Troubleshooting

Read the log

Every start writes anvil/anvil.log in the game folder; the previous start is kept as anvil/anvil.prev.log. The log shows:

• the Anvil version,
• the detected game build, or unknown with the identity of eu4.exe,
• for each plugin: loaded, skipped (reason) or failed (reason),
• the patches each plugin applied, and how long loading took.

If there is no log at all, Anvil did not run. Check that version.dll and the anvil folder are directly next to eu4.exe, not in a subfolder.

Common reasons a plugin is skipped

Log says	What to do
Game build unknown / not supported	EU4 was updated, or the plugin targets another build. Wait for a plugin update.
Manifest error	plugin.toml is broken. Reinstall the plugin.
Entry DLL missing	The plugin folder is incomplete. Reinstall the plugin.
Missing dependency	Install the plugin it depends on, in a compatible version.
Disabled	The plugin is listed in disabled_plugins in anvil/anvil.toml.

Start once without plugins

To check whether a problem comes from a plugin, start the game once with all plugins disabled. Either set enabled = false in anvil/anvil.toml, or set the environment variable ANVIL_DISABLE=1 for that start. Anvil then only writes the log.

Antivirus warnings

Anvil is a proxy version.dll, a pattern that antivirus heuristics sometimes flag. Releases are built by GitHub Actions from public source, and each release publishes SHA-256 checksums you can compare. Code signing is planned.

Reporting a problem

Open an issue on GitHub and attach anvil/anvil.log.