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Game won't run from app

A topic by sarrowsmith created Jul 04, 2020 Views: 1,025 Replies: 7

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My project is in an early playtesting "Restricted" state, and I have authorised non-itch testers happily downloading it. However, when I install it myself using the app it won't run. Download is successful, but "Launch" does nothing (other than register that it's run the game). No errors on screen or in the logs. Checking the download ("Manage"->"Show in file manager") shows that everything's there, and in fact running directly from there works. Disabling sandbox running doesn't help. Other games are downloading and running.

(itch 25.4.0 running on Ubuntu, developing on Unity, uploading with butler 15.8.0.)

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Afloof.devModerator4 years ago

Have you got multiple executable files in the game’s folder? If you run Itch’s app from the console, do you get any errors there?

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sarrowsmith4 years ago

Running the app from the console is less helpful than examining the logs from within the app! However, I do have multiple executable files in the folder: there's also a little install script which sets up a .desktop file, and it turns out that itch is running that. Delete it, and "Launch" gives a choice of the right executable or the two Unity shared libraries sitting alongside it.

So, problem diagnosed, but how does the app decide which executable file to run, and is there any way to tell it what the right one is?

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Afloof.devModerator4 years ago

I’m not sure how the Itch app decides which file is the executable, but you can move all other files except the executable in the root folder, and hopefully Itch will recognise that as “the” executable?

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sarrowsmith4 years ago

Looks like the two Unity-packaged items the Itch app thinks are executables are irrelevant, although as I can't find any documentation on what they are I can't be certain! I can certainly fiddle things so my install script is either not in the way or runs the executable if called by the Itch app. So one way or another it can be fixed. Thank you!

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mid4 years ago

Excuse me if I’m tired and have missed you saying this, but have you considered using app manifests to tell the app which executable to run?

https://itch.io/docs/itch/integrating/manifest.html

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sarrowsmith4 years ago

That's exactly what I was looking for, thank you!

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mid4 years ago

I’ve had a derp, though. It says that using it “because the app launches the wrong thing” is a bad reason to use it.

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