Steam unable to start up Amnesia

**Mearis** · 10-30-2010, 02:28 PM

Hi,

I installed Amnesia yesterday, played it through for a bit. Restarted the computer, and today Steam won't even allow me to load Amnesia: It gives a really really strange bug:

A window appears with the steam icon saying "Preparing to launch Amnesia: The Dark Descent" then the window starts opening/closing very quickly and the game doesn't start.

After a quick google search, I found this:

http://www.frictionalgames.com/forum/thr...l#pid41251

However, I am playing on a PC and not a Macintosh, and yesterday the game was working fine.

Any clue what might be happening?

**Mearis** · 10-30-2010, 09:12 PM

Short update - reinstalled the game, so far everything is good.

**Mearis** · 10-31-2010, 10:31 AM

(10-30-2010, 09:12 PM)Mearis Wrote: Short update - reinstalled the game, so far everything is good.

Interesting, now the steam start up flickers again. All other steam games work fine. Any clue?

**Thomas** · 11-01-2010, 01:55 PM

Tried starting the game directly from the game dir?

**Mearis** · 11-01-2010, 07:35 PM

(11-01-2010, 01:55 PM)Thomas Wrote: Tried starting the game directly from the game dir?

Yes - running Amnesia.exe or Launcher.exe in the C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\amnesia the dark descent directory both causes steam to start up and start flickering.

**Thomas** · 11-02-2010, 09:43 AM

The first thing that should happen is that a launcher window opens. This means it is not a graphics card issue or similar at least.

I am not sure what it might be but would suggest turning off any programs you have running in the background (such as anti-virus, instant-messengers, etc) and see if that helps.

**Spooder Wekd** · 11-02-2010, 05:52 PM

Does this happen in other games? Steam flickering does not sound like an Amnesia issue. run amnesia launcher as admin with internet connection off. Try reinstalling steam if it is a universal issue.

**Dave91** · 11-03-2010, 04:44 PM

This is not an amnesia issue only, it occurs to other games too. Had that problem with a game (don't remember the name though) and that game should run fine on my computer. I guess its a steam issue, or some files been corrupt in the game after reboot. Try the verify "integrity of game cache" function on steam, you can find it if you right-click on amnesia and choose "properties" "Local Files" Tab and there you go.

If that doesn't help you can try what "Spooder Wekd" said. Re-install steam and then try.

Oh yeah now i remember what game it was... It was actually Counter-Strike 1.6 believe it or not haha *smirk*
I fixed it with re-installing steam after i verified the cache!

BUT if that still doesn't work, i have no clue actually. Maybe try update your graphics card or directX. I know it's not the issue, but it is always worth a shot.

It could also happend that if you didn't reboot correctly (like shutting it off by holding in the powerbutton) it could corrupt the files, because sometimes the system saves the info after reboot, and by shutting it off in the wrong way could cause the system reg not to store the info of the game. (I'm not that of an expert and may be totally wrong haha but im atlest trying to come up with solutions that could work)

I checked the hpl.log now and i can clearly see that there is some issues loading a lot of files in the game due to missing files.
Maybe there is your answer? So i think "Verify integrity of game chache" SHOULD fix the whole thing, because it searches and finds the corrupt/missing files, downloads it and installs it.

Hope this works Smile