Unable to join servers on Linux (Join Session failed. Error initializing network layer)

[lusty junco]

Squad v9.0.0.473138.981-5.5.4--SHIPPING
kernel 6.8.0-65-generic

https://discord.com/channels/134380973730168832/1382796904643039296

Same problem as last couple playtests, no linux players are able to join any servers, a shame to lose a whole section of the playerbase due to this bug (first couple playtests worked)

[bright shale]

I feel for you brother trying to find a solution atm

[uncut skiff]

I don't think there's a solution, this has been reported for months on the playtest discord and zero response from OWI

[drowsy lily]

Also getting this issue. Not getting the other unexpected error the other guy is getting.

Game seems to start up and run just fine but im dreading to see what my new fps will be

[drowsy lily]

are we back to being in an on again off again relationship?

[lost bridge]

when they updated to UE 5.5 it stopped working on Linux, if it actually launches now then we are one step closer to it working on Linux bois.

[drowsy lily]

Well I can confirm its running for me. Just no server joining. Did not try single player.

[naive olive]

We all have the same issue of the game running but we cannot connect to servers

[ember raptor]

it launches and running perfectly fine in singleplayer ranges, but joining to any servers is borked now

4437.994:019c:01a0:warn:seh:OutputDebugStringW L"LogRedpointEOS: Error: [LogEOSAntiCheat] [AntiCheatClient] Anti-cheat client not available. Result code 21 (EOS_VersionMismatch). This version of the EOS SDK requires a newer anti-cheat client module version. Check the EOS Developer Portal for updates.\r\n"

So developers just need to update EOS module for Linux and that's it?

[limpid flame]

Was reported a while ago, but nothing was done

[drowsy lily]

i saw an old woman with a steam deck on the plane the other day.

these devs are going to come around, kicking and screaming if need be.

[edgy rock]

just hope it doesn't take forever :S

unfortunate that @lusty junco deleted the original message. It doesn't seem like I'm able to upvode this thread

[lusty junco]

yea Idk I think it was auto deleted because I added a link to the OPT discord

[naive olive]

😢

@dreamy stream says it works for them

They said it works for them right now, as seen in general chat here.

[bronze pilot]

Yeah.. had to even wait for a couple of Proton-GE updates to even be able to launch the game. Not that it mattered, because this "Error initializing network layer" error appeared after 5.5 anyways. Sucks to be us I guess !

[ember raptor]

well from logs it's clearly EOS module issue, i doubt it works for anyone, except some schenanigans / bypasses are in place

[vagrant mist]

yep, also happens to me

[ember raptor]

any links are deleting the message entirely, welp

You can see anticheat log here
steamapps/compatdata/393380/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Roaming/EasyAntiCheat/55c7dc1d520f4cba8ff261b85059f963/5dee4062a90b42cd98fcad618b6636c2/

Current module has sha1=510bad8a4489164503085253dd11d344216efca9

Game downloads it from eos cdn, link is in anticheatlauncher log

When module will be updated by devs, we can detect it

[warm bay]

so we need to wait for the devs to fix it and we can't play until then?

[naive olive]

Yep

[warm bay]

awesome

can't wait to play in six months

[ember raptor]

looks like it
What's concerning though is a complete lack of communication from devs side, it was reported several weeks ago in playtests

[bronze pilot]

Haha... true.. might as well forget this game exist

[jaunty night]

mkdir /home/<your_user>/.steam
ln -s /home/<your_user>/.local/share/Steam/steamcmd/linux64 /home/<your_user>/.steam/sdk64
try it

[warm bay]

you might as well uninstall, when issues like this have happened in squad 44 it took them like six months to basically press a button that enabled linux. They don't care

[ember raptor]

yay more space for reforger mods 😛

[warm bay]

I uninstalled reforger after bohemia banned the halo mod

that was the only reason I bought it🙃

[ember raptor]

this link already exists for me

[warm bay]

So I did some googling and couldn't find anything about the mod being banned despite me vividly remembering it. I redinstalled the game and the mod's right there in the workshop. Anyways good luck with Squad everyone.

[ember raptor]

Got answer from OWI from their report system

Darterex, Sep 3, 2025, 14:04 MST

Hello and thank you for the ticket,
We are currently looking into issues reported with Linux to see what we can do but please note that as per our steam store page, we do not list Linux as a supported operating system under system requirements so trying to fix these issues is a best effort we will try to do.

For the record, Embark's Finals also does not list Linux as supported, and when anticheat errors were taking place not so long ago, similar message was received from the devs, like "we will give best effort", etc, but after that issue was fixed quickly, including fixes from Proton team.

Guess we'll just have to wait

[jovial otter]

.

[edgy rock]

your message sounds like a linux server issue, not a client issue, right? (so unrelated to this thread)

[cyan pendant]

There's a SquadFM repo on GitHub that contains an outdated (or is it?) EAC fix for Squad for 4 years ago
Maybe we can salvage it somehow, I remember it working back then

[ember raptor]

it's outdated, Squad uses EOS AC modules now, which should be compiled for current engine version. You were able to play without this workaround for years now, as squad ue4 version already contained link to up-to-date (for used EOS SDK) anticheat module

[naive olive]

I'm going to sit here and hope for a rescue 🚁 we sent our sos, got a response, and we can make it a few days out here on rations. 🙏

[subtle magnet]

Maybe someday they'll remember us.

[naive olive]

They will. I believe in Darterex.

[twilit pewter]

R.I.P. Squad (on Linux)

[hot siren]

We gotta keep messaging here to keep the transparency on the issue

the game worked and should continue working

[twilit pewter]

Absolutely... Revolt!

[naive olive]

Have faith and let's keep updated, and the Linux users finding out tonight into the next few days will find us and wait too.

[edgy rock]

I am now able to play squad online
I am using proton hotfix (forced compatibility in steam) and have reinstalled the game

[strong zinc]

Can confirm

[hot siren]

can someone post that on ProtonDB

[strong zinc]

^

[edgy rock]

will update protondb in a few minutes

[hot siren]

ty

[ember raptor]

EOS AC module changed, was 510... now 56c

[edgy rock]

oh, so perhaps it was updated recently? lovely to see that

[ember raptor]

yup, like 5-10 min ago

[quiet igloo]

Proton Hotfix boys, go go go

[ember raptor]

im on GE10-15, works fine

[hot siren]

yup

I am loading in Al basrah rn

[bronze pilot]

I just connected to a server with Proton-GE15 too

[strong zinc]

Now I get to see if UE5 still sucks on nvidia 🦨

Edit: So the overflow issue doesn't carry to UE5 - yay

[ember raptor]

what's overflow issue? 👁️

[lusty junco]

Confirm, we are back bois 🎉 Thank you OWI will buy skin pack in your honor

[strong zinc]

The nvidia driver being fucked and not correctly allocating the GPU Mem

[hot siren]

hello brother

[lone quest]

I knew you Linux nerds would get this sorted.

[ember raptor]

that goes to OWI team, specifically anticheat team, not us

[naive olive]

🚁 We are saved!

Yes, yes! Remember everyone to update your protondb!

[spiral pulsar]

I'm able to get into servers now that they've updated the EAC version, but I'm hitting full system freezes periodically

[naive olive]

Performance for me is excellent, just some latency on occasion network issues only

[drowsy lily]

I crashed once so far.

Although overall, running better more or less.

[naive olive]

Thank you OWI for not leaving us Linux folk behind ❤️ we truly do appreciate playing the game

[drowsy lily]

even if it is for 45 mins at a time lol

[spiral pulsar]

I was able to play stably for an hour; performance is definitely worse.
Ryzen 7 9800x3d with 4070ti on Pop! OS
Before 9.0, I ran 4k at 75-120 fps (with DLSS)

After, I'm running 75 fps at 1440p on Low quality with DLSS and Framegen; and scopes feel like molasses (the frames are reported as above 60, but it feels like 25)

[ember raptor]

yeah, nvidia have some sort of bug regarding vkd3d (dx12->vk) performance on Linux. You can find forum thread named "DirectX12 performance is terrible on Linux" on Nvidia developer forums.

Last what we saw from Nvidia is

we identified a general optimization that benefits multiple titles with VKD3D. It is still in development. We will give an update when it is available.

dx11 would be a solution, but it's no longer available from the game, sadly.

[tribal nova]

This overflow issue was happening on my RX 7600 on UE4 too and yes, UE5 fixes it!

[lusty junco]

anyone else on linux got like 0.25s microstutters every ~5 seconds? any solutions?

[slate zephyr]

Can you record it? This may be the TPS of the server

[slate zephyr]

Thank you! What server are you on? Im going to see if I can get their fallujah stats

[lusty junco]

VB - 24/7 INVASION

Noone else has this issue on windows so idk if it can be TPS then

[slate zephyr]

I'll go take a peek ty!

Looks client side sadly - drawing board returned

Since linux isn't supported, this probably is the reason

[naive olive]

Idk, I'm not having issue really on my setup, just some latency on occasion but nothing major

[vagrant mist]

yes, this is exactly what I am getting

[lone quest]

Morning Linux nerds. I want to jump to the dark side but have a 3070 GPU and heat NVIDIA not play nice with Linux. Is it worth trying? Can't move to AMD GPU yet.

[dreamy stream]

the drivers for nvidia are better than ever at least in this year

[naive olive]

My laptop has a nvidea GPU, no issues yet

[marsh yew]

So far no issues in Fedora 42 with proprietary drivers (3060ti)

[uncut skiff]

anyone with windows dual boot done a performance comparison yet?

[quasi tundra]

I run a 7900 xtx, a rayzen 7800x3d and 32 gb ddr5 on Cachy OS. Performance are not in line with other UE5 games. From time to time I see really low 1% low.

[uncut skiff]

im on ubuntu with a 7800 xt, a 9900x3d, and 32gb ddr5 ram on 1440p and im strugging to get above 70 fps on lowest settings (with FSR set to 1x native because otherwise the game is too blurry), on max settings I get ~40fps, same results with TSR and FXAA. I used to get 90-100 fps on max settings

I completely ununinstalled the game and nuked the compatdata folder before playing. I'm currently completely nuking steam and reinstalling to see if anything changes

anyone else seeing similar bad performance or just me?

[uncut skiff]

alright well after completing nuking steam and reinstalling the game I think that fixed it. I now get ~90 fps if I set my game settings to epic, but then set shadows quality to low (I dont really see a difference between that and epic and it gives me 30 extra fps)

so yeah i high recommend everyone completely delete steam and rm -rfd all steam files then reinstall because it completely fixed my performance

also using mesa instead of vulkan with the VK_ICD_FILENAMES launch open seems to give me about 10-20 more fps

[naive olive]

I use mesa too and everything looks nice

[lusty junco]

tried this and it did not work for me sadly

[spiral junco]

get windows

[uncut skiff]

which steps did you take to completely delete steam? I completely deleted these folders and Uninstalled all using apt:

sudo apt remove --purge steam steam-launcher -y

sudo apt autoremove --purge -y

sudo apt clean

rm -rfd ~/.steam
rm -rfd ~/.local/share/Steam
rm -rfd ~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam
rm -rfd ~/.steampath
rm -rfd ~/.steampid
rm -rfd ~/.cache/steam

Then I looked for and manually deleted any leftover files:

find ~ -iname "steam" 2>/dev/null

[lusty junco]

I did the same, but my problem is microstutters and not performance so probably unrelated

[lone quest]

Have you guys heard of mobo inbuilt Bluetooth / wifi causing stutters even if not being used? Solution disable in bios. Might be worth looking into.

[worn belfry]

like 40-50 fps more on w11 rn unfortunately

was only like 20 different on ue4 with dx11, but dx12 nuked performance

[rough mason]

could you share how you set this up and which driver you use? i.e. what path for VK_ICD_FILENAMES ?

[cyan pendant]

For AMDVLK:
VK_ICD_FILENAMES=/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/amd_icd64.json

For RADV (mesa):
VK_ICD_FILENAMES=/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/radeon_icd.x86_64.json

[uneven mauve]

The game incorrectly shows 9999 ping for all servers, freezes while trying to connect to a server.

Training works fine

[uncut skiff]

for the 9999 ping try running:

sudo sysctl net.ipv4.ping_group_range='1000 1000'

[uneven mauve]

What should that do?

[uncut skiff]

it fixes the 9999 ping on the server browser

idk if it will fix the freezing though

[rough mason]

thanks. after investigating it seems bazzite used radv by default. maybe i should try switching to amd-driver because i get worse performance than expected (still playable)

[rough mason]

can anyone confirm that the clear cache button ingame actually works for linux? maybe that is my issue.

[vagrant mist]

rm -rf ~/.steam/steam/steamapps/shadercache/393380

[worn belfry]

allows userid 1000 (your account on linux) to ping on ipv4, which is required to see correct ping to servers ingame

[lone quest]

@rough mason it does not really work in windows if that helps. Best to just delete the folder. No idea where that would be on Linux.

[uncut skiff]

proton creates directories that look like the windows c drive for compatability, this is in the compatdata folder, so you can navigate to where the cache would be on windows:
~/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/393380/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Local/SquadGame

[cyan pendant]

I would recommend resorting to proton prefix removal (steamapps/compatdata/393380) and shader cache removal (steamapps/shadercache/393380)
the prefix will be recreated on next launch and you don’t have to reinstall, and the shader cache will be filled whenever idk

[rough mason]

thank you 🙂 hopefully will have time to check today.

[uneven mauve]

That command got the pings to show correctly

And totally uninstalling steam+squad, clearing all the leftover files, and reinstalling fixed the issue of it freezing while loading shaders.

Thank you hampter man! :3

[rough mason]

for me the frames got more stable (but this come from a lot of things). Right now I crashed 2 times when i spawned at main, not when i spawn anywhere else.

[quasi tundra]

Hello guys, Is it just me, or have you noticed a disproportionate improvement in in-game FPS with the new GE_Proton/Proton_chachyos ?
It runs better than Squad UE4 in my case.

[cyan pendant]

It depends on lots of factors even if not talking Linux: driver versions, hardware specifics, BIOS settings etc

For me, on RX 7800 XT, 5900x, 64gig of cl16 ram, on a 3440 x 1440 display, Manjaro, RADV, on a "highest GPU clocks" preset, kernel 6.15, latest GE proton, it runs worse

[quasi tundra]

7900 XTX, 9800x3d, 64gb CL32 ram, on 3440 x 1440, CachyOS, RADV (Mesa 25.2.2-cachyos1.3), kernel Linux 6.16.6-3-cachyos, latest proton-cachyos, it runs a lot better after yesterday update

[worn belfry]

Yesterday's update or is there another one today?

I had some fps issues with the cachy proton 2 days ago but yesterday's fix corrected it

[quasi tundra]

I updated my system yesterday around 19:00 CEST and noticed some proton updates between the lines. After that, Squad started running beautifully.

[lone quest]

I love you nerds. Windows user has a problem it must be the game I tried everything (did basically nothing).
Linux users actually take a deep dive into their system where the issue usually lies.

[cyan pendant]

Thanks for sharing, I wonder if an AM5 chip / PCIe gen5 really do that much of a difference

[lost zealot]

did you ever manage to fix this by chance?

[lusty junco]

yes, I think turning shadows to low was the fix. But I also completely reinstalled my OS and bought a 9950x3d and a 9070XT. I still had stutters after upgrading/reinstalling but then I turned shadows to low/medium and that fixed it. Not sure if the shadows were specifically the problem or the total load

[vagrant mist]

it basically went away after 9.0.2

[odd geyser]

This thread is very informative. I didn't read it at first because I wasn't that interested in the topic in the title.

For me, deleting ~/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/393380 helped a lot. Windows users usually just delete %localappdata%\SquadGame, and I tried that first (~/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/393380/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Local/SquadGame), but it didn't help much.

[lucid zodiac]

please make an official linux release windows 10 will commit forever sleep in october

[edgy rock]

doubt the will ever make an official release. But playing squad with wine/proton works reasonably well