can try to see what went wrong. No timelines on actually finding a fix.

I’m just going to get a refund now, it is not working as it should.