[raiguard][2.0.60] Crash on start (SDL_Vulkan_CreateInstanceExtensionsList)

[Ymbirtt]

Hello, after the latest update, Factorio crashes when I try to start it up. I see the black window pop up, but the game does not reach the menu.

What did you do?

I launched Factorio via Steam.

What happened?

Steam's "Starting Game" window popped up for maybe a second, then I saw the black "Factorio: Space Age 2.0.60" window appear, and then perhaps half a second later a message popped up, beginning "Unexpected error occurred. If you're running the latest version of the game you can help us solve the problem ...". I expect this is the standard error window for an unhandled exception.

I did not successfully reach the menu to try and load a saved game, but I can attach a save if you'd like.
I am not using any mods, though am playing with the Space Age expansion.
Also possibly relevant: I haven't played for a while. My latest save file was created on the 15th of Jun 2025.

What did you expect to happen instead? It might be obvious to you, but do it anyway!
I expected to reach the main menu.

Does it happen always, once, or sometimes?
This crash happens every time I start the game. I don't see the bug manifesting differently each time.

[raiguard]

Do you have the Vulkan libraries installed on your system? I'm curious if this is a flaw in the way SDL handles the absence of Vulkan.

[Ymbirtt]

Do you have the Vulkan libraries installed on your system? I'm curious if this is a flaw in the way SDL handles the absence of Vulkan.

I might have pulled them in at some point, I'm not sure. How should I check?

[Ymbirtt]

Hopefully useful, running apt list *vulkan* gives me this:

libvulkan-dev/jammy 1.3.204.1-2 amd64
libvulkan-dev/jammy 1.3.204.1-2 i386
libvulkan-volk-dev/jammy,jammy 1.2.198-1 all
libvulkan1/jammy,now 1.3.204.1-2 amd64 [installed]
libvulkan1/jammy,now 1.3.204.1-2 i386 [installed]
mesa-vulkan-drivers/jammy-updates,now 23.2.1-1ubuntu3.1~22.04.3 amd64 [installed]
mesa-vulkan-drivers/jammy-updates,now 23.2.1-1ubuntu3.1~22.04.3 i386 [installed,automatic]
vulkan-amdgpu/jammy,now 22.40-1538781.22.04 amd64 [installed]
vulkan-tools/jammy,now 1.3.204.0+dfsg1-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
vulkan-validationlayers-dev/jammy 1.3.204.1-2 amd64
vulkan-validationlayers/jammy 1.3.204.1-2 amd64

So I have these Vulkan libraries installed. I'm assuming I don't need libvulkan-dev and friends?

[erroneum]

I'm having the same issue. I've only got base, Quality, Elevated Rails, and Space Age enabled, but I can confirm that reverting to 2.0.55 does still work.

[raiguard]

Would it be possible for you to update your graphics drivers? You both appear to be on mesa 22.3.0, but my fresh debian distrobox has 22.3.6 and the game starts correctly.

[Ymbirtt]

Would it be possible for you to update your graphics drivers? You both appear to be on mesa 22.3.0, but my fresh debian distrobox has 22.3.6 and the game starts correctly.

I'm not sure that's easily possible without doing a whole distro upgrade.

The Factorio log doesn't show that I'm on Ubuntu 22.04, and I suspect erroneum is the same. The latest version of mesa available in the main Ubuntu repo is the one that you see in our logs - 22.3.0-devel. I've gone away and looked up how to update from there and been pointed at the Kisak repos, kisak-mesa fresh and kisak-mesa turtle.

After adding kisak-mesa fresh and running apt update and apt upgrade, no new versions of mesa are available - I don't believe kisak-mesa fresh fully supports 22.04 any more.

After removing kisak-mesa fresh and adding kisak-mesa turtle, then running apt update and apt upgrade, there is a new version of mesa available (mesa-vulkan-drivers-25.0.7~kisak3~j), but installing it doesn't change the version of mesa shown by glxinfo -B | grep -i mesa, and the issue persists.

I can confirm that the game loads successfully at version 2.0.55.

I'll happily accept that I just need to do a distro upgrade; I've been putting it off for way too long.

[raiguard]

I installed an Ubuntu 22.04 distrobox and ran the game through it, but I am still unable to reproduce the issue. At this point, I think the best option is to update your distribution.

"Stable" distros are not great for desktop usage due to problems like this.