Cannot start the game via Steam

[RavenDark]

Hey everyone,

now I finally bought GC at Steam, however I cannot start it. Every time I press the play button a popup opens, telling me "Failed to start game (app already running).".

Okay, so I checked the task manager but there is no gearcity.exe to be found. I then tried several other steps, but none of these worked either.

- verified game cache - no errors found
- deactivated anti virus (Avast)
- disconnected flight stick
- reset video settings
- manually installed OpenAL
- activated the stable branch
- deleted the appcache folder in the Steam main directory
- uninstalled Gear City Beta 1.13 which I still had installed
- restarted Steam and the PC several times

I still get that popup appearing as soon as I try to start the game. Obviously something makes Steam believe that GC is already running, but I have no idea what that could be.
Maybe some leftovers from the old beta in the registry? The log file only says "Looooooog".

Any ideas of what else I could try? Thanks.


Edit:
I'm using Win 7 64 Ultimate. Steam is installed on drive E, while GC is installed in a Steam library on drive G.

Edit 2: Downgraded to legacy branch, but still not working.

[Eric.B]

Good morning,

You have something preventing Steam from downloading GearCity.exe
Make sure that avast is completely disabled, and you don't have any other programs that actively scan for files. (Such as malware scanners or firewall softwares)

After you do that, verify your cache again.

When you get the GearCity.exe file, whitelist it in your av software. Otherwise you could run into this again after the next update.


If you still have trouble with it, let me know.

[RavenDark]

I do have the gearcity.exe in the installation folder (file size is 7.181.840 Bytes, MD5 CC83F778BC48301BF04DC0442F2A5CC1). I only checked the task manager to ensure it is not already running in the background when I pressed the play button.

That's why I think that I actually do have all necessary files for running the game, especially as none of the several game cache verifications I've made so far showed any missing files.

[Eric.B]

Interesting, Have you tried running the gearcity.exe file directly?
You would get a windows error code or something would be written to the log if there was another file missing.

Have you tried whitelisting Gearcity.exe file? Maybe avast is blocking the launching of the file? It may have already quarantined running it.

[RavenDark]

Sorry Eric, it's working now. That was a typical case of PBCAK - problem between chair and keyboard. I just noticed that I had been using a Steam client dating back to January 7 2014 (I remember being annoyed by all those client updates, so I had created a cfg file preventing steam from automatic updates).

Now I deleted that file, let the client update and voila - Gear City is working like a charm. Sometimes you cannot see the wood for the trees.

Thanks for your help.

[Eric.B]

Ha! No worries!

You have to remember most games on Steam bundle DRM. So you have to have the latest client so that the latest DRM bundled works. Stupid I know, I hate it too, but until we're out of Early Access, it's the nature of the beast.