Can't interact with objects

[Some dude]

Hello,
I have SOMA from GOG.

I have gotten a weird bug after I restarted my playthrough because of another weird bug.
The problem now is that I can't interact with several items in the flat in the beginning.

I did contact gog about this and they said to contact you here.
Here's what I said to them.

Nov 17, 03:04 CET
Hi,
I can't interact with the laptop i the apartment.
I also can't interact with anything that has the read/view icon
This includes books, photos etc.
The animation starts but gets canceled out at once.

I was past the brainscan earlier, waking up in that strange room.
But because I got stuck since the intercom voices did not play for me I started a new game and got this bug instead.
tried to verify the game files and then a
reinstall.
It did not help.

Nov 17, 18:32 CET

Hi
I'm able interact with doors/drawers. Also was able to use the answering
machine and the mobile at game start.
It's hard to think there's any interference. When I played the game the
first time there was no problems with interactions. Just got stuck
because of the audio bug mentioned and did verify/reinstall before
starting a new game. As I said the command clearly registers before it
stops.
Yes, I changed the keybindings. They were the same both times I played.

I will take your suggestion and contact frictional.

The log seems to have some errors.
It is from a newly reinstalled game.

After I contacted gog I tried to stop everything that could interfere. Including the new anti ransomware settings in Windows Defender
Obviously I still have the problem.

[Romulator]

Hey there!

First of all, sorry to hear about these errors.

Since repairing the game, have you tried starting over with a completely new save using the New Game option in the menu? Sometimes SOMA decides to carry cached map settings over from previous map playthroughs, however little they were. If that doesn't work, then try the following.

You have mentioned you've done a repair, and doing has returned no errors, however that appears incorrect according to the hpl.log. While the following may not be the exact reason for your interactivity error, one reason it may not be working may be due to something amiss in the HighlightEffectHandler.hps file. To force this file to be repaired, manually locate and backup this file to somewhere else in your computer outside of the SOMA directory. Then delete the .hps file in your SOMA directory, then try repairing the installation again. This file should be located at

Code: (Select All)

/GOG Galaxy/Games/SOMA/script/modules/

After this, be sure to start using the New Game option in the menu to refresh the SOMA save state to be "clean".

----------------
Edit: I'll also assign this thread to a Frictional developer to see if they can think of anything else on top, since I use SOMA on the Steam platform as opposed to GOG.

[Some dude]

Hello Romulator!

I did try to restart again after getting this bug,

After I saw your reply I moved that file and id a new repair.
I started a new game yet again, then Soma CTD'd on load.
After a new repair I could start a new game. Unfortunately the bug persists.

Thanks for mentioning this to the devs. I hope they are able to help.

[Some dude]

So, is anything happening regarding my problem?

And even if you meant well, please don't mark your reply as most helpful since it really did not solve my problem.

[Romulator]

I can assure you, I did not mark my reply as most helpful. By posting as a guest, any guest can mark a post as most helpful, which is a feature on this forum I really dislike in my opinion.

I did refer this thread to a Frictional developer and it seems they have not received a notification about it or something.

Since the bug still persists, could you post a new hpl.log file? In case something did change in that .hps file I asked you to repair, some changes should have occurred to the log file.

I'm honestly a little stumped because this is the first I have heard of this issue to this degree. I would suspect a GOG repair would have fixed the issue in the first place.

[Some dude]

So it was a random person who marked your post twice?
I hope you took no offense by my comment.
You're right that is a bit annoying.
Glad that's cleared up.

If the devs do not receive notifications, perhaps I should try to contact them directly.

Anyway, when I searched about both my problems (interaction problem and missing voices) I could not find anyone else having them.

Here's the "new" HPL file. It's from Nov. 26.

I hope this can be solved within the refund window.

[Romulator]

So I had someone else test to compare hpl.logs, and well, the logs are pretty much same (including the errors with bones in the player), yet he can interact with other objects just fine, so that to me suggests that while the game is running correctly, there is perhaps something wrong on the user and/or hardware level.

In this case, the first thing I'd get you to check is your keybindings. Within SOMA, these can be accessed in the Options menu, or if you would to limit how much interactivity you have with SOMA so to avoid no longer being within the refund period, you can also simply upload your user_keys.cfg file, which should be either in the same folder as your hpl.log file, or in the <Steam_user>_<id> folder which is also in the /Main/ folder.

Have you also tried playing with an XBox Controller or a third-party controller to see if the results persist? My friend who tested for me pointed out that while you can interact with objects, the animations cancel out almost immediately, which could be due to a problem with either your mouse or keyboard, though I would suspect faulty hardware to apply to games and the system beyond SOMA as well.

If your keybindings are correct, then beyond this, I am not sure what else to consider.

[Mudbill]

Do the interact icons at least show up on the objects that you can't interact with?

[Some dude]

So I had someone else test to compare hpl.logs, and well, the logs are pretty much same (including the errors with bones in the player), yet he can interact with other objects just fine, so that to me suggests that while the game is running correctly, there is perhaps something wrong on the user and/or hardware level.

I don't know about that. If this was true wouldn't more games be affected? Not only SOMA?
And what about the fact that I not long ago played well past this point without this problem.
It happened after I chose a new game.

In this case, the first thing I'd get you to check is your keybindings. Within SOMA, these can be accessed in the Options menu, or if you would to limit how much interactivity you have with SOMA so to avoid no longer being within the refund period, you can also simply upload your user_keys.cfg file, which should be either in the same folder as your hpl.log file, or in the <Steam_user>_<id> folder which is also in the /Main/ folder.

My keybindings are very customized. Don't like the default setup at all.
Upload my keys here?
Don't sound to smart.
And I bought the game on GOG.

Have you also tried playing with an XBox Controller or a third-party controller to see if the results persist? My friend who tested for me pointed out that while you can interact with objects, the animations cancel out almost immediately, which could be due to a problem with either your mouse or keyboard, though I would suspect faulty hardware to apply to games and the system beyond SOMA as well.

Unfortunately I lost the PC-connector for my xbox360 controller.
I wish I could try that since what your friend describes looks like my problem.
I could try the default setup with my current mouse. And then with another one.

@Mudbill
Yes they do show up. It's just that the action get's canceled out.

[Mudbill]

The user keys don't contain more than which actions are bound to which keys, EG:

PHP Code: (Select All)

<Forward Primary="Keyboard.W" Secondary="" />