How to Fish — Troubleshooting
Official patches already named the ugly bugs. Start with version, then saves, then Relay.
If How to Fish is acting cursed, check the build before you reinstall Windows. The main-menu and player.log version string (Patch 1.0.10) should match your friends. Mixed patches refuse lobbies. Restart Steam after every listed hotfix — Dazed Games repeats that line for a reason.
This page tracks issues the studio actually posted about, plus ordinary PC hygiene. For gameplay that only feels broken (wrong trophy, locked island, missing boss), use the Walkthrough instead of a verify-files loop.
Saves and crashes
Patch 1.0.6 stopped saving on crash. It writes on Save, Main Menu, and Quit, and autosaves about every minute. Use those buttons at clean checkpoints. Patch 1.0.6 also checks the file before load so fake servers named “Game Name” stop appearing. Patch 1.0.9 “hopefully” fixed corruption; if loads still fail or equipping weapons crashes, the Community Discord documents how to remove bad saves. Patch 1.0.4 banned special characters in server names because they broke save files.
Do not hex-edit an island unlock. Patch 1.0.5 made locked travel impossible on purpose. A damaged save is not a speedrun tool.
Black screen, gray screen, controllers
Patch 1.0.4 tried to fix black screen on lobby join and gray screen on boot by not forcing fullscreen. If you still boot into nothing, try windowed once, update GPU drivers, and verify Steam files. Patch 1.0.8 fixed PlayStation controller glyphs and tied fire sizzle to the FX slider. Invert look arrived in 1.0.5. Minimum locked FPS dropped from 50 to 30 in the same patch if a Steam Deck or laptop was fighting the cap.
Connection and lobbies
Patch 1.0.9 added a Steam Relay debug on the main menu. Red relay text means initialization failed — Discord #common-bugs, then a Steam restart, before you blame firewall folklore. Patch 1.0.10 lengthened connect time. Private invite lobbies are Patch 1.0.5. Grief-end-on-join was patched in 1.0.5. Rich text chat exploits died in 1.0.10. If voice is silent, fix Windows default devices; that is not a difficulty bug.
Everyone in the lobby needs the same version. Host on a wired PC when you can. Eight-player lobbies exist since 1.0.4; more clients means more chances for a bad join.
Soft-locks and physics
Patch 1.0.10 fixed: dying to Tuna then spawning Albatross with no respawn; seagull and player grabbing one item; roulette infinite tick and ball clip; items spawning far away when equipped; items falling through the world on load; explosion yeets that deleted loot. If a boss still will not spawn, you are missing bait, not a physics flag.
Ground piles now persist (64 items, quest gear prioritized). If a cook stash vanished, you either quit on a pre-1.0.10 build or overflowed the cap.
Ordinary PC steps
Verify game files. Disable overlays (Discord, GeForce) if the menu stutters. Run on an SSD. Set the GPU to the discrete card. Empty weird Steam launch options. Do not Alt-F4 during a save. Cloud conflicts happen if two PCs boot the same install at once.
If Relay is fine, saves load, and the Radar still points at the same rock, you have a quest problem. Read Boss Fights and Updates Hub.
Related pages
- Updates Hub — 1.0.4 through 1.0.10 wording
- Save Files — LocalLow folder and backups
- FPS & Stutter — caps and overlays
- Co-op Guide — private lobbies and eight players
- Difficulty Settings — missing slider means old build
- Controls — invert axis and glyphs