Help & Support

Troubleshooting

Solutions to the most common issues reported by players. Pick the one that matches your symptom — each section is self-contained.

Issue 01 Background appears black instead of transparent Issue 02 Steam tries to install the game on every Windows boot Issue 03 How to delete inventory items Issue 04 Window is invisible or stuck off-screen Issue 05 Controller does nothing while playing a Steam game

Issue 01 — Background appears black instead of transparent

Symptom

The game window shows a solid black background instead of being transparent over your desktop.

Cause

Your graphics driver is forcing global FXAA anti-aliasing onto the game. FXAA blends transparent pixels with surrounding ones, which turns the entire window into an opaque black box. This is a driver-level setting, not something the game can override.

How to fix

Open your GPU control panel, turn FXAA off, then restart the game.

NVIDIA

  1. Right-click desktop → NVIDIA Control Panel
  2. Left menu → Manage 3D Settings
  3. Find Antialiasing — FXAA and set to Off
  4. Click Apply, then restart the game

AMD

  1. Right-click desktop → AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition
  2. Top tab → Gaming → pick this game (or use Global Graphics)
  3. Set Morphological Anti-Aliasing or FXAA to Off
  4. Click Apply, then restart the game

Intel

  1. Open Intel Graphics Command Center
  2. Global Settings → 3D
  3. Set FXAA / Anti-Aliasing to Use Application Settings or Off
  4. Click Apply, then restart the game
Still not working?

Try the Repair Window button in the in-game Settings panel first. If the background is still black after that and after disabling FXAA, please post on the discussion forum with your GPU model and driver version.

Note on driver versions

Driver UI labels change between versions (especially AMD Adrenalin which gets updated frequently). The exact menu names above may differ slightly — look for anything that mentions FXAA, Anti-Aliasing, or Morphological.

Issue 02 — Steam tries to install the game on every Windows boot

Symptom

Every time Windows starts, Steam pops up and tries to install BongoWaifu — even after you have already uninstalled the game.

Cause

An older build of BongoWaifu registered an auto-start entry in Windows. Even after the game is uninstalled, that leftover entry continues to call Steam, which is what triggers the install pop-up at every boot.

How to fix

Download the cleanup script below and run it once. It removes the leftover registry entry and orphaned save folder. Administrator permission is not required.

Download BongoWaifu_Cleanup.bat

  1. Click the download button above (Google Drive).
  2. Double-click BongoWaifu_Cleanup.bat to run it.
  3. Restart your PC after the script finishes.
  4. After restart, confirm the Steam install pop-up no longer appears at boot.
If your antivirus blocks the file

Please allow the script to run. It only uses two standard Windows commands — reg delete to remove the auto-start registry entry, and rmdir to remove the orphan save folder. Nothing else is touched.

This will remove your save data

The script also clears the local save folder for BongoWaifu. If you still play the game, back up your save first or skip this fix.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Issue 03 — How to delete inventory items

When you need this

If you want to clear out gifts or unlocked items from your in-game inventory — for example to retest the unlock flow, or to clean up before sharing screenshots.

How to do it

  1. Update the game to the latest version via Steam.
  2. Open the Settings panel in-game.
  3. Scroll to the bottom of the Settings page.
  4. Click Delete All Items.
Warning — this cannot be undone

Deleted items cannot be restored. Please confirm you really want to clear your inventory before clicking the button.

Issue 04 — Window is invisible, transparent, or stuck off-screen

Symptom

After changing a display option the character vanishes — the window is completely invisible or pushed off-screen, the settings panel is unreachable, and restarting the game does not help because the broken settings load again at startup. Deleting local files does not work either because the display settings live in the Windows Registry, not in the save file.

Step 1 — Try the rescue hotkeys (no download needed)

These hotkeys work even when the window is invisible — they bypass the UI completely:

  1. Ctrl + F1 — Fits the window back to your current monitor and resets character and settings panel positions to default.
  2. Ctrl + F2 — Forces the bottom UI bar (gear icon, notifications) to reappear in case it was auto-hidden.

If the character reappears, open the Settings panel and undo whatever option you toggled last. If the window is still invisible, continue with Step 2.

Step 2 — Reset display settings (keeps your progress)

This script resets only the display options (always-on-top, lock position, target monitor, window size, flipped state, taskbar visibility, hotkey enable). Your clothing, items and progress are preserved. The old settings are backed up to %TEMP% so you can roll back if needed. Administrator permission is not required.

Download BongoWaifu_ResetSettings.bat

  1. Click the button above to download the script.
  2. Close Bongo Waifu if it is still running.
  3. Double-click BongoWaifu_ResetSettings.bat, then type Y to confirm.
  4. Launch Bongo Waifu from Steam — the window should appear with default display settings.

Step 3 — Full reset (last resort, erases progress)

Warning — this erases clothing and save data

Only use this if Step 2 did not help. It deletes the save file in addition to the registry settings. You will lose your equipped clothing and the gift-popup history. Backups are placed in %TEMP%.

Download BongoWaifu_FullReset.bat

  1. Download the script above.
  2. Double-click it — you must type RESET (in capitals) to confirm.
  3. After the script finishes, launch Bongo Waifu from Steam.
  4. If Steam shows a "Cloud Conflict" dialog, choose Upload to Steam Cloud so the fresh state overwrites the broken cloud save. Picking "Download" will restore the broken save and you will be stuck again.
If Windows SmartScreen or your antivirus blocks the file

These scripts are not signed because they are plain text. Right-click the .bat file and choose Edit to open it in Notepad and inspect what it does before running — you will see only standard Windows commands (taskkill, reg export, reg delete, copy, del). Nothing else is touched.

Issue 05 — Your companion ignores the controller while you play a Steam game

Symptom

While a Steam game is running, your desktop companion stops reacting to your controller. Keyboard and mouse still work, but gamepad buttons do nothing.

Cause

Steam’s Steam Input layer takes over the controller and routes its signals only to the game in focus. While that is active, the raw gamepad presses your companion listens for in the background never reach it.

How to fix

Try disabling Steam Input. You can do it for a single game, or for everything at once.

Per-game (recommended)

  1. In your Steam Library, right-click the game → Properties → Controller, then set it to Disable Steam Input. Restart that game and your companion should react to the controller again.

Globally (all games)

  1. Open Steam → Settings → Controller and turn the Steam Input options off there.
Note

Steam’s menu labels change between client versions, so the exact wording may differ from the steps above. Look for anything named “Steam Input” under the game’s Controller settings.

Still need help?

If none of the steps above resolved your issue, please leave a comment on the Steam discussion thread. Include your OS version, GPU model, driver version, and a short description of what you tried — we’ll do our best to help.

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