Game will not start at all

[Humboldt KA]

OOTP 24 (Steam), W11 Home 64.

I am reasonably sure that the problem is some OOTP configuration file that was not removed when I uninstalled and reinstalled. If you can tell me what that would be, I'm hopeful that will help.

Sequence:

1. Game was working across dozens of sessions totaling > 100 hrs until I attempted to follow the instructions in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTZoz7aCtD8&t=250s to move the game files from the Documents folder on boot drive to an external drive.

2. Game now produced an error message about a missing \facegen folder. More important, while the list of saved games was still there, none could be loaded.

3. Used Steam Library to uninstall and reinstall the game. Failed to start. Error message: "app_framework unable to open the path cust_data_folder E:\OOTP\saved_games."

4. Deleted the ootp directories on drives C: and E:. Uninstalled and reinstalled the game a 2nd time. Failed to start, same error message.

5. Did some of the steps in the tech support advice post.

6. Found the Steam and steamapps directories containing ootp-related files and deleted them. Uninstalled and reinstalled the game a 3rd time. failed to start, same error message.

I can no longer locate anything ootp-related anywhere, but there must be something; I am not getting clean installs. Can you please suggest what could be blocking a clean install so I can remove it?

Of the steps suggested in the advice post:
-Try rebooting your system. Did this.
-Update your graphic and sound card drivers. Not relevant, nothing changed--I did NOTHING else interspersed with any of this.
If you are on a PC, run the game / installer as admin (right-click on icon, select run as admin)
-Make sure to check the hard drive OOTP is installed on for errors/and or run defrag on it. Implausible, but did it anyway.
-On Steam, make sure to uncheck the Steam overlay. Go to the Steam menu then to settings > in-game > and untick the 'enable the steam overlay while in game' checkbox. Did this.
-If you use Discord ... I don't.
-If you are in windowed mode try switching to fullscreen mode. Not relevant since game will not start.
-Go to settings > troubleshooting > force game data re-installation and click that. Not relevant since game will not start.
-Another suggestion for anyone still having issues would be to update Direct X on your system to the latest version. That solved some crashing issues for at least one customer. Also, it might be worthwhile to make sure that you have the latest Microsoft Visual C+++ files installed (2017). Not relevant; did not change.

If that doesn't help, to try to narrow down what might be causing problems, try the following:
- First, restart your computer.
- Then make sure to create an exception or whitelist OOTP in your anti-virus and firewall programs. Or, even better, completely disable both for a little while (To reduce any risks, disconnect the computer from the network first).
- Then shut down any non-essential programs that are running other than OOTP.
- Then start OOTP up and try playing for a while and see if it still crashes in the same place.
- If not, then you'll basically just want to play the game without anything else running in the background, since one of those programs was likely causing issues with the game.
etc.

None of this is relevant since the game will not start.

If it still fails to start, then we'll need some more information from you.

So please let us know the following:
-Are you on a PC or Mac? PC.
-What OS are you using? W11 Home 64.
-Do you have the game on Steam or the Standalone or a different version (please name it)? Steam.
-Where exactly does your game crash? What are you doing just before it crashes? Can you consistently get the crash to repeat by doing the same thing or is it seemingly random? Do you get an error message? If so, what? Does not start.
-Does this crash in only one saved game or in multiple saves? If only one, then we'll need to see your league files as per the instructions here (or you can just upload to Dropbox/Google Drive and post a link). Not relevant.
It would also help us to have the game generated trace file.

To generate that on a Windows PC, do the following:

If you're on Steam, right-click on your game in the Steam library, then Properties, and on the General menu click on 'Set Launch Options' and enter the word "tracemode" (without quotes.).

If you have the standalone, right-click on the OOTP24 shortcut on your desktop, click on properties and add 'tracemode' to the command line

Then try to start the game again. Get it to crash.

After it does so, navigate to the following folder: Documents\Out of the Park Developments\OOTP Baseball 24\debug

Did this. There is no Out of the Park Developments folder in Documents, or anything else apparently OOTP related.
The only OOTP related files I can find are in E:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Out of the Park Baseball 24. It does look like a complete install. There is, for instance, a facegen folder. There is no folder named debug.

Thanks.

[Lukas Berger]

Most likely the issue here is with the paths.cfg file. It probably has an invalid path set.

You'll need to find and delete that (a reinstall will not automatically do this) and then things should work right again.

On a PC, this is typically found in the AppData folder, which is a hidden folder.

Something like AppData\Roaming\Out of the Park Developments\OOTP Baseball 24\config

If you go to the Windows search function and type %appdata% that should open the app data folder, and then you can navigate to the OOTP specific sub-folders and delete the paths.cfg from there.

[Humboldt KA]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

Most likely the issue here is with the paths.cfg file. It probably has an invalid path set.

You'll need to find and delete that (a reinstall will not automatically do this) and then things should work right again.

On a PC, this is typically found in the AppData folder, which is a hidden folder.

Something like AppData\Roaming\Out of the Park Developments\OOTP Baseball 24\config

If you go to the Windows search function and type %appdata% that should open the app data folder, and then you can navigate to the OOTP specific sub-folders and delete the paths.cfg from there.

This worked. Thanks.

Also got warning that tracemode would slow game, succeeded in turning that off.

Succeed in creating game. Only 2 remaining problems that I have noticed:
-Got no choice in naming save; it used a name previously used for a different game. How do I use a different name?

-When I reinstalled the last time I told it to use drive D: which is where all my other Steam games are. But the save games are on C: under OneDrive - Personal\Documents\Out of the Park Developments\Out of the Park Baseball 24.
(At least, I think what I see under D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Out of the Park Baseball 24 is the whole game. It includes 10 files including the ootp24 application and a folder called data which includes 14 files and 37 subfolders. One of the subfolders is named saved_games. but it is empty.)

-How do I get the game to save on D: along with the rest? (Also, the saved-games folder in Documents contains 2 old saves that do not appear in the load list. How do I get rid of them?)

[LansdowneSt]

WRT the name change, try doing a full backup of that particular game (not save, but "backup"). When saving the Backup, save it with a different name. Then restart the game and go to the Load menu and load thst backup. Now you are playing that game with the new name that was a perfect replica of the other, misnamed one. I think that should work...

[Humboldt KA]

Originally Posted by LansdowneSt

WRT the name change, try doing a full backup of that particular game (not save, but "backup"). When saving the Backup, save it with a different name. Then restart the game and go to the Load menu and load that backup. Now you are playing that game with the new name that was a perfect replica of the other, misnamed one. I think that should work...

This did not work, in one minor way and one major one:

1) There is no option to name a backup as you create it. When I restore it I can give the league a name, although when save that it does not appear in the list of games that can be loaded; only the original name is there.

2) If I reload the saved game, I get the draft pool (in this game the point I am at is inaugural draft). If I try to restore a backup--which, as mentioned, has the same name as the save game--the draft pool is gone.

I've tried to recover it using the import action, but it finds no appropriate file. It looks in OneDrive\Documents, which is not where the game is saved. I searched for .csv files anyway; there are none.

So I searched D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Out of the Park Developments and found a number of .csv files, some in \data\stats and some in \data\databases. A few of the latter looked like they could be the right ones, but importing them did nothing.

3) While we're here, the saved_games folder in that path is empty (there shouldn't be one in Documents, and there isn't). The backups folder contains a folder with the same, original name of the save game. Does that mean there is no distinction between the save game and the backup?

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by Humboldt KA

3) While we're here, the saved_games folder in that path is empty (there shouldn't be one in Documents, and there isn't). The backups folder contains a folder with the same, original name of the save game. Does that mean there is no distinction between the save game and the backup?

I suspect what's happening here is that you have saved game folders in multiple places from when you tried to change the patch, and are looking at one the game is not currently using.

If you go to settings > troubleshooting > open folder containing saved games, that will take you to the saved game folder the game is using.

[mazxed]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

Most likely the issue here is with the paths.cfg file. It probably has an invalid path set.

You'll need to find and delete that (a reinstall will not automatically do this) and then things should work right again.

On a PC, this is typically found in the AppData folder, which is a hidden folder.

Something like AppData\Roaming\Out of the Park Developments\OOTP Baseball 24\config

If you go to the Windows search function and type %appdata% that should open the app data folder, and then you can navigate to the OOTP specific sub-folders and delete the paths.cfg from there.

Thank you this worked for my World Template issue

[jdrake349]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

Most likely the issue here is with the paths.cfg file. It probably has an invalid path set.

You'll need to find and delete that (a reinstall will not automatically do this) and then things should work right again.

On a PC, this is typically found in the AppData folder, which is a hidden folder.

Something like AppData\Roaming\Out of the Park Developments\OOTP Baseball 24\config

If you go to the Windows search function and type %appdata% that should open the app data folder, and then you can navigate to the OOTP specific sub-folders and delete the paths.cfg from there.

Thank you, Lukas! This finally saved me after an hour of digging. Tried to install to external drive, didn't work well, so I moved re-installed on my mac and then the game refused to open and gave me the app framework error. If anyone stumbles across this, this works for Macs, too. Same folder (config).