Cities: Skylines

Cities: Skylines

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Linux Troubleshooting Guide - Cities Skylines
By leftbehind
This guide shows how to solve common problems you may encounter with Cities Skylines on GNU/Linux based systems.

Note: This guide covers Linux-specific issues only; for other issues see Main Troubleshooting FAQ.
   
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Loading Screen Mod (everyone should use this!)
Subscribe and enable Loading Screen Mod (LSM) - it loads game faster, reduces RAM consumption and handles loading errors much better.

It is an absolute MUST HAVE mod. If you use lots of workshop assets, you can use LSM to skip the ugly vanilla assets which makes loading even faster and saves even more RAM. Read the mod workshop page for more details.
Start-up crash: Computer reboots
Happenes with all Unity games under kernel 3.1.2 (OS: Manjaro 0.8.12 Ascella (Arch Linux based)) . Upgrading kernel to 4.0 or above fixes the problem.
Start-up: (Arch Linux) Long load times
If you are experiencing long load times try the following steps:
  • Disable the steam overlay
  • Switch to offline mode
  • Run the game with the -windowed Launch Parameter
Hint: If you're running Gnome 3, drag the window and reapply the graphic settings to get the window resized.

Thanks to das_coach for this fix!
Startup crash: Freeze or crash shortly after loading
From the Steam app menu: Steam > Go Offline...

(Thanks to ospi[forum.paradoxplaza.com] for the tip!)
No sound with Pulse Audio on 64bit Linux
There are issues with Pulse Audio 7 and above, try downgrading to 6.0
Multi-monitor: Half of screen missing and/or mouse offset
If only half the menu screen is showing, like this...



Solution #1: Use launch parameters

Set correct screen resolution via Launch Parameters (thanks to linuxfreebird[askubuntu.com] for the tip).

Solution #2: Edit prefs file

C:S prefs sometimes default to use the combined resolution of all your screens. For example, if you have two 1920x1080 monitors it might be set to 3840x1080 (wrong), you'd have to change it to 1920x1080.

Fix it by editing the following file (Thanks to Saklovich for this tip):

~/.config/unity3d/Colossal Order/Cities: Skylines/prefs

Solution #3: Mouse also offset?

If that doesn't work, or the mouse is offset, try this.

If only the mouse is offset, try disabling v-sync in game's Options screen or set screen resolution to one natively supported by your graphics card and display.
Mouse cursor blinking or flashing
Use this in the console (thanks to eoran for this tip!):

gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.cursor active false
Random: Missing objects, overlays, broken menus, system hangs...
If you're having problems such as...
  • Objects like buildings and trees only display at certain zoom levels
  • When building roads, the marker that shows where the road will go doesn't display
  • Certain menu options not displaying
  • Game randomly locks up the system
Graphics card specific solutions:
  • ATI: Install fglrx drivers.
  • Radeon: Install open source drivers, verify that libz.so.1 has been patched, then edit game launch options to include following (Thanks to poolbewohner[forum.paradoxplaza.com] for this tip):
    LD_PRELOAD=/lib64/libz.so.1 %command%
  • Intel: Do this[forum.paradoxplaza.com]

Still not working? Disable graphics driver workarounds in Unity by adding following to game launch options (Thanks to Senlis[forum.paradoxplaza.com], hurrah[forum.paradoxplaza.com] and co_damsku for the tip!):

UNITY_DISABLE_GRAPHICS_DRIVER_WORKAROUNDS=yes %command%

Still not working? Turn off anti-aliasing in game's Options menu. (Thanks to Gilga[forum.paradoxplaza.com] for the tip.)
In-game graphics: Dashed lines on roads or sidewalks
If your roads/sidewalks have dashed lines on them like this...



...it's caused by the "Alternate Pavement Texture" setting within the American Roads mod. You can disable the setting via Content Manager > Mods > American Roads > Options. (Thanks to donshontz for this tip).
In-game graphics: Black bars whilst building roads
If you see something like this whilst building roads:



...Read this.
Problem not solved?
Last checked: August 2019

If the problem isn't listed above, try the Main Troubheshooting FAQ.

You can get official tech support via the official C:SL Discord chat server[discord.gg] or Paradox support forums[forum.paradoxplaza.com].

You can often get help from other users in the main Steam discussion forum. Also, the developers of TM:PE mod have compiled a useful Troubleshooting Guide[github.com] that might help (it's not just for TM:PE, most of the issues are caused by other mods, assets, game bugs, or just common mistakes made by users).
.
14 Comments
heipiao233 5 Jul @ 1:26am 
I can run it but the Chinese texts are all missing on Arch Linux.
LixL03 13 Oct, 2024 @ 1:33am 
A problem where certain keyboard keys aren't recognized by the game (not even when trying to remap to such a key), such as 'D' for panning the camera and the space bar can be fixed by switching the keyboard layout! Refer to https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/linux-certan-keyboard-keys-not-working.1257199/ for the user who found that out!

Cheers!
Raekkan 27 Mar, 2022 @ 8:08am 
I try to run Cities Skylines maps on my Ubuntu 20.04 system, and It always freezes up my laptop. I have tried all the tips above. I have the same laptop with Windows 7 installed, there the game runs without any problems. Does any one else has this issue?

Lenovo ThinkPad T480
8GB RAM
Intel Core i5-8350U
Intel UHD Graphics 620 (KBL GT2)

Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 64-bit
GNOME-v: 3.36.8
Sokrates 22 Oct, 2021 @ 3:32pm 
There should be a section for the "funlockfile" issue. Other wise great guide
Philo_the_Red 8 Dec, 2020 @ 5:37pm 
I have no keyboard input in-game, has anyone encountered and fixed that?
leftbehind  [author] 3 May, 2020 @ 1:08am 
Yes, we're trying to track down that crash bug - more info here: https://github.com/CitiesSkylinesMods/TMPE/issues/817
chuuni <3 28 Dec, 2019 @ 1:07pm 
My laptop crashes when I try to load into a city in the Linux version and with proton Icons for buildings and stuff are missing
DnS 29 Jul, 2019 @ 9:47pm 
This game was working for me until yesterday when it crashed. Since then I get stuck on the loading screen and eventually the whole computer freezes. The background music keeps playing on loop, which makes me thing the game is still accessing files on the hdd. I've tried all the fixes above to no avail. I also tried uninstalling the game and all workshop content + deleting all the files related to the game on my pc. But that also did not work.
leftbehind  [author] 31 Jul, 2018 @ 1:27pm 
@GoldIce53641638 - if yo uuse network extensions, make sure you upgrade to the very latest version of network extensions 2. Other than that, no idea what could be causing it.