Episode 3 won't launch

[Simsalabing]

As the title says.

First of all - I HAVE managed to play through all of episodes 1-5 on a first playthrough without any issues. The problem mentioned here appeared during my 2nd playthrough, where the only difference is that New Game-slot 3 was chosen as opposed to 1, and some decisions have been different.

Now, I have tried changing all in-game preferences - decreasing and increasing resolution, turning on and off shadows/anti-aliasing, et cetera. Nothing seems to have any effect on what happens.

What happens?

I finished episode 2, see the crazy lady talk about how Clem is safe as long as the bandits are at the farm, see the credits roll out, and RIGHT at the end of the credits, the screen goes blue for 1-2 seconds, and I'm back at the main menu. I try to start episode 3, and all I hear is the crickets (presumably from the end of the gameplay-segment of episode 2) and see a black screen, with an arrow I can move around. Nothing happens, even though I wait for an hour. I quit the game, screen goes blue for 1-2 seconds, I'm back at the main menu. I quit the game to ensure it saves the progress, but when clicking 'Exit the game' the screen goes all blue on me again for 1 second, I'm out in the steam client, and nothing is saved to the steam cloud. I go back into the game and have to replay the last segment of episode 2 again. Same thing happens if I exit the game as soon as I have completed episode 2 without attempting to start episode 3. Always the same; blue screen fades in and then out to black, steam client doesn't recognise that I have made any progress, and when I start the game again I have to replay the last segment of episode 2.

So, there are 2 problems: I can't start episode 3, and I can't save my progress.

Any ideas here? I might have to ask for a refund if this continues.

[DjNDB]

It sounds like your savegame data might be corrupted in some way.

Are you playing on Mac or PC?
If PC, Are you running the game in any compatibility mode, if so, which one?

[Simsalabing]

Apologies, of course I have to mention that I am playing on a Mac (-book Pro)

[DjNDB]

Please try verifying your game cache files.

There's also a chance it's a savegame issue.
Please search your folders for prefs.prop files as described below. Follow the steps exactly as written.
- Open a terminal (e.g. by typing terminal into spotlight). Then copy and paste this command line into the terminal and press enter:

find ~ -name prefs.prop |pbcopy

- When it's done, the results were automatically copied into the clipboard.
Start a new reply to this post. Then paste the clipboard from the clipboard into the reply, by pressing Command+V.

[Westfall]

Have been having trouble loading Episode 3 - get just a dark screen. Have tried restarting Steam, restarting iMac, verified game cache.

prefs.prop:

/Users/Randy/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/The Walking Dead/TheWalkingDead.app/Contents/Resources/Pack/default/prefs.prop
/Users/Randy/Library/Application Support/Telltale Games/TheWalkingDead/prefs.prop

[Westfall]

Btw, when I "view all achievements" in the Steam library it shows:

Complete - Episode 1, Chapters 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 all unlocked
Complete Episode 1:A New Day unlocked
Complete - Episode 2, Chapters 1,2,3,4,5,6 all unlocked
Complete Episode 2:"Starved for Help" unlocked
Completed - Episode 3, Chapters 1,2,3,4 all unlocked
Episode 2 Chapter 7 (not unlocked) <---------------
Episode 3 Chapters 5, 6, etc. (not unlocked)

Seems to be disordered.
Thanks.

[DjNDB]

Originally Posted by Westfall

prefs.prop:
/Users/Randy/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/The Walking Dead/TheWalkingDead.app/Contents/Resources/Pack/default/prefs.prop
/Users/Randy/Library/Application Support/Telltale Games/TheWalkingDead/prefs.prop

There's the problem. The game somehow created 2 prefs.prop files, and then gets confused by that.

The file should only be in the savegame folder ~/Library/Application Support/Telltale Games/TheWalkingDead/

You can fix it in a terminal as described below. We don't know which prefs.prop will work, so we might have to try both.

Alternatively you can do the same in the GUI.

First attempt
Please open a terminal and run:
mv ~/Library/Application\ Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/The\ Walking\ Dead/TheWalkingDead.app/Contents/Resources/Pack/default/prefs.prop ~/Desktop/prefs.prop

It will move the prefs.prop from the steam folder to the desktop for safekeeping.

Now start the game and see if you can start Episode 3 and have your progress. If it doesn't work, try the second attempt. Otherwise skip to cleanup

Second attempt
run:
mv ~/Library/Application\ Support/Telltale\ Games/TheWalkingDead/prefs.prop ~/Library/Application\ Support/Telltale\ Games/TheWalkingDead/prefs.prop.orig
cp ~/Desktop/prefs.prop ~/Library/Application\ Support/Telltale\ Games/TheWalkingDead/prefs.prop

The first one renames the original prefs.prop in the savegame folder.
The second one copies the install folder prefs.prop to the savegame folder.

Now again try running the game.

If it works, you can go to clean up to remove the backed up prefs.props.

clean up
clean up with:
rm ~/Library/Application\ Support/Telltale\ Games/TheWalkingDead/prefs.prop.orig
rm ~/Desktop/prefs.prop

[Westfall]

Thanks DjNDB. Was hoping you were going to say it was due to the extra prefs.prop file. The first method worked (mostly). Had to replay Episode 3 from the beginning, but at least I didn't have to go all the way back, which would probably would have been too frustrating to even be worth doing. It seems to be saving ok now - only one prefs.prop file. Would like to know what went wrong, and whether it's likely to happen again...

[DjNDB]

Originally Posted by Westfall

It seems to be saving ok now - only one prefs.prop file. Would like to know what went wrong, and whether it's likely to happen again...

It happens to some people, but i don't know what triggers it, or if it happens again.
I've been trying to figure that out, but had no success so far.
If you have any information on what you did before the black screen issue occured, it might help to narrow it down.
That means things like: Did you play through from episode one in one sitting until the error occured, or did you exit the game in between once or multiple times. Did you do anything else other than playing the game before it occurred, like changing in-game settings or whatever you might think of.

The more detailed, the better.

[Simsalabing]

DjNDB: Here it is:

Stefans-MacBook-Pro:~ stefanmoredal$ find ~ -name prefs.prop |pbcopy
find: /Users/stefanmoredal/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.javajdk16.cmd.savedState: Permission denied
find: /Users/stefanmoredal/Library/Saved Application State/com.blizzard.diablo3.savedState: Permission denied
find: /Users/stefanmoredal/Library/Saved Application State/net.battle.client.savedState: Permission denied

[Simsalabing]

/Users/stefanmoredal/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/The Walking Dead/TheWalkingDead.app/Contents/Resources/Pack/default/prefs.prop
/Users/stefanmoredal/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/The Walking Dead/TheWalkingDead.app/Contents/Resources/Pack/WalkingDead102/prefs.prop
/Users/stefanmoredal/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/The Walking Dead/TheWalkingDead.app/Contents/Resources/Pack/WalkingDead103/prefs.prop
/Users/stefanmoredal/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/The Walking Dead/TheWalkingDead.app/Contents/Resources/Pack/WalkingDead105/prefs.prop
/Users/stefanmoredal/Library/Application Support/Telltale Games/TheWalkingDead/prefs.prop

[Simsalabing]

Assuming I have the same problem as the user above, I tried your advice given in the post I reply to here. When I attempt to move the save files to the desktop for safekeeping though, nothing happens - nothing is moved?

[Simsalabing]

Except for a small file called 'prefs.prop' then. But not save game files.

[DjNDB]

Originally Posted by Simsalabing

/Users/stefanmoredal/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/The Walking Dead/TheWalkingDead.app/Contents/Resources/Pack/default/prefs.prop
/Users/stefanmoredal/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/The Walking Dead/TheWalkingDead.app/Contents/Resources/Pack/WalkingDead102/prefs.prop
/Users/stefanmoredal/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/The Walking Dead/TheWalkingDead.app/Contents/Resources/Pack/WalkingDead103/prefs.prop
/Users/stefanmoredal/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/The Walking Dead/TheWalkingDead.app/Contents/Resources/Pack/WalkingDead105/prefs.prop
/Users/stefanmoredal/Library/Application Support/Telltale Games/TheWalkingDead/prefs.prop

Originally Posted by Simsalabing

Assuming I have the same problem as the user above, I tried your advice given in the post I reply to here. When I attempt to move the save files to the desktop for safekeeping though, nothing happens - nothing is moved?

Your case is different. The solution above was tailored to the specific result of the user before.

You on the other hand have prefs.prop files all over the place. That makes it way more complicated.


We have to find out which of the prefs.prop files is the correct one.
First of all, they must not remain in the TheWalkingDead.app as they are.
The best way of dealing with it, is renaming them, so the game doesn't find them. That 'll be less confusing than moving them to multiple places.

Here's a command line that renames all prefs.prop in TheWalkingDead.app to prefs.prop.old:

find ~/Library/Application\ Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/The\ Walking\ Dead/TheWalkingDead.app/ -regex .*prefs.prop.* -exec mv {} {}.old \;

This new command line i just developed lists prefs.prop files, their size and their date. That should help us decide which one to work with:

find ~ -regex .*prefs.prop.* -exec ls -lah {} \; |pbcopy

Again this will copy the result to the clipboard automatically. Please paste it into a reply.
Then I'll tell you what you can try to most likely succeed.

[Simsalabing]

This is what happens when I enter the first text into Terminal;


find: /Users/stefanmoredal/Library/Application: No such file or directory
find: Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/The: No such file or directory
find: Walking: No such file or directory
find: Dead/TheWalkingDead.app/: No such file or directory
Stefans-MacBook-Pro:~ stefanmoredal$

I checked the directories and all said folders and files exists? That's strange.

[DjNDB]

Originally Posted by Simsalabing

This is what happens when I enter the first text into Terminal;


find: /Users/stefanmoredal/Library/Application: No such file or directory
find: Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/The: No such file or directory
find: Walking: No such file or directory
find: Dead/TheWalkingDead.app/: No such file or directory
Stefans-MacBook-Pro:~ stefanmoredal$

I checked the directories and all said folders and files exists? That's strange.

It's an issue with spaces in the folder names. I'm looking into it right now.
EDIT: Fixed. Please try again with the updated command line.

[Simsalabing]

-rw-r--r-- 1 stefanmoredal staff 60K Feb 7 13:29 /Users/stefanmoredal/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/The Walking Dead/TheWalkingDead.app/Contents/Resources/Pack/WalkingDead102/prefs.prop.old.old.old
-rw-r--r-- 1 stefanmoredal staff 39K Feb 5 14:30 /Users/stefanmoredal/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/The Walking Dead/TheWalkingDead.app/Contents/Resources/Pack/WalkingDead103/prefs.prop.old.old.old
-rw-r--r-- 1 stefanmoredal staff 49K Jan 19 13:44 /Users/stefanmoredal/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/The Walking Dead/TheWalkingDead.app/Contents/Resources/Pack/WalkingDead105/prefs.prop.old.old.old
-rw-r--r-- 1 stefanmoredal staff 52K Feb 7 13:29 /Users/stefanmoredal/Library/Application Support/Telltale Games/TheWalkingDead/prefs.prop
-rw-r--r-- 1 stefanmoredal staff 53K Jan 29 00:01 /Users/stefanmoredal/Library/Application Support/Telltale Games/TheWalkingDead/prefs.prop.orig

[Simsalabing]

DjNDB: There it is. I only got input back from the terminal after entering the second command, nothing seemed to happen after the first - although it probably may have without any input signifying it.

BTW: Thank you so much for you excellent help so far.

[DjNDB]

Originally Posted by Simsalabing

DjNDB: There it is. I only got input back from the terminal after entering the second command, nothing seemed to happen after the first - although it probably may have without any input signifying it.

BTW: Thank you so much for you excellent help so far.

Oh, i should have mentioned that. The first one doesn't output anything unless something goes wrong.
I can tell by the file names that you ran it 3 times, but that's no problem.

Okay, i have identified the latest and biggest prefs.prop
try this. No output should show up.

mv /Users/stefanmoredal/Library/Application\ Support/Telltale\ Games/TheWalkingDead/prefs.prop /Users/stefanmoredal/Library/Application\ Support/Telltale\ Games/TheWalkingDead/prefs.prop.sg

mv /Users/stefanmoredal/Library/Application\ Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/The\ Walking\ Dead/TheWalkingDead.app/Contents/Resources/Pack/WalkingDead102/prefs.prop.old.old.old /Users/stefanmoredal/Library/Application\ Support/Telltale\ Games/TheWalkingDead/prefs.prop

Then run the game and test if it works.

[Simsalabing]

I just ran the game, and it works! I could start the game (still just episode 2 though; if episode 3 will work remains to be seen) and it also saved when I exited the game into Steam.

The save game file that I used before is not the same though; I'm set back, earlier in the game, but not too far, just an episode.

Anything one can do to ensure it won't happen again?