Step 0: If you've just crashed and want to report it, DON'T RELAUNCH THE GAME. Rain World only keeps a single log file, launching it will overwrite the old log and any useful information it might've had.

Step 1: Check the FAQ to see if your issue already has a known fix or cause. Statistically, it's by far the fastest way to fix your problem.

Step 2: Find a way to send your log file using the following steps:

• 2a: First, you need to find where Rain World is installed. For steam users, you can right click on Rain World in your steam library, select "Properties", select "Installed Files", then select "Browse" to open the game's install location in file explorer.
  
• 2b: From there, open the folder "BepInEx"; the file you want is "LogOutput.log" (it may just display as "LogOutput"). The folder you started at ("Rain World") will contain a "consoleLog.txt", which is not what you're looking for. It may also contain an "exceptionLog.txt", which can be helpful to send if it exists; just make sure to send "LogOutput.log" either way.
  
• 2c: Send the file! If your log is under 50MB, you can upload it to https://pastebin.com/ anonymously and for free. Just link the pastebin in your bug report and you should be good to go! If your log is greater than 50MB, you can compress it into a zip to keep the file size low, then upload it to one of many file hosting sites available on the web, such as https://www.mediafire.com/.

Step 3: Write down as much information as you can about the issue. Following are some examples of important details, please include as many as you can, plus whatever else you see fit:

• What type of problem is it: Is the game freezing/crashing? Is there some behavioral issue when ingame? Can you not get the mod to run at all?
  
• When and where did your issue occur: Was it when launching the game, trying to connect to someone, playing normally, something else entirely? If applicable, what gamemode were you playing?
  
• How often does your issue occur: Was it a one-time thing? If not, does the issue happen frequently or consistently? Have you noticed any commonalities between each instance of the issue?
  
• How does the issue behave: What does the issue look/act like exactly? Is it a temporary thing? Does it affect just you or others also? Can other players intentionally cause the same issue?

Step 4: Report it! Go to Rain Meadow's workshop page on steam (make sure you're not on the Rain World workshop page), click on the "Discussions" tab, then click "Start a New Discussion" on the right-hand sidebar. Put in all of the information you've gathered and click "Post Discussion". For the sake of organization, please don't reply to this post, or add a "comment" to the workshop entry to report issues.

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When I enable the mod I get a black screen when launching the game!

• See Common Solutions #3.
  
• Try waiting a little while. Meadow is a very large mod and may take as much as 2-3 minutes to launch on poor computers. If windows tells you that the game isn't responding, DON'T immediately click "Close the Application"; that prompt, as (needlessly) aggressive as it is, only means that the application may be stuck, not that it is stuck. More often than not the program is just working very hard on something and is too busy to render a frame.

When I reach the title screen it says Meadow failed to start and/or there's no Meadow button!

• See Common Solutions #2.
  
• See Common Solutions #3.
  
• If you're on Linux, Meadow will need some launch arguments to run. Right click on Rain World in your steam library, then at the bottom of the General tab, paste the following into the Launch Options textbox:
  WINEDLLOVERRIDES="winhttp=n,b" %command%/

When I click on the Meadow button on the title screen it says it couldn't connect to steam!

• Make sure you're connected to the internet.
  
• Make sure steam's servers aren't down. You can use https://steamstat.us/ to check quickly. Note that Steam does regular maintenance on Tuesdays, which usually lasts 10-30 minutes.
  
• Try updating steam if an update is available.

My friend can't see/join my lobby!

• See Common Solutions #1
  
• See Common Solutions #2
  
• As of writing this, steam's "Invite to Game" and "Join Game" features are not stable or supported (this may change in the future). If you want to make a private lobby, just use a password.

I joined a story lobby but the "Enter" button is grayed out!

• This is probably either because the session hasn't yet been launched, or the session is at or has gone through a gate (as you can't start in a shelter that isn't loaded). You can use the chatbar to ask the host about it!

I'm getting serious stability issues ingame, and/or the wrong types of objects are spawning!

• See Common Solutions #1

Shelters aren't closing/gates aren't working!

• If you're in meadow mode, shelters don't do anything (they don't need to!). If gates break, it means the player who "owns" the region isn't communicating correctly; try a different gate, or just a different lobby. Note that teleporting out and attempting to use a second gate while the first gate is still active will crash your game; exit to the character selection and reenter first.
  
• If you're in story mode, make sure the vanilla conditions are properly fulfilled.
  
• For shelters to close, you need to have sufficient food, and every player needs to either be in a shelter, dead, or waiting in the character select. Additionally, each player needs to have not touched any inputs for a second, and notably there cannot be any players in the "tunnel climbing" animation. That can happen a lot in certain MSC, and especially Watcher shelters. Player-controlled pups in particular can also sometimes be errantly given the "tunnel climbing" animation when shoved into a corner.
  
• For gates to to work, you must have sufficient karma, and every player needs to either be present in the gate, or waiting in the character select. Gates will not work if players are dead and outside of the gate, ask those players to exit to the character select. Similarly to shelters, all players must let go of all inputs for a second for the gate to trigger.
  
• If you're in story mode, try to identify which player or players are preventing shelters/gates from working, and ask them to exit to the character select (they may be bugged). If you have dev tools installed, the main interface (toggled with O) will show a list of all connected players at the top left; next to each player name there will be a set of square brackets [], which contain some debugging information. S means "in a Shelter and ready to hibernate", G means "trying to go through a Gate", D means "Dead", and L means "waiting in the character select (Lobby)". If you don't have dev tools installed, just have everyone but the host exit to the character select one at a time until it (hopefully) works.

I entered a pipe then got stuck!

• This means the room you're trying to load into is "owned" by a player who isn't communicating correctly; this may mean they're having network issues, or it can be a sign that the game has desynced (please send logs for desyncs!). If you have dev tools installed, the main interface (toggled with O) will show a list of all connected players at the top left; if the "Senders" and "Receivers" lists don't match, the player(s) who are missing from either list are the ones causing problems for you.

I'm trying to play Meadow in combination with [insert mod] and it's not working!

• Make sure your mod list matches anyone else you're trying to connect to, and that everyone's mods are up to date. Read through Common Solutions #1 and #2 for details.
  
• Ultimately, not all mods will work with meadow. Most will only work if everyone has the mod, and some won't work at all. Sometimes this has to be fixed on Meadow's end, but more often it has to be fixed on the other mod's end. Ask the Meadow devs about it first, and be prepared to also ask the other mod's devs if prompted to.

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#1: Make sure you (and if applicable, anyone you're connected to) aren't running any extraneous mods. Not all mods play nicely with meadow, including a few that you'd expect to be compatible or "client-side". Even mods that advertise themselves as meadow-compatible may be out of date and can cause problems. Try to keep your mod list small; Meadow and built-in mods/DLCs are fine, and things that don't touch gamemodes directly should be fine (for instance Modpacks), but pretty much everything else should be treated with care and suspicion. If you're intentionally running content mods (such as adding new regions/creatures/slugcats), everyone you're playing with needs to have those same mods in the same order, or there will almost certainly be catastrophic issues.

#2: Make sure your installation of Meadow is up to date. You can force steam to update Meadow by closing Rain World, going to Meadow's workshop page, unsubscribing, waiting a second, then resubscribing. Don't worry, this won't mess up your settings or anything.

#3: If you've manually installed Meadow before, make sure you don't still have an old installation of the game. Right click on Rain World in your steam library, select "Properties", select "Installed Files", then select "Browse" to open the game's install location in file explorer. From there, open the folder "RainWorld_Data", then "StreamingAssets", then "mods", and delete any folders called "rainmeadow" or something similar.