Updated ➟ DCS = Black screen :(

[CodeToad]

Asking for advice:

 

after updating my DCS (after a longish break) to

2 9 16 18 updater

2.5.5 dcs

on windows 10, latest NVidia drivers

 

everything *else* seems to work fine, ie windows, other apps etc. but on starting DCS, I get the logo screen to pop up and after that it is just a black screen, not the typical main app screen w the modules list below etc. No network or disk or CPU activity out of the ordinary, DCS is just "sitting there" in the dark.

 

I have restarted, renamed my "Saved Games" folder to see whether some incompatible preferences / configs caused this, but nothing seems to help.

 

Can anybody suggest how I debug this further (short of a complete reinstall which given how many modules I have may take a week of downloading....)

 

Thanks in advance !

[Rudel_chw]

Can anybody suggest how I debug this further

 

 

you may take a look into the dcs.log, to gather more clues.

[hornblower793]

It might be worth trying a repair

 

Also, do you use any addons such as Voiceattack / Vaicom?

 

Sent from my SM-T835 using Tapatalk

[LTRMcrew]

It might be worth trying a repair

 

Also, do you use any addons such as Voiceattack / Vaicom?

 

Sent from my SM-T835 using Tapatalk

 

try the repair for sure, doesn't take very long.

 

Also, make sure to empty out the shader folders.

 

And keep trying... sometimes I need to close the app on task managers several times to get it to start properly.

[BIGNEWY]

please attach your dcs log it should give us some clues

 

 

 

thanks

[Aeger]

Same exact issue. I start up DCS, it displays the launcher, then maximizes and goes into a black screen. Happening even after a full reinstall of the game. CPU appears to be doing nothing. It's like the main menu loaded but I can't see it. Version: 2.5.6.47404, Nvidia Drivers 445.87.

 

 

Attached log.

dcs.txt

[CodeToad]

Hey all - thanks for your ideas !

 

Unfortunately the log file (also attached to this post) was not much use, seems pretty ok - except one line:

UIBASERENDERER: Cannot load font [C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World\dxgui\skins\fonts\]!

That directory exists, and fonts are in there and they are readable as far as I can tell. Not sure that alone would keep the screen black...

I did notice that Aeger in his post describing the same problem has the same font error - can someone check whether their successful boot log has this error also ? If not, perhaps thats the place to dig deeper next...

 

Second, I ran the repair and no weirdness reported. Current versions:

installed version 2.5.5.41371.1

DCS updater 2.9.16.18

 

I have no mods running (also told repair it could remove any if it found any). Tacview 1.8.2 is installed though. Log file says it successfully loaded the Tacview files.

 

GPU is a NVidia GTX 1080Ti driver 445.87 (4/15/2020)

 

Like Aeger said in his post, Task Manager reports low CPU/GPU/Memory once DCS is loaded and displaying black, suggesting maybe it is just in the main menu, not unsuccessfully trying to do any heavy lifting. snap attached

dcs.log.txt

[SkateZilla]

Rename Saved Games/Config/Options.lua

[CodeToad]

SkateZilla: SOLVED thank you

 

Turns out VR mode was turned on but I wasnt using the Oculus Rift (which itself still needs some debugging) I must have had VR mode turned on in DCS previously. My bad !

 

Thank you and hopefully that solves Aegers issue too !

[Aeger]

I tried wiping out my options (actually I wiped my profile) and the issue returned. For some reason these "false starts" are not consistent and happen maybe 50% of the time. So far after disabling fullscreen I haven't been able to repro it, however it's odd to me that disabling full screen has no noticeable effect -- I'd assume it'd become windowed, which leaves me to believe something there isn't working?

 

Anyway I've disabled VR as well as I'm not using it. I wish I had more data to provide on this issue.

[Aeger]

I've re-enabled VR and full screen mode to see if I can reproduce the issue and I can't :wallbash:

[BIGNEWY]

I've re-enabled VR and full screen mode to see if I can reproduce the issue and I can't :wallbash:

 

Computers can be strange sometimes, hopefully your issue is resolved

 

thanks

Edited April 28, 2020 by BIGNEWY

[hornblower793]

however it's odd to me that disabling full screen has no noticeable effect -- I'd assume it'd become windowed, which leaves me to believe something there isn't working?

 

Other apps I have can be fullscreen or frameless window in addition to a classic window. Frameless looks exactly like full screen if sized to the screen resolution

 

Sent from my SM-T835 using Tapatalk

[Akula]

Well this is interesting.. I'm having the same issue and I've never used VR (trackir ATM). So I went to VR and "Enable VR" was NOT checked so I proceeded to uncheck everything in that category. Pressed OK and DCS did a restart... OK...Weird?

Back in DCS and I disabled fullscreen and DCS did a restart. That seems normal.

 

My question here is; If VR was never enabled, why would DCS need to restart after unchecking all the boxes for VR? This leads me to believe that traces of VR functionality remain enabled even when the parent check box is unchecked.

I haven't checked to see if the black screens in flight come back but I'll report on it either way after testing.