Troubleshooting Startup issues

Last modified by Ketraar on 2023/08/15 16:20

Introduction

The causes for the game not starting are as multi fold as are the actual situations players mean when reporting that X Rebirth doesn't start.

The range for what the actual symptom for different players are range from clicking the exe and nothing visual happens to the game actually starting but loading a savegame then crashes the game. All of these things are, depending on the player, reported with a simple statement as in "The game doesn't start".

This should point out how important it is to be specific with what exactly the symptoms are when you are looking for help with your game not starting.

Common solutions

The following section covers a couple of common solutions which could resolve the problem for you.

Verify the game files

In a lot of cases where you have startup problems the issue is due to some corrupted or missing game files. In order to validate the game files are correct follow these steps:

Steam

  1. In Steam go to the "Library" section and select "X Rebirth".
  2. Right-click on "X Rebirth" and select "Properties".
  3. Click on "Local Files" and "Verify Integrity of game cache".
  4. Once the verification is finished, restart your computer and try to start the game again.

GOG

  1. In GOG select "X Rebirth".
  2. Click on More -> Manage Installation -> Verify & Repair...
  3. Click on Verify Game
  4. Once the verification is finished, restart your computer and try to start the game again.

Game won't work on a 32-bit OS

X Rebirth can only run on a 64-bit OS.

Up to version 2.51 X Rebirth could actually start on a 32-bit OS, even though this was never supported. For those players who relied on this unsupported scenario, Egosoft provides a legacy version of X Rebirth, so player can continue to play X Rebirth 2.51 on a 32-bit OS.

To enable this go to the Betas tab of X Rebirth in Steam and select: "legacy - 2.51 (32-bit)". Please be aware that none of the extensions will work, since these require at least version 3.0 (for The Teladi Outpost) or 4.0 (for Home of Light).

If you have a 64-bit CPU, we certainly urge you to upgrade your OS. Not only would you be stuck with a rather outdated X Rebirth version, but you are also wasting a lot of the system resources which the OS could utilize if it was a 64-bit OS.

Specific solutions

There are specific solutions for specific startup problems. But bare in mind that these only resolve the startup problem if you are exactly suffering this specific issue. Please confirm that the described symptoms match exactly what you are experiencing. Otherwise they could do more harm than good for you.