How to make a good tech support post --***READ ME FIRST!!***--
Confused
Wait. What? Join Date: 2003-01-28 Member: 12904Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester
Wait. What? Join Date: 2003-01-28 Member: 12904Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester
Since the time we spend replying to threads here is limited, here is a list of things you can do to help those of us who are trying to help you out.
Just so people don't miss it, you can find the Linux Guide Here - @AurOn2
Before you post
Making a post:
Sample Post(s):
note: I am pretty sure that this is not a real problem.
From there it is just a matter of playing like supermodels. All the time.
Just so people don't miss it, you can find the Linux Guide Here - @AurOn2
Before you post
- Use the search function, or at least eyeball the first page of results and this page. You are very likely to not be the only person with a problem. Check those other threads out, let us know if you are having the problem and if the fix works. Replying in the thread is a handy way for us to be sure that something is working or not and also lets us know if the problem is really widespread.
- Have you tried this with all your mods disabled? Especially, right after a patch mods can and do tend to break stuff. If it works with your mods off, there isn’t a whole lot we or UWE can do to help you because it is a problem with a mod someone else wrote. You can always try to get in touch with the mod’s author and report the bug to them. Try it on a different server and see if you can reproduce it from there. You can get rid of your mods 3 ways:
- Unsubscribe from using the button in the workshop, through steam.
- You can deactivate things in the mods menu by clicking on things so that the active column reads NO
- If all else fails, you can go to %appdata%/Natural Selection 2/ and delete the workshop folder. The easiest way to get there is to press the windows button and the letter r, as in pirates, type in in %appdata%/Natural Selection 2 and press enter
- Try resetting your system options file. Delete this file: %appdata%/Natural Selection 2/system_options.xml (resets system options by generating a new system_options.xml the next time you start NS2). Instructions how to enter the %appdata% folder can be found above.
- Try resetting your remote options file. Delete this folder: /Steam/userdata/[steamid]/4920 (resets remote options by generating a new options.xml the next time you start NS2)
- Be sure you downloaded all the files. Sometimes Steam for whatever reason, misses some files when downloading games. You can verify you have everything by right clicking Natural Selection 2 in your steam library > Properties > Local Files tab > Verify Intregrity of Game Cache. This should download anything you are missing. (or if you've deleted something)
- Make sure that the VC 2017 Redistributable Packages x64 is installed. The packages are needed to run NS2. Follow these steps to install them:
- Hover over Library and click at Tools
- Install the Steamworks Common Redistributables if they are not already installed
- Right-click at Steamworks Common Redistributables -> Properties -> Local Files -> Browse Local Files
- Open _CommonRedist -> vcredist -> 2017
- Now run the vcredist_x64.exe
- Run the Techsupport.exe (located the x64 folder in your NS2 install directory) and attach the zip file it makes to your post. This gives us a log NS2 makes, possibly containing errors, as well as provide us with your system’s hardware and driver information so we can spot issues.
- Upload your crash reports.If ns2 crashes for you please wait for your crash report to upload completly, then click at copy (crash) Dump Id to save it for later.
Making a post:
- Title it something informative. Posts titled things like AARRRFHGGHGH!!! or ITS BROEKD HALPS! are hard to eyeball, and don't show up in search particularly well. Naming your post something like: “Shooting onos with rifle causes you to catch fire” or “ARCs deployed in gorge tunnels can siege anywhere” make it easier for people with the same problem to talk about the problem, post logs, or offer solutions.
- Write a quick summary with reproduction steps. How did you cause the issue? For example: I was doing X when out of nowhere Y happened and now I can’t do Z anymore.
If you got an error message please include the full text of the error. “I got an error” is sort of like yelling fix it. It makes everyone trying to help you have to track down the error spend time trying to figure out the error you are having and not spend time trying to help you out. - Provide a link to your Techsupport.exe zip.You can either attach the file directly to your post or use a cloud service like Dropbox or Gdrive (just post the link). This gives us all the error messages the game had, and a pretty good idea what your system looked like at the time this happened.
- Demo Recording. Need to provide an in game demo of your problem? See this guide to record your demo.
Sample Post(s):
note: I am pretty sure that this is not a real problem.
When I parasite kill the Command station The game does not end
Yesterday, I finally achieved my ns2 dream and parasite killed the last command station. After such amazing success, I was confused to discover that the game was not over. Everything continued as normal until all the ips were killed and all the marines as well. It was really weird. Should killing the CC trigger the end of the game? Seems like a Bug to me.
I attached my Tech support zip.
From there it is just a matter of playing like supermodels. All the time.
Comments
and deleting /Steam/userdata/[steamid]/4920 (resets options)
I will try to update the linux guide at some point to include a list of all the stuff in a tech support zip. Or someone could help me out and just do it since its on the wiki.
For now the big ones are as follows (using default directories):
~/.local/Natural Selection 2/
log.txt - the games last run log
system_options.xml - engine Config
~/.local/share/Steam/userdata/<steamId>/4920/remote
options.xml - your bindings/options settings.
Tools to run(assuming your distro supports them):
sysinfo - similar to dxdaig, give hardware overviews
glxinfo|grep OpenGL - should return what your opengl version is.
edit formatting
Exact error message.
Authentication failed. If other multiplayer games do not work ethier, then steam could be down or your firewall is blocking it.
Thank You
inxi -G (details about the graphic part)
inxi -S (system info. Kernel version and so on)
here is a dropbox link to the tech support launcher left for me. this is what i have done
it crashes with a debug report right after starting up the game with a black screen i can see and move around the cursor though. i have looked up some posts on how to fix and none have worked(source) http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/122577/x&st=0#entry2002080. i have reinstalled ns2 completely (deleted the files and then reinstall through steam)
And I hear you developers seem to be unware.. so I will try to give some info on this site.
First I want to be a good bug reporter follow protocol so I am reading this "how to make a good tech support post"
and I read nothing about the handling the Linux version.
The file locations differ.. I cant run windows Techsupport.exe
So please describe here for the Linux users what to do.
Also I am a software programmer myself and expected a good logfile wrapper script
around the NS2 executable.. I found the file "~/.config/Natural\ Selection\ 2/log.txt"
but it only contains a minimum of the info the executable is sending to its stdout.
As an example of the differences.. the following happens when the game is started.
The stdout of the executable:
The logfile however shows only:
So maybe the developers can make a wrapper script to catch this extra info and write
that to the logfile also.
The linux stuff is here: http://wiki.unknownworlds.com/ns2/Linux_Guide
However, I have not had the time to update it for a while, so it may be out of date depending on what other stuff has gone on in the last 10 builds
I cannot connect to any servers. Either I get disconnected while loading in, or I load in, the map loads in, the game freezes for a moment and then I get dc'd. Sometimes I can spectate for awhile, sometimes I can get into a game and play for a couple hours before getting booted and then I cant reconnect to the server. Sometimes the whole game crashes, sometimes I just get kicked back to main menu. Nothing is consistent, I have already tried everything in this post, except running techsupport.exe because when I try to run techsupport.exe it opens for a moment, then immediately closes without creating a zip file.
Edit: Got a crash dump b541b6a1-c431-4e3c-af42-c43fa983cc43
Hi,
looking into your crash dump you are having troubles with concurrent I/O access calls. We are currently investigating a number of similair issues that users have been reporting since the last few updates. Hopefully we are able to find solutions for the new game update.
For additional help I would ask you to provide at least a dxdiag.txt of your system: Press win + r and enter dxdiag. Then click at save all information.
The server browser doesn't seem to properly load servers as being blocked if they are also in your server history. When clicking the block server button, it would correctly add the server to the BlockedServers.json, and begin hiding it/showing it consistent with the current setting; But the next time I loaded the server browser the blocked server would be visible, and not marked as blocked in-game at all. In trying to troubleshoot the problem, I blocked a larger number of servers and noticed the 'only unvisited blocks work' pattern, then confirmed it by deleting the HistoryServers.json and seeing all blocked servers correctly load in and be hidden.
Given that server blocking is likely to be mostly done after visiting and disliking a server(shitty moderation, many troll comms, etc), it sorta makes the whole feature a lot more awkward to use, although the fix on the user-side(nuking/editing the HistoryServers.json) is super simple so hopefully anyone else with the issue can find this solution in the meantime.