Troubleshooting FAQ

(Up to Guides, FAQs, and ReadMes)

This FAQ is for technical problems and will only apply to users of the latest Beta version of Worms Armageddon, or users either trying to update to this version, trying to install WA or trying to access WormNET.

If you have any questions regarding this FAQ, please add your comments to the talk page.

Installing WA

I can't install Worms Armageddon. The auto-run installation screen disappears, and nothing else will work.

Disabling DMA (Direct Memory Access) has been known to solve this. To disable DMA,

1. Start Menu > Control Panel > System
2. Click the Hardware tab, then click Device Manager
3. Expand the System Devices sublist
4. Double-click "Direct memory access controller"
5. Select "disable" from the Device Usage drop-down list

The installation freezes at 100%, and the game fails to install when I quit it.

Keep waiting, the installation will eventually complete after a few minutes. Cause of this problem is unknown.

I am encountering other problems with installing the game

madewokherd has written an alternative Automatic Installer for W:A. It allows installing W:A on 64-bit Windows operating systems, among others.

Patching/updating WA

When installing the 3.0 patch, I get the error "Failed to find installation path"

This is caused by missing or incorrect Registry entries created by the WA installer. This can be solved by reinstalling, or editing the registry entries as follows:

1. Start menu > Run > regedit
2. Navigate to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Team17SoftwareLTD\WormsArmageddon\"
3. Double-click the PATH string and make sure the directory location is correct

I get a "Bad Integrity" error when trying to run the Patch or Update file

The file is corrupted. Try deleting it and downloading it again.

Starting WA

"C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\AUTOEXEC.NT. The system file is not suitable for running MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows applications. Choose "Close" to terminate the application."

In your Start Menu click Run..., type cmd and click OK. In the black prompt box that pops up, type:

copy %WINDIR%\repair\autoexec.nt %WINDIR%\system32

If this doesn't work, you can perform the same task manually. Navigate to

C:\Windows\Repair

and copy the file "autoexec.nt" to your clipboard. Then navigate to

C:\Windows\System32

and paste the file there.

If your Windows is installed in a location different than C:\Windows, substitute C:\Windows with that location in the above steps.

I get a "No CD" Error

You probably tried to patch WA when it did not need patching. Uninstall the game and try installing only the update.

"ltkrn10n.dll was not found"

You tried installing an outdated Beta patch on top of an unpatched version of the game. Download and install the latest Beta update.

When trying to run the game, the Sold Out installation setup sometimes insists that I install the update, even when I have already done so

Ignore the message.

"The WA.exe file expects a newer version of Windows. Upgrade your Windows version"

Windows 98/ME compatibility has been accidentally broken in 3.6.29.0. Downgrade to 3.6.28.0.

"Graphics subsystem error - Unable to set desired video mode"

Your video card or video drivers do not support the video mode required by W:A. If you are using Windows Vista on a notebook computer with an Intel video chipset, this is a known problem - Intel has chosen to no longer support old games such as Worms Armageddon for their Vista drivers. The only work-around is to emulate W:A. Otherwise, try updating your drivers.

Front-end problems

I can't see the bottom or right side of the screen in the front end

Your font sizes are set to a large value. W:A does not support non-standard font sizes. Open the Display Properties Control Panel applet, click Advanced... on the Settings tab and set font sizes to Normal size (96 DPI).

The frontend and menu system suffers flickiness, lacks background sound, messed up animations, or unusually slow/fast animations

Locate your WA directory and doubleclick the Tweak folder, then doubleclick the file "SlowFrontEndWorkAround_On.reg". If this doesn't solve the problem, do the same with "SlowFrontEndWorkAround_Off.reg". If this doesn't solve the problem, do the same with "SlowFrontEndWorkAround_AntiFlicker.reg". If neither of these work, your videocard is too modern. These problems will be fixed in a future update. See this thread for more details.

The game uses all CPU in the front-end (menus)

See the solution in the previous question. Note that it might not be possible to achieve good visuals and low CPU usage at the same time.

When returning from a game, I get a black screen with some white areas

This is a problem with DirectX for which a workaround has not yet been found. For some reason, the colour palette is set to two colours (black and white). To restoe the colour palette, minimize by clicking at the bottom of the screen or pressing Shift+Escape, then restore the game.

In-game problems

Right-clicking in-game fails to open the weapons menu

The program StrokeIt can be responsible for this. Either disable the program when playing, or find the program option that allows you to prevent it from interfering when WA is running.

In-game plays extremely slow on Windows Vista

If you're using an nVidia graphics card, updating to the latest beta drivers has been known to fix this issue.

The water and sky are black

Like with the above problem - if you're using an nVidia graphics card on Windows Vista, updating to the latest beta drivers has been known to fix this issue.

Players quit with a "desynchronization error"

Desynchronization errors are usually caused by a bug in the game. Search the Team17 forums if the problem is known. If it isn't, please post the replays of that game from all players (or at least the host's and the player that desynchronized).

The game colours get all messed up

This happens when another application is stealing W:A's palette. W:A logs such occurences to the file "palette.log" in your W:A folder. If you can, try closing the programs listed there.

Often it's a component of Windows itself that's stealing W:A's palette (usually csrss.exe). If you are using Windows Vista, having any Windows Explorer folder open while you play the game has been known to fix it.

Another known work-around is to disable the Indexing Service and Automatic Updates services (Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services).

Crashes

I get a black screen when I try to run WA, then it crashes to desktop or I have to restart the computer

Disabling the introduction screens has been known to solve this. To do this, right-click the WA shortcut icon, select properties, and in the "Target" text box, type:

/nointro

This must be outside of the quotation marks for it to work. For example,

"C:\Worms Armageddon\wa.exe" /nointro

WA crashes or minimizes when I try to edit the map, or edit or create a team

This is caused by having a program with an "Always On Top" feature. MSN Messenger is a common culprit. Try closing other programs, or finding this setting and disabling it.

WA crashes when I try to edit or create a team on Windows Vista

If you enabled any compatibility options for W:A, disable them. The crash is caused by a problem in Windows Vista's compatibility layer.

WA crashes when I minimise and then try to maximise

Minimising in the front-end is not yet stable; WA will always be prone to crashing until this is optimised.

WormNET

No one can join my games

Consult the Hosting Guide.

I can't join my friend's game

Your friend may need to do some network set-up first - see the previous question.

I see the error "Unable to detect IPX protocol" when clicking "Test network"

Ignore this error. IPX is an outdated network protocol, obsoleted by TCP/IP.

When I try to connect to WormNET, the game freezes up

ZoneAlarm (and possibly other firewalls) can cause this by producing a pop-up in the background when it detects your computer trying to connect. Configure ZoneAlarm so that it already allows access to WormNET.

When I try to connect to WormNET, nothing happens

PeerGuardian can cause this by blocking the WormNET IP address. Consider reconfiguring or disabling PeerGuardian.

When I join WormNET, the content of the channel list, player list and the message of the day box never loads

Restarting the game or your computer has been known to fix this.

When I try to join games, I keep getting a "Checksum 15" error

This occurs when the game has been improperly updated. Follow the installation tutorial carefully.

When I host a color map the other players get an error saying: "PNG error: Invalid distance too far back" and the map doesn't load for them

This is thought to be caused by firewall software that is interfering with outgoing data. Contact your network administrator.

Miscellaneous

An alternative solution to many problems

Many hardware/software/OS incompatibility problems can be solved by Emulating Worms Armageddon, if you don't mind a performance trade-off.

I downloaded Worms Armageddon from the Internet without paying. Can you help me?

Yes. Please consult this advisory video.