ManiaPlanet doesn't start

[neonblitzer]

Hi!

I bought TrackMania 2 Stadium today from ManiaPlanet. The ManiaPlanet client starts fine and I can log in. After the required update, however, the program can never start again. More precisely, after clicking "Play" in the launcher, a window appears for a split second but nothing happens. No process remains.

Reinstalling and running it while disconnected from the internet and in offline mode the game seems to work. As soon as I try to start the program with internet connection it force-updates and subsequently breaks.

The LogCrash file is here: http://pastebin.com/n3wUnyDz
The reason for the crash seems to be "Win32 Exception : Access violation, The thread tried to read from the invalid address (data) 0x000001F8".

Things I have tried:
- graphics safe mode, windowed mode
- downloading the installation package directly and via the download helper program
- default and custom installation directories
- turning off anti-virus and firewall completely
- using the launcher and maniaplanet.exe
- using a maniaplanet URI scheme link to launch ManiaPlanet

On Win 7 64-bit, Radeon R9 270X, 4 GB memory

[neonblitzer]

I tried the debug executable from here: https://forum.maniaplanet.com/viewtopic ... 72#p220416
I thought that because it was an older build it might work, and indeed it does. The ManiaPlanet client starts. Everything works fine. Am I good using this build? Will I miss anything?

[TMarc]

It is not an older build, it is the debug version.
It has exactly the same functionality regarding the game, but might be slower - because of the debug code.

I'm not sure if the debug version does the same updates,
but I'm pretty sure (it was so in most similar cases!) that your antivirus or Defender has blocked the regular Maniaplanet.exe.
You might need to check that really carefully again.

[Miss]

To answer the question about the debug version, to my knowledge it's uptodate with the current public version.

[neonblitzer]

Thanks for your replies. Good to know that the debug build is up-to-date!

The symptoms really do look like it's blocked by AV and that's why I investigated it first. I'm using Comodo Internet Security and ManiaPlanet.exe is on all whitelists (ignored by sandbox, allowed by firewall, on trusted files list) and all components of CIS are turned off, and it still won't launch. I also can't find anything in log files. It's possible that it's still blocked by something but I'm not sure how I'd investigate it. The debug build worked right out of the box.

[nighthawk4571]

I know you've tried running MP in safe graphics mode but I wonder if your Radeon R9 270X driver is up-to-date AND configured correctly in the game launcher. People have had issues with this affecting games, so worth checking.

When you first started the game, did it offer to run a bench test?

Cheers

[neonblitzer]

When I started the game right after installation, it ran the benchmark successfully. After updating (which has to be done to do anything) the launcher tries to run the benchmark again, but fails and says the following:
Could not retrieve your graphic device performance. Automatic graphic quality may be inadequate.

Replacing ManiaPlanet.exe with the debug build allows the benchmark to run (as well as the game). It really seems like a problem in the release build of ManiaPlanet.exe. It also seems that there are other differences between the release and debug builds than logging (which is a bit weird).

I updated the drivers and tried many different combinations of settings. Disabled audio, changed input and network settings and tried offline. Nothing changed: the window flashes on screen and the crash log shows an illegal memory read. The display adapter is recognized correctly by the launcher.

[TMarc]

Try the following: rename Maniaplanet.exe to Maniaplanet_org.exe and copy Maniaplanet_Logs.exe to Maniaplanet.exe.
Now start Maniaplanet.exe... what happens? Does it run or not?

[neonblitzer]

Try the following: rename Maniaplanet.exe to Maniaplanet_org.exe and copy Maniaplanet_Logs.exe to Maniaplanet.exe.
Now start Maniaplanet.exe... what happens? Does it run or not?

That's exactly what I did in my last post:

Replacing ManiaPlanet.exe with the debug build allows the benchmark to run (as well as the game).

The launcher calls the file named ManiaPlanet.exe for the benchmark and, obviously, for starting the game. The debug build – started either directly or via launcher – works while the release build just crashes as soon as it's started. It's gotta be some weird incompatibility with my hardware, or software on my computer blocking it, because the normal exe is working fine with most people.

(Sorry for the late reply!)