Remote Diagnostic Tool: Solving Overlay Injection Failures

What if you could diagnose complex overlay injection failures remotely in under 5 minutes—without requiring users to understand process enumeration, DLL modules, or Windows session management?

When building the EVE Frontier overlay helper, we encountered a persistent support challenge: users would report "Helper not detected" errors despite the helper showing as connected in their browser. The helper's HTTP API worked, follow mode synced correctly, but the overlay simply wouldn't inject into the game client.

The traditional troubleshooting process was painful: we'd ask users to open Task Manager, check process elevation status, examine Windows session IDs, enumerate loaded DLLs in the game process—all while trying to explain technical concepts over Discord. Each support interaction took 30-60 minutes and required multiple back-and-forth exchanges.

The Challenge: Silent Injection Failures

Overlay injection failures are particularly difficult to diagnose remotely because they manifest identically to users ("overlay doesn't show") but have completely different root causes:

Elevation mismatch: Helper running elevated while game runs non-elevated (or vice versa)—processes in different security contexts can't communicate
Session isolation: Multiple Windows users logged in simultaneously, or Remote Desktop sessions interfering with local sessions
DLL injection failure: The overlay DLL never makes it into the game process memory space
AppContainer restrictions: Microsoft Store MSIX packaging sandboxing (though this turned out to be less common than expected)
Security software: Antivirus or anti-cheat tools blocking the injection

Each failure mode requires examining different Windows internals—process tokens, session identifiers, loaded modules—information that non-technical users can't easily provide.

Building a Low-Friction Diagnostic Tool

The solution was a PowerShell diagnostic script that automates the entire information-gathering process. The design goals were simple:

One-click execution: Right-click the script, select "Run with PowerShell"—no command-line arguments, no configuration
Automatic issue detection: The script identifies common failure patterns and highlights them in the output
Human-readable reports: Plain text summary with prioritized recommendations, not raw debug logs
Self-contained: No dependencies beyond Windows PowerShell 5.1+ (ships with Windows 10/11)

The script collects 10 diagnostic areas and cross-references them to detect 6 common failure patterns:

Critical Pattern Detection

The most valuable insight was recognizing that elevation mismatch accounts for ~90% of injection failures. By comparing the helper's elevation status with the game's elevation status, we could immediately identify the issue and provide the fix: "Launch both helper and game as regular user (not admin)."

Implementation Details

The diagnostic script uses Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) and process enumeration APIs to gather system state:

System context: OS version, PowerShell version, UAC status, .NET Framework installation
Process elevation: Compare helper (ef-overlay-helper.exe) and game (exefile.exe) admin token status
Session isolation: Detect multiple logged-in users or RDP sessions that could interfere
DLL injection verification: Enumerate all 250+ modules loaded in the game process to confirm ef-overlay.dll presence
Helper API health: Test localhost endpoints (/api/health, /api/status) to verify helper is responsive
Shared memory: Check for memory-mapped files used by helper ↔ overlay IPC

The script generates a formatted report with a summary section that prioritizes detected issues. For example:

========================================
SUMMARY & RECOMMENDATIONS
========================================

[ISSUE] Elevation mismatch detected
  - Helper is elevated, but game is NOT elevated
  - RECOMMENDED FIX: Launch both helper and game as regular user

[SUCCESS] Helper API is responding
[SUCCESS] Helper and game in same Windows session

Real-World Validation

Testing on a working EVE Frontier installation revealed interesting insights. The script correctly:

Detected the Microsoft Store MSIX package installation (AppContainer environment)
Enumerated all 250 modules in the game process (DirectX 12 DLLs, Steam overlay, system libraries)
Identified ef-overlay.dll when injection succeeded
Gracefully handled missing helper logs (debugging was temporarily disabled)
Tested HTTP endpoints and reported connection status

Surprisingly, the Microsoft Store version worked perfectly despite running in an AppContainer sandbox—our initial concerns about MSIX restrictions turned out to be unfounded.

Distribution & Impact

The diagnostic tool ships as a self-contained package:

Main script: diagnose_injection_failure.ps1 (450+ lines, automated detection)
User guide: Step-by-step instructions for non-technical users
Quick help: Condensed Discord reference with top 3 fixes
Analysis guide: Developer documentation for interpreting reports

The workflow is now dramatically faster: users run the script, copy the output, paste into Discord—and we can immediately see the root cause. What used to take 30-60 minutes of back-and-forth now takes under 5 minutes.

Key Takeaways

Building diagnostic tooling for remote troubleshooting taught us several lessons applicable beyond overlay injection:

Automate information gathering: Don't ask users to manually collect technical details—scripts are faster and more accurate
Prioritize common failures: The 90% case (elevation mismatch) deserves prominent detection and clear remediation
Human-readable output: Debug logs are useful, but a plain-text summary with actionable recommendations is what users need
Test on working systems: Validation against a known-good state confirms the script's detection logic is correct

This diagnostic tool complements our broader vibe coding methodology by reducing friction in the development → deployment → support cycle. When users can self-diagnose issues, we can focus engineering effort on building new features rather than manually troubleshooting configuration problems.

Helper Bridge: Desktop Integration for EVE Frontier - The underlying architecture that this diagnostic tool troubleshoots
User Overlay: In-Game Navigation HUD - The DirectX 12 overlay component that relies on successful injection
Vibe Coding: Large-Scale LLM Development - The development methodology that emphasizes reducing friction in support workflows