init.lua errors for latest stable and beta 4 releases

[humanspida]

Short description of the issue

After installing skin, restarting Rainmeter, loading the skin, opening settings and making changes to the size and number of frames to display, then inputting the Steam client path... my Steam username is automatically added at this point. No other settings changed. No other platforms or windows shortcuts are enabled for the skin, only Steam.
After saving and closing the settings - then refreshing, the skin throws an init.lua error and goes no further.

Expected behaviour was to load all the Steam games, which obviously didn't happen.

Lauhdutin version

Old Version 3.0.4 (with large grey settings window) - stopped working on 11 Sept' 2021, removed for latest stable

Version 3.0.4 (latest stable release) - didn't work, threw an error - provided below

Version 3.1.0 beta 4 - also didn't work, threw same error as stable, provided below

Rainmeter version

Version 4.5 (latest from website)

Python version

Version 3.9

Windows version

Windows 10 Pro 21H1 - Build 19043.1165

Error messages

Version 3.0.4 (old grey settings window) - only said "processing", no other details.

Version 3.0.4 (latest stable release) - init.lua:189: attempt to call method 'endsWith' (a nil value)

Version 3.1.0 beta 4 - init.lua:188: attempt to call method 'endsWith' (a nil value)

Steps to reproduce the issue

Not sure what's causing the issue to be honest. I only know from those init.lua errors that it's not finding what it wants in whichever lua file it's looking in and kacks itself when the information isn't present.
If it cant find the games that probably just means it doesn't know where my games are because they're not in the default location. Strange, this wans't an issue before.

Steam client is in the default location of C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam
Non-game programs from Steam are stored in the default location

Games are stored on a separate drive with the location of D:\Steam\Steamapps\Common
This hasn't changed in years.

I see no way to add another steam location to the skin settings anywhere though... How would I add an alternative location?

Not using community profile parsing, have it disabled.
Steam profile is all set to public anyway.

[humanspida]

Some added information that might help that I noticed was asked for on another, near 3 year old issue thread for games not displaying:

Have tried removing the \documents\Rainmeter\Skins\Lauhdutin@Resources\cache folder and refreshing skin / reloading Rainmeter.
Unsure if this is what fixed the init.lua error for the beta 4 release or not. Games still not displaying though obviously.

There are appmanifest files in the C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steamapps folder - but only for the 3 programs that are installed in that location.

There are also appmanifest files in the D:\Steam\Steamapps folder - which would be for the games themselves as those are stored on that drive, separately from the non-game steamapps in the default location.

I don't think renaming the appmanifest files is necessary as everything worked fine up till today without having to do that ever in the past.

games.json is empty aside from a single string:
{"games":[],"version":2,"tagsDictionary":[]}

[Nathipha]

Getting the same error. There was a big-ish Steam update yesterday (download queue looks different) and I'm worried that they changed something that the skin relies on. :/
I did also add a couple of non-Steam shortcuts myself but those don't show up either, unless I close the skin through Rainmeter, then open it again.

[humanspida]

Yes, now that you mention it, I remember opening the Steam client and seeing that the whole layout / look had changed rather dramatically and that's a recent change.
It's entirely possible that they have changed how certain data is processed and accessed now.

Hopefully the skins most talented author can provide some tips on how to fix this or if that's not something we can do - update the skin to fix it for us from that end.

[BanCrash]

What Steam version do you have? @humanspida @Nathipha

I tried a fresh install of Lauhdutin and I'm not getting any issue of getting all my steam games (both installed and uninstalled) with the last Lauhdutin beta.

I have this steam version:

EDIT: also not having any kind of issue in my used version.

EDIT2:

Only Steam selected on the fresh install, as you stated. This is what I get.

[humanspida]

I have same version of Steam, literally identical.

I get black bar with the words 'No games to show' on the left side

[BanCrash]

I have same version of Steam, literally identical.

I get black bar with the words 'No games to show' on the left side

Could you open filter.ini and check what do you get? I am interested on the "hidden games" part. Maybe your issue is that your games are detected as hidden games?

[Nathipha]

Yes, that's my Steam version too. Lauhdutin is version 3.1.0 beta 4.
I did hide a bunch of Steam games, checking the ini in a second.

Edit: My Filter.ini hasn't been edited since 2018 (according to Windows' file explorer) and I'm not sure what to look for tbh (there's not "hidden games" part).

[humanspida]

oh wait... i clicked detect games and it spat the init.lua error at me again so I dont think opening the filter .ini is going to give me anything to work with...

That said... the filter.ini does have a line that points to an init.lua file and thats the error im getting init.lua:188: attempt to call method 'endsWith' (a nil value)

I ran the .ini file and cleared all filters, nothing. thats when I tried to detect games and got the init.lua error again

[BanCrash]

Sorry guys, you misunderstood me. I mean to open the Filter skin, you can also do it on the toolbar.

I mean, this:

and check if your games are being detected as "hidden games"

[humanspida]

no filters in play

only poxy init.lua:188: attempt to call method 'endsWith' (a nil value)

which would perhaps help... IF IT TOLD ME which bloody init.lua file it was because theres more than one init.lua and they're in different folders

What that DOES tell me is that on line 188 is where the issue is - obviously not finding the data it wants there

[Nathipha]

Oh sorry. The filter doesn't display anything, it just says "Filter" and the bottom part is empty. I tried to scroll down and the filter window displayed a different error:
Error: init.lua:804: attempt to compare nil with number

@BanCrash Btw, thanks for looking into this! Sorry, I didn't see your last message in the other thread about looking at stuff.

@humanspida Before this error started appearing I kept getting a different lua error every time I started up my PC and I had to do "Reload Games" every time to actually display any games.

[humanspida]

same behaviour with my filter window if i launch it now i have the init.lua error on the bar

[BanCrash]

no filters in play

only poxy init.lua:188: attempt to call method 'endsWith' (a nil value)

which would perhaps help... IF IT TOLD ME which bloody init.lua file it was because theres more than one init.lua and they're in different folders

What that DOES tell me is that on line 188 is where the issue is - obviously not finding the data it wants there

Here you go, checking with notepad is easy to check what line is getting you the error:

This is part of the getLibraries function of Steam:

So yeah, there seems to be some kind of error with Steam in your case. Odd...

Let me think about it a little and see if I can think of something to test if we can know what is not working.

EDIT: The file is Lauhdutin@Resources\main\platforms\steam\init.lua

[humanspida]

thanks for pinpointing the specific init.lua file, at least that's some small step farward... we know what file is kicking the error out and where it is now.

[BanCrash]

Ok @Nathipha @humanspida , let's try this little change:

if value and value:endsWith('\\') then

on the line 188 of the file that I pointed before.

EDIT: Be carerul, Github removes one of the backlash! now it's fixed

[humanspida]

same init.lua error
if you exit rainmeter and restart it says 'no games to show' but when you click detect it throws that line 188 error again

[BanCrash]

same init.lua error

Yeah, I didn't think about it enough. I will take more time xD

[humanspida]

that whole getLibraries function starts at line 175
could there be an issue earlier in that section that causes the line 188 to not get what it needs?

my D:\Steam\Steamapps\libraryfolders.vdf has plenty of entries

[BanCrash]

I think the issue is that there is not getting the rainmeter_helpers on that function for some reason.

Just to check if I'm right, could you add this on line 176 and see if this solves the issue?
dofile(('%s%s'):format(STATE.PATHS.RESOURCES, 'lib\\rainmeter_helpers.lua'))

Please understand that since I can't replicate the bug all I'm saying it's for testing since I don't have a way to check if it works.

[humanspida]

so add that on line 176 BEFORE what is currently on that line? pushing whats currently on that line down one line, yes ?

[BanCrash]

so add that on line 176 BEFORE what is currently on that line? pushing whats currently on that line down one line, yes ?

That's correct:

[humanspida]

i get the error moved to line 189 now which makes sense since everythings moved down one line

heres a screenie of that section of my init.lua file

[BanCrash]

i get the error moved to line 189 now which makes sense since everythings moved down one line

Do you know if that file stores any kind of personal information? If no, could you paste here one line of that file? I mean, libraryfolders.vdf file. I don't know how to debug this since I can't replicate the bug.

[humanspida]

the librayfolders.vdf just names content folders by their number ID and links the appmanifest file to it it seems
EG: appmanifest 400 is a file in the steamapps folder

[BanCrash]

Since you don't have any trouble showing it, could you upload the file here then? So I can replace mine and check what it's going on.

[humanspida]

which file you want?
my init.lua from main\platforms?

or you want the libraryfolders.vdf ?
I dont think the vdf will be any use to you coz it just tells my steam client whats in the folders and which appmanifest goes with which folder / game...without the associated folders its not a lot of use, just junk data, no?

[BanCrash]

which file you want?
my init.lua from main\platforms?

or you want the libraryfolders.vdf ?
I dont think the vdf will be any use to you coz it just tells my steam client whats in the folders and which appmanifest goes with which folder / game...without the associated folders its not a lot of use, just junk data, no?

libraryfolders.vdf it's the file that are making you to have that error. If you send me that file, I should be able to replicate the bug (at least I think so checking the code).

[humanspida]

So, probably should block out one piece of data on that VDF - the contentstatsid which I've seen replaced with many X's on other threads so I'll redact it and re-add it shortly... Probably shouldn't send it to anyone either.

For a little test, I yanked the VDF file out of its home in the Steam folder in the default location and restarted steam. As you would expect, Steam recreated the VDF when it opened.
It's identical to the original, games launch fine and are recognised as installed in steam library window.

This leads me to believe that the format of the VDF has changed or there's something off about the way the skin accesses the information in the VDF

This thread mentions differences in the VDF structure usage for another game:
https://playnite.link/forum/thread-705-post-4836.html

This thread also speaks of the format change:
https://www.reddit.com/r/LogitechG/comments/oujeo9/update_broke_game_detection/

There's also this, that talks about changes to the VDF and how they broke a bunch of shit with it:
https://githubmemory.com/repo/LostDragonist/steam-library-setup-tool/issues

[humanspida]

OK...
Based on the information in those threads I provided just above. I decided to do a bit more testing.
I managed to PARTIALLY fix the behaviour and make the skin detect games again and start downloading banners by reverting to the OLD format for the VDF file, which looks like this in my case:

"LibraryFolders"
{
"ContentStatsID" "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"
"1" "D:\Steam"
}

The problen now is that it thinks Steam isn't running for some reason and when you click a game tile it crashes the skin...
AND also that Steam just overwrites the VDF file with the new version format whenever it feels like it - usually on start/restart.

[BanCrash]

Ok, since you cant send me the file, could you tell me how I can generate it? Mine is empty (well, only one line but unrelated I think)

[BanCrash]

I did because when I added that block of replacement code I botched it the first time.
Probably not necessary to completely replace the entire folder if you dont botch the code paste.

Yep, shouldn't be necessary.

@Nathipha I will make (maybe tomorrow) a PR to this repository if you prefer to wait, though since it won't be merged you will have to download the file manually and replace it, but maybe it's better to you than to manually modify the file.

@humanspida the fix for steam not running:

In the same file (Lauhdutin@Resources\main\platforms\steam\init.lua), go to line 589 and replace this original line: self.platformProcess = 'Steam.exe' with this: self.platformProcess = 'steam.exe'

I will include this change also on that PR.

[humanspida]

That line of code for me is on line 590 for whatever reason now.... and that's all it is - a simple switch from an upper case S to a lowercase one.
Thats excellent, who doesn't like a beautifully simple fix every once in a while.

Thanks very much

[humanspida]

Is it possible to have the sort options persist across restarts?... I like to have my display sorted by most recently played usually.

[BanCrash]

Is it possible to have the sort options persist across restarts?... I like to have my display sorted by most recently played usually.

Not with the actual version. Again IIRC I also added that change on my own version, but can't confirm now. Until I check that, you can see if my answer to this issue solves your issue at the moment: #153

[humanspida]

Perfect... Another wonderfully simple fix:
Open settings.json in notepad, replace a 1 with a 2 - save, close and refresh

Cheers pal

[humanspida]

Now there's just that last thing with the Game.ini causing that error on open unless someone finds something else that doesn't work:

init.lua:926: attempt to index field 'GAME_BEING_MODIFIED' (a nil value)

As mentioned a few comments ago, this section of code starts at line 905 in the "moon file", as you called it earlier, which is stashed in the resources\game folder.
Not sure what I'm looking at there but that whole block deals with tags and states - that's all I can glean from inspecting it, not having a greater understanding of this stuff.

While not important to me, I'm sure there's people that will want to use that feature.

[BanCrash]

Now there's just that last thing with the Game.ini causing that error on open unless someone finds something else that doesn't work:

init.lua:926: attempt to index field 'GAME_BEING_MODIFIED' (a nil value)

As mentioned a few comments ago, this section of code starts at line 905 in the "moon file", as you called it earlier, which is stashed in the resources\game folder.
Not sure what I'm looking at there but that whole block deals with tags and states - that's all I can glean from inspecting it, not having a greater understanding of this stuff.

While not important to me, I'm sure there's people that will want to use that feature.

Could you put your steps to get that error? Middleclicking a game to open the menu it's working fine to me

[humanspida]

Doesn't seem to matter which game tile I right click on - select Game from the lauhdutin expandable menu and launch Game.ini
This then kicks up the aforementioned init.lua:926 error. It's not fatal however, just close the Game.ini window and refresh the skin to revert to its previous state.

Middle click also seems to work fine for me. It's only the right click and "manual" launch of the Game.ini that throws an error at me

[Nathipha]

@BanCrash
Thanks, that would be great! :)

Did you guys happen to ever come across the Error: rainmeter_helpers.lua:135: Failed to read "F:\games\steam\steamapps\appmanifest_xxxxxx.acf". error too (I posted an issue a while ago)?

[BanCrash]

Doesn't seem to matter which game tile I right click on - select Game from the lauhdutin expandable menu and launch Game.ini
This then kicks up the aforementioned init.lua:926 error. It's not fatal however, just close the Game.ini window and refresh the skin to revert to its previous state

That seems to be the error. You have to click the wheel mouse hovering the game to launch the game.ini. Right clicking won't work.

[humanspida]

I haven't come across that error myself, no.

Interesting, I wonder why it hates the right click and manual opening of the Game.ini

[BanCrash]

@BanCrash
Thanks, that would be great! :)

Did you guys happen to ever come across the Error: rainmeter_helpers.lua:135: Failed to read "F:\games\steam\steamapps\appmanifest_xxxxxx.acf". error too (I posted an issue a while ago)?

I've never had such issue. Not a clue atm, I'll check tomorrow to see if I find something

[humanspida]

Thanks again for your help with sorting through these bits today, much appreciated.

[BanCrash]

Thanks again for your help with sorting through these bits today, much appreciated.

No problem! Glad to help. Did you check my previous post about your game.ini issue?

I mean, this: That seems to be the error. You have to click the wheel mouse hovering the game to launch the game.ini. Right clicking won't work.

[humanspida]

Yea I did, and middle clicking works as you would expect. So, im just gonna ignore the right click menu for launching the game.ini file.
Might be a good idea to remove that expandable menu all together and just put some little info nugget in the settings telling people to middle click for the game.ini window.

On the appmanifest error:
Pretty sure those files link to the content folders - if you open a libraryfolders.vdf (found in the steamapps folder at the default location) in notepad you will see a pair of numbers on each entry line. Assuming you have a Steam library in a non default location with things installed to it.
The first number is the number of the appmanifest file and the second number is for a content folder like a game or whatever - if you crack open one of those appmanifest files in notepad it will show you a bunch of info and data for the program/game it points to

[BanCrash]

Yea I did, and middle clicking works as you would expect. So, im just gonna ignore the right click menu for launching the game.ini file.
Might be a good idea to remove that expandable menu all together and just put some little info nugget in the settings telling people to middle click for the game.ini window.

That's a Rainmeter feature, skins can't do anything about that.

Besides, this project seems to be abandoned at the moment, so...

[humanspida]

Gotcha, well I shall continue to ignore the right click game.ini as there's a working alternative that's faster in place.
We're lucky to have folks like you still doin' bits and providing support for us.

[BanCrash]

@Nathipha @humanspida check this PR: #166

@humanspida I suggest you to update the file with the modified one since I updated the system to get it more precisely ;)

[humanspida]

Have downloaded the files from my master now I've merged the quick fixes into it.
I backed up the updated skin files from yesterday and moved them out of the Lauhdutin skin folder - replacing them with the files I downloaded.

On loading the skin theres a rainmeter_helpers error:

rainmeter_helpers.lua:152: Failed to write to "C:\Users...\Documents\Rainmeter\Skins\Lauhdutin\Resources\Languages\English.txt".

This same error appears over the settings window if you launch that as well.
Having looked in the @Resources folder - there is no languages folder and obviously no english.txt which is why it cant write to it

[BanCrash]

Have downloaded the files from my master now I've merged the quick fixes into it.
I backed up the updated skin files from yesterday and moved them out of the Lauhdutin skin folder - replacing them with the files I downloaded.

On loading the skin theres a rainmeter_helpers error:

rainmeter_helpers.lua:152: Failed to write to "C:\Users...\Documents\Rainmeter\Skins\Lauhdutin@Resources\Languages\English.txt".

This same error appears over the settings window if you launch that as well

Yes, it's expected. The dist folder doesn't contain all the necessary files. You have to get the last beta folder and then replace the new branch files on it.

[humanspida]

Ahh so pull specific files out of the dist folders to replace them individually. That makes sense now you say it.

Nice and easy - deleted the skin folder I replaced and restored the backup I made a moment ago. Then grabbed the Steam init.lua file and replaced the one from yesterday with the one I downloaded with all the commits added into it.
Back to working as it's meant to again.

[Nathipha]

Did you guys happen to ever come across the Error: rainmeter_helpers.lua:135: Failed to read "F:\games\steam\steamapps\appmanifest_xxxxxx.acf". error too (I posted an issue a while ago)?

After more than two years the error is back unfortunately, this time with id 219740, which is Don't Starve according to google. The game is still installed but the file is indeed missing. Any idea how to fix this (@BanCrash )?

[humanspida]

Did you guys happen to ever come across the Error: rainmeter_helpers.lua:135: Failed to read "F:\games\steam\steamapps\appmanifest_xxxxxx.acf". error too (I posted an issue a while ago)?

After more than two years the error is back unfortunately, this time with id 219740, which is Don't Starve according to google. The game is still installed but the file is indeed missing. Any idea how to fix this (@BanCrash )?

I forget exactly how I fixed this issue myself, I do remember it happening though...You can try moving the appmanifest file out of the folder to somewhere else temporarily, and restarting steam - it should recreate the appmanifest file if im not mistaken.
If that solves the issue you can just delete the old appmanifest file and go about your business.

[Nathipha]

I forget exactly how I fixed this issue myself, I do remember it happening though...You can try moving the appmanifest file out of the folder to somewhere else temporarily, and restarting steam - it should recreate the appmanifest file if im not mistaken. If that solves the issue you can just delete the old appmanifest file and go about your business.

That's the thing: The file doesn't exist at that path because the game is installed on the other SSD (sorry, forgot that it's there), which is also where the actual appmanifest file is. The game starts just fine, already verified the files and I restart my PC and Steam every day. A bunch of other games are also installed on the other SSD and I was playing at least one of them a lot in the days before the error appeared.

[BanCrash]

Please note that I don't use anymore this skin and I don't test this solution, but well, since it's the best you'll have I guess it worth a shot. Please make a backup before testing this, just in case it destroys your already existent database.

Add In line 468 of dist/@Resources/main/platforms/steam/init.lua (I used as base my PR opened of quick fixes) this part of code without removing anything else:

if not io.fileExists(io.joinPaths(libraryPath, manifest), false) then
            log('Skipping Steam game', appID, 'because it does not have a manifest file')
            _continue_0 = true
            break
          end

Result show looks like this:

Test it and let me know if this fixes the issue. Also let me know if the game that has the issue is being detected properly.

[Nathipha]

@BanCrash
Thanks for your reply and the code!
I closed Rainmeter, added the code and ran "Detect Games". It's now showing the non-Steam games I added to my Steam library manually but unfortunately it didn't load any Steam games, from neither SSD (or the shortcuts I added to the "Shortcuts" folder).
The output.txt lists a bunch of "appmanifest" files though.
Is there an alternative to this skin that you're now using?

[BanCrash]

@BanCrash Thanks for your reply and the code! I closed Rainmeter, added the code and ran "Detect Games". It's now showing the non-Steam games I added to my Steam library manually but unfortunately it didn't load any Steam games, from neither SSD (or the shortcuts I added to the "Shortcuts" folder). The output.txt lists a bunch of "appmanifest" files though. Is there an alternative to this skin that you're now using?

Could you confirm that your Steam path is well set on your Lauhdutin settings ? I mean, if you have Steam installed on X: drive, confirm that in Lauhdutin settings your Steam path is on X: drive too.

I'm not using any Rainmeter skin any longer, but Playnite

[Nathipha]

Could you confirm that your Steam path is well set on your Lauhdutin settings ? I mean, if you have Steam installed on X: drive, confirm that in Lauhdutin settings your Steam path is on X: drive too.

Yes, in the "Steam" settings it's got the correct "Client path" (G:\games\Steam). This is a small SSD with the Steam install and only a handful of games, while the other SSD (F:) has got all the other games, including the one that apparently caused the error.

I'm not using any Rainmeter skin any longer, but Playnite

Thanks for the link. Is it possible to add some type of shortcut for multiple games to the desktop (like this skin) with that app?

[humanspida]

In your primary/default steam install location, under Steam\steamapps there should be a libraryfolders.vdf - and also in the secondary steam library folder there should be a libraryfolder.vdf file... is there a libraryfolder.vdf file in this secondary location?... if you open your libraryfolder.vdf from this secondary game install location in notepad, what does the format/layout look like?

I had to make changes regarding the libraryfolder.vdf file in this secondary location... with BanCrashs assistance, managed to get that sorted and that fix is detailed earlier in this thread - had to revert the libraryfolders.vdf data layout to the old way to get the skin to recognise that there were games to detect in that location.
The format/layout of the libraryfolder.vdf was preventing steam from being able to parse the infomation in the file and thus, couldnt recognise that there were games to detect and display.

Here's a link to a comment of mine in that section of this thread regarding the libraryfolder.vdf file and related changes needed at that time:
#165 (comment)

The contents of the libraryfolder.vdf file in my secondary install location looks like this now as steam has gone through a few updates since then and I guess they changed/fixed some things:

"libraryfolder"
{
"contentid" "your-content-ID-here"
"label" ""
"launcher" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steam.exe"
}

Note: github not repecting the indentation in that snippet.

The libraryfolders.vdf file in the primary install location should have some content that matches the data in the libraryfolder.vdf from the secondary install location as well as a few extra details, and list the appmanifest files located there for everything installed in this secondary location below the data for the primary install location.

Also, have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling the the game you think caused the issue... I think this should make steam replace the appmanifest file for that game. Maybe there was some small problem with the file.