I decided last night to go back and play some of my older games again, so I installed DoW2 and tried to run it.
I got an error message "Fatal Error - Steam must be running to play this game" even though I had launched it from steam.
I've spent most of last night and all this morning searching for a fix, and have done the following:
Checked File integrity
Re-installed 3 times
Run as admin
Changed compatibility (98/me/XP/7/8)
Screamed at my kids to shut the hell up and leave me alone
Searched for a non existent file (Steam doesn't use it anymore apparently)
Re-installed Games for windows Live (even though it doesn't work in Windows 10)
Installed older version of DX
Called the UK (There is no Sega/Relic support in AU) and was told to email the problem (No response so far).
Installed Chaos Rising
Apologised to my kids
Scoured the net trying to find a fix
Logged onto 4 different forums and TLS servers to get some help.
Watched about 14 different youtube videos on how to fix it, followed the steps and nothing
So far nothing has worked - Has anyone else had this issue and if so - How did you fix it?

Edit
Got it working - After installing Chaos Rising, and playing a black screen, I reinstalled DX from the folder it installed to and it worked! Thanks for the ideas :)

7 years ago*

Comment has been collapsed.

Deleted

This comment was deleted 2 years ago.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Added that in. I'll let you know how it goes after I finish downloading DOW2 again.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Deleted

This comment was deleted 2 years ago.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Got it to run Chaos rising after that add in, but no movies/planet graphics - 1/2 way there... I'll keep pounding away at it :)

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Did you run a crack from a steam-only game? They kinda cut the cord on steam .dlls and it only works again if you restart it, which I assume you already did.

GFWL does work in windows 10, although its a little tricky. But DOW2 dont use GFWL anymore so thats not necessary.

Do all other games work fine? Specially games that are steam-only?

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I don't run cracks at all on my system as all my stuff is legit.
I have restarted numerous times.
Every other game I have installed works perfectly.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

If that happened with other games, I would say maybe a aggresive anti-virus is blocking it. But since thats not the case, I dont know.

I am reinstalling the game to see if I can reproduce this (doubtful). In 20 mins I will let you know.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Nope, game ran fine without any issue. How about other relic games, if you own any, are they working fine?

Some things which I highly doubt would fix, but cant hurt to try: Disabling steam overlay, run steam on big picture mode, clearing out most config files of steam and the game.

Another advice (which I believe could help) would be stop all non-crucial processes that windows need to work and only run steam + the game. So any app like fraps or temperature monitoring tools would go just in case.

Edit: How about moving the game directory to another partition? IF you already have more than one steam folder you will have the option to move the game files to another place on the game optios of Local Files

7 years ago*
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

All the other games ran fine DoW1, Space Marine etc. After reinstalling it still wouldn't work, however Chaos Rising actually started - but no movies (Just sound and the subtitles) and no planet map - I'm 1/2 way there it seems lol.

7 years ago*
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

however Chaos Rising actually started - but no movies (Just sound and the subtitles) and no planet map

Have you updated your graphics drivers recently?
(Or could you have been affected by the Nvidia graphics driver corruption glitch that happened during a somewhat recent Win 10 update?)

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

try deleting/moving savegames/config files?
Users\%USERNAME%\Documents\My Games\Dawn of War 2

also steam userdata
Steam\userdata\%USERID%\15620

┐(ツ)┌

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Had no save files on there. I had not installed it since upgrading (including a clean 10 install) a few months back.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Re-installed 3 times

Did you make sure to clear out lingering files? If it's a config problem, those files aren't necessarily removed during an uninstall.

Run as admin

Steam's executable or the game's own executable? You'll want to make sure both are configured for it (you can toggle the setting by right clicking on the exe's icon, going into properties, and going into the compatibility tab), when testing that element.

Installed older version of DX

Check that the game doesn't need specific .dll files. Those don't necessarily get installed with older versions of DX, and even when they are, they may not be properly utilized by the game unless you drop them in the game's root folder.

Searched for a non existent file

clientregistry.blob, I assume? :P

Well, once you get past the last-ditch option of reinstalling Steam itself, there may not be much to do but wait and hope for a fix to pop up- I've had this issue with a few games on Win 10, and have had to wait for Steam or developer updates to resolve the incompatibility.

That said, googling the issue you mention, several users mention having to load the graphics config for the game before it'll properly load [after fresh install]. [Purportedly this can be directly accessed via GraphicsConfig.exe from the game folder.]

7 years ago*
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

1) Yes - complete add/remove then a manual delete of remaining files.
2) Both Exe's
3) Yeah I know but I figured it wouldn't hurt to try them.
4) yup - that's the file.
5) GraphicsConfig.exe was the old graphics setup from DoW 1 - It's not in DoW 2:/ I nearly went nuts looking for it last night.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Renaming AuxInstaller.exe to AuxInstaller.exe.old helps to fix a launch issue with DoW2 where the hang simply hangs/crashes on load without error. It doesn't seem related, but it can't hurt to try. I've got nothing else that comes to mind. :/

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Recommends minimum of 1.5 gig. I'm currently running a 4 gig Page - but thx - was something new to check :)

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Sign in through Steam to add a comment.