[BUG] Half-Life: Alyx - Crash when transitioning outside after the first floating card boxes

[michael-nischt]

Describe the bug
Half-Life: Alyx repeatedly crashes when transitioning outside after the first floating card boxes (see screenshot). Therefore preventing progressing any further in the game. (It's actually the first time the game crashes but it does always at this location.)
It might very well be a Vulkan Issue also happening on Windows (see additional context for details).

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Launch SteamVR
2. Launch HL: Alyx
3. Load a save game at the location the first floating card boxes appear.
4. When transitioning outside area the game crashes to desktop.

Expected behavior
Either a seamless transition or a loading screen. No sure what would the exact behavior be without the crash.

System Information (please complete the following information):

• Distribution: Ubuntu 20.04
• SteamVR version: 1.12.5
• Steam client version: May 30 2020, at 20:39:29
• Opted into Steam client beta?: Yes
• Graphics driver version: nVidia 440.64
• Gist for SteamVR System Information: SteamVR System Information

Screenshots

Additional context
I found a report on the Steam Forums from yesterday which suggest the same issue also happens on Windows when using the Vulkan API. Of course on Linux, we can't use the suggested workaround switching to Direct3D 12. Report on Steam

Further, I launched steam via the terminal. It shows shaders loaded/pre-cached for HL: Alyx but no new output at the time of the crashes.

Note: Commenters who are also experiencing this issue are encouraged to include the "System Information" section in their replies.

[yaomtc]

I'm hitting this too, on AMD graphics. (RX 5700 XT)

System Information (please complete the following information):

Distribution: Arch Linux
SteamVR version: 1.12.5
Steam client version: June 1 2020, at 20:22:35
Opted into Steam client beta?: Yes
Graphics driver version: Mesa 20.0.7; Linux 5.7rc7
Gist for SteamVR System Information: SteamVR System Information

[dikel]

I have the same problem. I tried to disable the pre-caching but it didn't fix it.
When the game was released natively for Linux I finished it so it is a recent bug

[Il-Drugo]

Same problem.
Gist for SteamVr: Info

[Hafas]

Having the same issue at the same place.
But in my case my whole system just crashes - either black screen or the system restarts itself. (though that may be related with AOC enabled - I'll make an other test without AOC happens with and without AOC)

Distribution: Arch Linux
SteamVR version: 1.12.5
Steam client version: Jun 4 2020, at 05:51:01
Opted into Steam client beta?: Yes
Graphics driver version: Mesa 20.0.7
Gist for SteamVR System Information: SteamVR System Information

This is what journalctl spits out

Edit: The GPU in question is AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary

[yaomtc]

What GPU are you using, @Hafas? I can't tell from your System Information.

SteamVR has been occasionally been causing system crashes for me, but it most often happens as I start up SteamVR. I believe this is my issue,

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/1149

though I'm not sure. There's also this issue,

https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=206987

And there might be room for a third somewhere. I don't know... there seems to be some stability issues with some AMD cards on Linux right now.

[Hafas]

AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT, but SteamVR itself seems fine with me. Been playing Beat Saber (the only other VR-Game I've played so far) for two weeks without any problems.

Edit: According to your link the system crash seems to be fixed with the latest beta kernel (5.7). I'm running the latest, stable zen kernel (5.6.15-zen2-1-zen)

[yaomtc]

I upgraded to 5.7.0-1-mainline this morning and haven't had a system crash yet, but I'll need to test for another couple days before I'll draw any conclusions.

If only there was a fix available for this Vulkan crash. I guess I could go back to Proton for a little bit just to get past this... but I've already played through the game once so I guess I'll just wait.

EDIT: Glad I didn't waste my time trying that, it appears it is currently borked in Proton according to others' recent tests.

[slackerbob]

I can also confirm this happening on Arch Linux

Distribution: Arch Linux
SteamVR version: 1.13.2
Steam client version: Jun 4 2020, at 05:51:01
Opted into Steam client beta?: Yes
Graphics driver version: nvidia-dkms 440.82-2

System Information: Gist

[danginsburg]

Did the v1.4.1 update to HL:A that shipped yesterday fix this for you? I was able to repro this on the previous release but not the new one so I wanted to make sure it's fixed.

[computer-whisperer]

That update fixed it for me.

Distribution: Arch Linux
SteamVR version: 1.12.5
Steam client version: Jun 15 2020, at 19:59:27
Opted into Steam client beta?: Yes
Graphics driver version: mesa 20.1.1-1

[yaomtc]

Also fixed it for me.

• Distribution: Arch Linux
• SteamVR version: 1.13.3
• Steam client version: June 15 2020, at 19:59:27
• Opted into Steam client beta?: Yes
• Graphics driver version: Mesa 20.1.1 (LLVM 10.0.0)
• Gist for SteamVR System Information

[danginsburg]

Thanks all for the confirmation. I'll close this bug out.