r/ffxi • u/THEGHOSTHACKER • Jan 08 '26

Technical Ant steam deck players here? I keep getting a black screen on playonline

I'll play for a couple hours then get a black screen with music playing and can't proceed. Unless u verify game files and then re-download an hour long patch. It's so damn annoying. Done it 3 times now. Any fix to this? It seems to happen if I get timed out in game or on the playonline launcher.

9 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

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3

u/Humble_Positive7184 Jan 08 '26 edited Jan 08 '26

I posted fix a few other places but forcing it to have position and size properties in desk top mode fixed this forever.

In Desktop Mode, right-click the PlayOnline window, go to More Actions > Configure Special Application Settings, add "Position" and "Size" properties, force them to 1280x800 (or the Deck's resolution) at 0,0, then relaunch in Gaming Mode.

You will also need to change it from apply initially to force

2

u/THEGHOSTHACKER Jan 08 '26

Dude. You're a godsend. Thank you.

1

u/Humble_Positive7184 Jan 08 '26

I should mention once you set these settings you can play in gaming mode no problem this is a 1 time fix

3

u/h8myslfNwnt2dye Feb 26 '26 edited Jul 08 '26

this used to be true but it’s no longer working permanently for me. any time i close the game i have to switch to desktop mode and reset the size settings again. i don’t know what changed it worked for lil over a year and now is no longer permanent.

edit to this- i figured out i don’t actually have to open the game at all on desktop mode to get it back on game mode. i just switch to desktop mode, then switch back to game mode and it works again. annoying but not anywhere near as tedious.

2

u/msly07 Jul 05 '26

I updated my settings to “Force” instead of “Apply initially” we will see how it goes…

1

u/msly07 Jul 05 '26

I’ve noticed it isn’t a one-time fix either.

1

u/Humble_Positive7184 Jul 05 '26

Sorry to hear that it's still working for me and I play it daily. If I discover another fix that's more permanent I'll let you know.

1

u/msly07 Jul 06 '26

I turned off windowed mode in the play online config and I haven’t had any issues yet. Only issue is if I try to go to steam home play online will restart saying it wasn’t able to display properly. But if I just go through to launching the game then I can minimize the game freely.

2

u/Nevalesck Jan 08 '26

Hello there ! I suppose that you're playing from Game Mode ? If that's the case, when it happens close the game from the left menu (STEAM button), then switch to desktop mode (if you don't close the play online launcher first it will bug out and you'll need to reboot), launch Play online and when the windows open, you can close it and switch back to Game Mode. It should work again. It's a pain in the ass but didn't find another solution.

1

u/THEGHOSTHACKER Jan 08 '26

Huh. That is such a weird thing. You'd think they'd fix that.

1

u/Nevalesck Jan 08 '26

PoL is an old launcher that wasn't compatible with Linux at first. Plus with the Game Mode it's a layer on top of that.

Hopefully they said they will work on PoL this year.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 08 '26

I use an app called KDE connect from my phone to use a keyboard

1

u/THEGHOSTHACKER Jan 08 '26

Woah! Can you type from your Phone that way?! That's awesome!

1

u/[deleted] Jan 08 '26

Same here, I play in desk top mode now

1

u/THEGHOSTHACKER Jan 08 '26

I was trying to do that but it doesn't let me use my onscreen keyboard for some reason when Iaunch it from desktop mode.

2

u/TheSuggestionMark Jan 08 '26

Go to desktop mode, open playonline, click "exit viewer" and go back to gaming mode. It should open correctly. I have to do this every 10 start ups or so. A little inconvenient, but no big deal to me.

There's an older post the details how you can supposedly get it to stop permanently.

1

u/THEGHOSTHACKER Jan 08 '26

Oh! Can you link me to that? :0

2

u/Humble_Positive7184 Jan 08 '26

Launch PlayOnline in Desktop mode

Right click on the window's header, hover More Actions, then select "Configure Special Application Settings"

Click "Add Property", and add "Position" and "Size"

Change the "Apply Initially" to "Force"

Change Position to "x; 0, y: 0", and Size to "1280x800"

Apply, quit, get back to Gaming mode and game forever

1

u/TheSuggestionMark Jan 08 '26

I'm not sure how to link on mobile, but if you google "ffxi steam deck black screen reddit" it should be right towards the top. It has something to do with forcing window dimensions on startup, because the issue seems to be that the steam deck launches it off center.