Troubleshooting

Find what you’re seeing below. Each answer starts with the most likely fix.

Try this first: the health check

Most problems are found by RSMM’s own health check.

In the app: open Commands and press Doctor. If it finds problems it can fix, press Doctor + repair.
With the modding tools: run rsmm doctor, or rsmm doctor --fix to repair what it safely can.

Each line it prints is OK, WARN (worth reading) or FAIL (needs fixing), and a failing line usually says how to fix it.

The app

The app won’t open (Windows)

Install Microsoft WebView2 (the Evergreen Bootstrapper) and try again. Windows 11 and most Windows 10 computers already have it.

The app won’t open, or the window is gray (Linux)

If the window is gray or empty (common on Debian and Ubuntu), start the app from a terminal with these settings:

WEBKIT_DISABLE_DMABUF_RENDERER=1 WEBKIT_DISABLE_COMPOSITING_MODE=1 ./Ravenswatch.Mod.Manager_*.AppImage

If that fixes it, the cause is your graphics driver or desktop, not RSMM.

If the app doesn’t open at all, make sure WebKitGTK 4.1 is installed:

sudo apt install libwebkit2gtk-4.1-0     # Debian / Ubuntu
sudo dnf install webkit2gtk4.1           # Fedora
sudo pacman -S webkit2gtk-4.1            # Arch

The app can’t find my game

In Steam, right-click Ravenswatch → Manage → Browse local files. Copy the address of the folder that opens.
In the app, open Settings → General and paste it into Game install.

If Ravenswatch has never been started, start it once through Steam first.

“Permission denied” (Linux)

RSMM can’t write to the game folder. This happens most often with a Steam library on a second drive. Give your user ownership of the game folder:

sudo chown -R $USER "/path/to/Ravenswatch"

An error mentions Python

The app carries its own copy of everything it needs, so you never install Python for it. An error like this means the app’s files are damaged. Reinstall the app.

The PC freezes or blue-screens while the app is open (Windows)

The app draws with your graphics card, like a web browser does. That’s enough to expose a broken graphics driver, and a driver crash takes down the whole computer, not just the app.

Reinstall your graphics driver from NVIDIA, AMD or Intel. If the crashes started after a driver update, go back to the previous version.
Close overlays that hook into graphics, such as Discord’s overlay, GeForce Experience or MSI Afterburner, while you test.
As a workaround, open Settings → Game and tick Disable GPU acceleration (software rendering), then restart the app. The app stops using your graphics card. This hides the problem in RSMM, but the driver is still broken for other programs.

Want to confirm it's the driver?

Run this in PowerShell:

Get-WinEvent -FilterHashtable @{LogName='System'; Id=41,1001,6008} -MaxEvents 5 | Format-List

A crash named VIDEO_SCHEDULER_INTERNAL_ERROR (0x119), VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE (0x116) or DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION comes from the display driver. Normal programs can’t cause these by themselves. To see which driver, open C:\Windows\Minidump\*.dmp in WinDbg and run !analyze -v: IMAGE_NAME names it.

Mods

My mods don’t show up in the game

Check these in order:

Did you start the game with Launch Modded? If you start Ravenswatch from Steam, you get the normal game, because RSMM takes the mods out again when the game closes. (Want mods when starting from Steam? Use Commands → Apply mods.)
Are you in the right profile? The profile name is at the top left. The Default profile is always the plain game. Switch to the profile that has your mods.
Is the mod switched on? Check its switch in the Library.
Did you change a mod’s settings while the game was running? Quit the game completely and press Launch Modded again.
Run the health check: Commands → Doctor.

The game crashes or won’t start

Press Launch Vanilla. If the plain game also crashes, the problem isn’t a mod. Verify the game in Steam: right-click Ravenswatch → Properties → Installed Files → Verify integrity of game files.
Find the mod that causes it. Switch off half your mods and try again. If the crash is gone, the culprit is in the half you switched off. Keep halving until you find it.
Check the Log page. If a script mod crashes the game three times in a row while it’s starting, RSMM skips it on the next start and the Log page says which mod. Press Try again once it’s fixed.

With the modding tools, rsmm safe-mode switches off every mod and re-applies, so you can start from a clean slate.

Two of your switched-on mods change the same part of the game. Open the Conflicts page to see which. Only one can win (the one that loads later), so switch off the one you want less.

A mod shows “missing deps”

The mod needs another mod to work. Its page names the missing one. Install it from Browse.

The game updated and my mods stopped working

A game update replaces files and switches your mods off. The app shows Ravenswatch updated — your mods were disabled by the game update. Press Repair, then Launch Modded.

Still broken? The mod may need an update from its author. Check the Library for updates.

With the modding tools: rsmm restore --all, verify the game files in Steam, then rsmm apply.

I want the plain game back

For one session: press Launch Vanilla.
For good: Commands → Restore originals, or rsmm restore --all.
To be extra sure: verify the game files in Steam.

rsmm restore --all is safe to run as often as you like. If you see leftover files ending in .rsmm.bak in the game folder, a restore was interrupted; run it again.

Script (Lua) mods

Script mods don’t do anything

Script mods need the loader, a file called winhttp.dll that sits next to Ravenswatch.exe.

Windows, with the app: the app installs and updates the loader each time it starts. Run Commands → Doctor to check it’s there.
With the modding tools: run rsmm install-loader. Note that rsmm restore --all removes the loader, so install it again afterwards.
Linux and Steam Deck: Steam needs a launch option to load it. See Script mods on Linux and Steam Deck.

Then check the Log page for errors from the mod.

Reading the log

The Log page shows what script mods wrote while the game was running.

problems only shows just the lines where something failed (err) or looked wrong (warn). A line without a tag isn’t necessarily fine; it just wasn’t sorted.
Earlier sessions: the drop-down lists the last 20 game sessions, so a crash from a few launches ago is still there.

With the modding tools: rsmm log shows the latest log, rsmm log -f follows it live, rsmm log --errors shows only problems, and rsmm log --list lists earlier sessions.

Logs are long. Pasting one into Discord or a GitHub issue cuts it off and scrambles it. Share a link instead:

Open Log.
Press Share link.
Write what went wrong, check the preview, and press Upload and get link.
Paste the link where you’re asking for help.

The upload always starts with a short header naming your app version and operating system, because those are the first things anyone helping you will ask. Three switches in that window are on by default:

include mod list adds which mods are installed and switched on.
include app log adds the app’s own log, which matters when the app itself misbehaves rather than the game.
hide personal details replaces your Windows user name, home folder, email addresses, IP addresses, Steam IDs and player names with placeholders.

Read the preview before uploading. Hiding personal details works by searching the text for patterns, so it’s a good safety net, not a guarantee. Anyone with the link can read the page, so treat it as public. It’s deleted automatically after 30 days.

Modding tools

`'python' is not recognized`, or typing `python` opens the Microsoft Store

Python isn’t installed, or Windows can’t find it. Reinstall Python from python.org and tick “Add python.exe to PATH” on the first screen. Then close the terminal and open a new one.

If the Microsoft Store still opens, go to Windows Settings → Apps → Advanced app settings → App execution aliases and switch off the two python entries.

`'rsmm' is not recognized` or `rsmm: command not found`

The terminal isn’t in the right folder, or the environment isn’t switched on. Do the every-time steps again. The line should start with (.venv).

`running scripts is disabled on this system` (PowerShell)

Use Command Prompt instead, or run this once in PowerShell:

Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser RemoteSigned

`error: externally-managed-environment` (Linux)

You ran pip install without switching the environment on. Run source .venv/bin/activate in the RavenswatchModManager folder, then try again.

`ensurepip is not available` or `No module named venv` (Linux)

Install Python’s environment support, then create the environment again:

sudo apt install python3-venv
python3 -m venv .venv

`rsmm` can’t find the game

Tell it where the game is with the RSMM_GAME_DIR setting, as shown in Set up the modding tools. For a single command you can also add --game-dir "path\to\Ravenswatch", for example rsmm doctor --game-dir "D:\Games\Ravenswatch".

`rsmm lint` shows `[FAIL]`

Read the line: it says what’s wrong and often suggests the right spelling (did you mean 'value'?). [WARN] lines are only suggestions and don’t stop your mod from working.

`rsmm apply` can’t resolve a path

The file path in your mod doesn’t match a file the game has. Check the spelling and use forward slashes (/). rsmm assets search <word> finds the right path, for example rsmm assets search Juliet.

Two of my own mods overwrite each other

When two mods replace the same file, the later one wins. rsmm diff MyMod lists the game files a mod changes and which other mods touch them too. Mods that use [[patch]] blocks can change different values in the same file without clashing; see Two override strategies.

Still stuck?

Open an issue on GitHub and include:

your operating system,
your RSMM version (Settings → About),
your Ravenswatch version,
what you did and what happened,
a shared log link, which is far more useful than a pasted excerpt,
any error messages or screenshots.