Won't start on Linux anymore

[TheRealBecks]

I played Prison Architect since one or two years on Linux and it worked flawlessly. Now, one year later I can't start the game anymore. The Paradox Launcher starts, but the game crashes. I reinstalled the game, deleted all game folders, unsubscribed all mods, but nothing works. I added the debug.txt

 

[AndrewT]

Pretty clearly a problem in the audio area:

Initialising SDL Audio:
FATAL ERROR : Failed to open audio output device: "Audio target 'pulse' not available"

Here are a couple of cases of that error I found, one with this game one not - and remarkably both have solutions!

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/artic...r-it-running-on-linux.15038/comment_id=164891
https://www.gog.com/forum/thimblewe...ouldnt_open_audio_device_no_such_device/post4

I hope that helps you ... !

 

[TheRealBecks]

Hi AndrewT,

thanks for the links, I found this solution afterwards and this helped. But...

There are two different bugs that prevent the game to launch on most Linux systems, because they are using 'pulse' and not 'alsa'. That's what I found out:
1) Starting the game out of Steam: The variable 'SDL_AUDIODRIVER' is set to 'pulse', but the game can only start when it's set to 'alsa'. The developers need to set that value to 'alsa' to start the game - that fix is so easy that I can't understand why it's still not fixed? Users having this issue quite some time!

2) Starting the game via the built-in script: There is another workaround built-in to Prison Architect since the game has been released for Linux years ago, but it's broken:
In the game directory under 'steamapps/common/Prison Architect/' is a script named 'PrisonArchitect'. When I run that script the game still doesn't start because of the wrongly set SDL_AUDIODRIVER. Here's what's wrong in the script:

if [[ -z "$SDL_AUDIODRIVER" ]] ; then
    # Use alsa by default, as PulseAudio is crackly without some configuring
    # the daemon to use real-time scheduling.
    export SDL_AUDIODRIVER=alsa
fi

That code checks if the variable SDL_AUDIODRIVER is already set. If not, set it to 'alsa'. But that's not working on my system, because the variable is already set to 'pulse'. Because of the fact that the game can only run via alsa this whole code block can be replaced with:

export SDL_AUDIODRIVER=alsa

Then the error message is gone! But there's a new error afterwards:

[S_API FAIL] SteamAPI_Init() failed; no appID found.
Either launch the game from Steam, or put the file steam_appid.txt containing the correct appID in your game folder.
[SteamWrapper] SteamAPI is not initialised.
[SteamWrapper] Failed to launch game through Steam.

That fix is also easy:
Create a file names 'steam_appid.txt' in the folder 'steamapps/common/Prison Architect/' and put the app ID '233450' into that file and save it. Afterwards the game can be launched via the Script 'PrisonArchitect'. It's that easy!

Both fixes are easy as hell

@AndrewT Can you send my posting to the developers so they can fix both ways of starting the game? That would really help the Linux community that wants to play this great game!

Thanks in advance
Becks

 

[AndrewT]

Thank you very much for the detailed work and update!

I have now logged a new bug using all that information. I can't say when that will come out in a patch, but at least it's in the system now.

All the best!