Post by Steamberry Studio in Bug Reports

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EDITED for more info:

Hello! Can you try to fully remove the game from your PC and re-download, then re-unzip the game files? **This includes removing any previous versions of the game**

~~A coder friend confirmed that "rv" is something from the back end of Renpy. It's possible that one of the renpy engine files is missing or corrupted.~~

I've identified that this is may be relating to Renpy's in-built rollback/rollforward feature. Can you give me a few more details?

- are you attempting to roll back or roll forward using either your mouse wheel or the page up/page down buttons

- is the crash happening before or after you input a player name

I still think that it's possible there's something wrong with your build of the game - such as a file corruption that happened during the game download. And right now the only thing I can suggest is still try to fully remove everything from the game off your PC and re-download. If you are using the Itch.io launcher, this may include going into your app data and removing the folder from there.

Let me know if that helps.

~Esh

saturdaily61 days ago

Hi there!

Thanks for your quick response.

To answer your questions, I don't think I was trying to scroll with my mouse, and I definitely wasn't using page up/down.
The game crashed both before entering the name and after, during that very first opening scene.

I uninstalled from itch, deleted the .zip file, and couldn't find anything from the game in AppData.

Then I reinstalled from itch and tried launching from there, but this time it crashed before the game even launched. The second time I tried to launch, a traceback opened in notepad -- I've pasted below.

Thank you!

---

I'm sorry, but an uncaught exception occurred.

While running game code:

AttributeError: 'Say' object has no attribute 'append'

-- Full Traceback ------------------------------------------------------------

Full traceback:

File "C:\Users\eriny\AppData\Roaming\itch\apps\gildedshadows\GildedShadows-4-win\renpy\bootstrap.py", line 277, in bootstrap

renpy.main.main()

File "C:\Users\eriny\AppData\Roaming\itch\apps\gildedshadows\GildedShadows-4-win\renpy\main.py", line 490, in main

renpy.game.script.load_script() # sets renpy.game.script.

File "C:\Users\eriny\AppData\Roaming\itch\apps\gildedshadows\GildedShadows-4-win\renpy\script.py", line 297, in load_script

self.load_appropriate_file(".rpyc", ".rpy", dir, fn, initcode)

File "C:\Users\eriny\AppData\Roaming\itch\apps\gildedshadows\GildedShadows-4-win\renpy\script.py", line 717, in load_appropriate_file

data, stmts = self.load_file(dir, fn + compiled)

File "C:\Users\eriny\AppData\Roaming\itch\apps\gildedshadows\GildedShadows-4-win\renpy\script.py", line 701, in load_file

self.static_transforms(stmts)

File "C:\Users\eriny\AppData\Roaming\itch\apps\gildedshadows\GildedShadows-4-win\renpy\script.py", line 591, in static_transforms

renpy.translation.restructure(stmts)

File "C:\Users\eriny\AppData\Roaming\itch\apps\gildedshadows\GildedShadows-4-win\renpy\translation\__init__.py", line 368, in restructure

Restructurer(children)

File "C:\Users\eriny\AppData\Roaming\itch\apps\gildedshadows\GildedShadows-4-win\renpy\translation\__init__.py", line 238, in __init__

self.callback(children)

File "C:\Users\eriny\AppData\Roaming\itch\apps\gildedshadows\GildedShadows-4-win\renpy\translation\__init__.py", line 340, in callback

i.restructure(self.callback)

File "C:\Users\eriny\AppData\Roaming\itch\apps\gildedshadows\GildedShadows-4-win\renpy\ast.py", line 2131, in restructure

callback(block)

File "C:\Users\eriny\AppData\Roaming\itch\apps\gildedshadows\GildedShadows-4-win\renpy\translation\__init__.py", line 340, in callback

i.restructure(self.callback)

File "C:\Users\eriny\AppData\Roaming\itch\apps\gildedshadows\GildedShadows-4-win\renpy\ast.py", line 2131, in restructure

callback(block)

File "C:\Users\eriny\AppData\Roaming\itch\apps\gildedshadows\GildedShadows-4-win\renpy\translation\__init__.py", line 344, in callback

tl = self.create_translate(group)

File "C:\Users\eriny\AppData\Roaming\itch\apps\gildedshadows\GildedShadows-4-win\renpy\translation\__init__.py", line 280, in create_translate

code = i.get_code()

File "C:\Users\eriny\AppData\Roaming\itch\apps\gildedshadows\GildedShadows-4-win\renpy\ast.py", line 853, in get_code

rv.append(renpy.translation.encode_say_string(what)) # @UndefinedVariable

AttributeError: 'Say' object has no attribute 'append'

Windows-10-10.0.26100 AMD64

Ren'Py 8.0.3.22090809

Gilded Shadows 4

Thu Nov 13 17:29:45 2025

Steamberry Studio61 days ago

Hello again,

I've been sitting on this for a bit trying to think of how to explain what I'm seeing with these errors.

Basically when building a game in an engine, the engine functions as a framework code that I then put my personal game code into to create a game that works - so there's the Renpy code which is part of the game engine and there's my code for Gilded Shadows specifically.

The errors that you're getting appear to be errors from problems in the engine framework - the code of the game engine itself, not the code I created for my game. Basically core components like necessary variables or attributes defined in Ren'pys engine files seem to be missing.

This suggests something is happening during download that is corrupting or removing those files.

This means it's not something I can just go in and fix because it doesn't seem to be an issue with the code I created.

I just wanted to explain this because I know it may feel like I'm just throwing random solutions at the wall but these are the only things I know to try to get a functioning download. Here are some additional suggestion (these will all require removing the game and downloading from scratch each time)

- check anti-virus and firewall settings to make sure it's not somehow interacting with the download.

- if you are using the itch app, try downloading the zip file directly from the game page and unzipping to your desktop and launching from there instead.

If those don't work, my last resort would be to potentially send you a Steam key and see if using Steam can bypass whatever is happening during the download process here because even the Itch launcher is essentially just downloading the same zip file to your app data folder. But Steam's launcher works a bit differently. So maybe that could help?

Let me know if those two solutions help and if not, we can discuss if you'd like to try a Steam key and see if attempting it over there works.

~Esh

saturdaily60 days ago

Hi Esh!
Thanks for taking the time and having the patience to explain the engine code vs. the game code -- I know basically nothing about the nuts and bolts about the magic stories get to my screen, but I figured it was something complicated. I've had issues with games using the Renpy engine before, but they almost all self-resolved (except in one case where the creator sent me a link to a special download -- in that situation it seemed like my machine was too new for the game? this is a terrible summary / paraphrase but it's what I got).

Anyway, I added any and every folder I could find involving itch to my antivirus' exceptions, but I still got the exception error during character creation (this time before I got to enter a name).

Now, when I tried downloading directly, then unzipping and accessing from the subfolder in my Documents folder where I moved it, 7-zip told me these two things:

CRC failed : GildedShadows-4-win\game\archive.rpa

CRC failed : GildedShadows-4-win\game\images\Sprites\reub\reuben_sprite.psd

I don't know exactly what this means, but does it help?

I'm definitely willing to try the Steam key, though I will say with the other game that I couldn't get to work without a special secret link from the dev, I actually bought that game on both Steam AND itch (it was a sequel and the first game was that good lol), and the same issue arose when I launched from Steam.

Anyway, again, I appreciate you taking the time to try to work through this with me. I've heard really good things about this game, and I really want to play it! :D

Thanks again!

Steamberry Studio60 days ago

Hmmmmmmmmm.

CRC failed usually indicates a corrupted file. Which could be happening during the download based on cursory research. In this case, two files are triggering the issue: archive.rpa, and reuben_sprite.psd

Archive.rpa is a file created by renpy to essentially hide the game code. Everything gets encrypted and bundled into this file. So the script, the images, the music - all of those things are packaged up into this archive file. The CRC failed is saying there's some kind of error in that file.

Reuben_sprite.psd is Reuben's photoshop file. This file isn't even used by the code at any point, that file somehow being corrupted wouldn't normally cause issues (there are honestly tons of superfluous files that exist but never get used) because the game never even attempts to access it.

Google attributes CRC failed to several possibilities:

- network transmission noise

- download issues

- storage media issues

- some issue with the compression utility itself (IE 7zip itself is causing the corruption)

I have sent in a request for a Steam key. But while that is brewing (since it can take a day or so to get them), if you want to try some other solutions, you can DM me so we can talk through some other options involving unique download solutions (especially on the chance downloading from Steam still won't help.)

I think at this point since it's a very niche problem that may need a you-specific solution, if you want to continue to troubleshoot, it's best to just work in DMs!

I can be reached:

On tumbler as steamberrystudio

On twitter as steamberryesh

On bluesky as steamberrystudio

You can also join the Discord and reach out to me there!
https://discord.gg/RxMyQddrba

saturdaily60 days ago

OK, sorry for the extra post, but after I sent the last one, I wondered if something different might happen if I tried to extract with WinZip instead of 7-zip.

Both Windows Defender AND my antivirus (TrendMicro) were like OMG ARE YOU SURE THIS IS SAFE
(of course I was like "OMG YES LET ME PLAY" to both -- "Run Anyway" for Windows Defender and added the .exe to my TrendMicro exceptions list).

Then I tried running it again.

The result was this traceback I just got (mmm it's safe that there are file locations in it, right? if not, please lmk and I'll edit lol):

I'm sorry, but an uncaught exception occurred.

After initialization, but before game start.

File "game/flow_new.rpy", line 3700, in prepare_screen

File "game/flow_new.rpy", line 3700, in prepare

File "game/flow_new.rpy", line 3704, in prepare

TypeError: required field "lineno" missing from expr

-- Full Traceback ------------------------------------------------------------

Full traceback:

File "C:\Users\eriny\OneDrive\Documents\itch.io\gildedshadows-windows winzip\GildedShadows-4-win\renpy\bootstrap.py", line 277, in bootstrap

renpy.main.main()

File "C:\Users\eriny\OneDrive\Documents\itch.io\gildedshadows-windows winzip\GildedShadows-4-win\renpy\main.py", line 660, in main

run(restart)

File "C:\Users\eriny\OneDrive\Documents\itch.io\gildedshadows-windows winzip\GildedShadows-4-win\renpy\main.py", line 95, in run

renpy.display.screen.prepare_screens()

File "C:\Users\eriny\OneDrive\Documents\itch.io\gildedshadows-windows winzip\GildedShadows-4-win\renpy\display\screen.py", line 976, in prepare_screens

s.ast.prepare_screen()