Counter-strike source

[Rant]
Alright so today i decided to launch counter-strike source, no problem, so i simply double click on the game to launch, it launches, the window flashes for about a quarter of a second then it closes.

After that i tried running it again, no go, so i verify the gcf's, no go, i even defrag the gcf's, i checked "source engine.gcf" and guess what, it hasn't been fully acquired, now, when i verify a game, i expect it to TELL me that one of the gcf's has a problem, it didn't, so i delete "source engine.gcf" and restart steam.

Steam's fix is just simply amazing, it remakes the gcf in about half a second, and it remakes it broken again, i just simply have to say to valve "bravo for being lazy asses", right now i delted EVERY single gcf in my steamapps folder, i deleted my username folder as well, and am currently re-downloading the whole game again, which would be the only choice i have, other then downloading the gcf off of the pirate bay or something.

Now, if steam is so awesome and user friendly, why would they make it so that if i want to play my game, i re-download it?

How does that make ANY logical sense?

It makes as much sense as the fact that you HAVE to go online in order to play a game (yes i realize there is offline mode), not to mention the fact that hl2.exe still checks for the steam server, what would steam do if it found a connection? format my hardrive? download viruses to my computer?

It makes no sense for steam to check for the steam server's in offline mode, does it not trust me when i told it that i don't have a internet connection?

I am now downloading counter-strike source in hope that it doesn't grandly fuck up again, if not I'm uninstalling steam, i have had enough of the countless "this game is currently unavailable" messages, let alone the "steam servers are currently too busy to handle your request" messages.[/rant]

There, i said it, steam sucks.

EDIT: I guess i should be preparing for the "Your internet connection sucks, so it's not steams fault" crowd?

Oh, and the "You computer sucks it's not steam's fault"
or the
"Buy the game you pirate"
or
""Currently re-downloading" buy the game you idiot!"
or the
"You just don't know how to use steam, so you suck" crowd too.

Update: Steam is now un-installed.

Update2: Non-steam counter-strike source has also been installed, enjoying my pirated game without the hassle of steaming-pile-of-****, thank you very much valve.

yodalman said:
[Rant]
There, i said it, steam sucks.

EDIT: I guess i should be preparing for the "Your internet connection sucks, so it's not steams fault" crowd?

Oh, and the "You computer sucks it's not steam's fault"
or the
"Buy the game you pirate"
or
""Currently re-downloading" buy the game you idiot!"
or the
"You just don't know how to use steam, so you suck" crowd too.

The pit really isnt like that, you can go to the steam forums for that. TBH welcome to the rants and raves of about 3 years ago when steam came out.

IMHO steam is really good when it works, which for me and most people is about 90% of the time (4 days ago steam servers were down, and you couldnt get an online l4d game going), but for the most part im pretty happy with the way it works, I really dont need to worry about loosing my game in the event of a system crash because I can just re-download it and not worry about DRMs.

Anyways back to your issue. Have you tried searching the steam forums for anyone else having this issue? Is your hard drive failing (Run SeaTools to find out)? Are any other source games working? Did you recently update your graphics drivers? Did the crash generate a crash report? In the last case try to find it, and post it on the steam forums, or even email steam support with it attached.

The pit really isnt like that

Thanks for not flaming me, i posted the exact same post you see above on twhl, wonder how long it'll take before i get banned.

Anyways, [quote]or even email steam support with it attached.[/quote] No offence, but i really don't have the time for steam support, i might as well wait for the wallpaper to peel of my wall (if you get what i'm saying), and well, just to play a game that i could play a week ago, it seems a bit much, but oh well.

Have you tried searching the steam forums for anyone else having this issue?

I would but i'm not the best with making up search keywords, i tried "closes on startup" but that just gave me a bunch of topics where the op's game CRASHES on startup, not closes.

Is your hard drive failing (Run SeaTools to find out)?

...No....

Are any other source games working?

I can play fortress forever, a mod fine, but that uses source sdk base, i doubt it uses the "source engine.gcf" like counter strike source.

Did you recently update your graphics drivers?

No, and every other game works fine so it's not a graphics problem.

Did the crash generate a crash report?

It never "crashed" so the rest of your post is absolutely useless.

EDIT: forgot to mention, thanks for the help anyways, because steam isn't un-installed so it's kind of pointless to try now.

Deal with it.

I still dislike the idea of needing 2 (FOUR programs in case of games like GTA4, not including SecuRom) just to run a game. Even an online game. Especially, since pirates are still laughing hysterically at companies' claims of having "beaten piracy with better DRM" (you know that already... not judging for doing it, btw). Not to mention the wonderful censorship/region-pricing/hijacking opportunities of centralized software, options which might cause all Steam games to get shut down soon by the German government... or the prospect of your account getting stolen by a hacker with a simple password sniff (happened to me and many people I know, despite antivirus and general caution- thankfully that's a case where steam support is actually pretty quick).

But I gave up. If you have the energy to continue protesting, I applaud you, but prospects are grim.

Steam is really working now. I know how ignorant it sounds, but let me tell you that I have been in pretty much the same situation as you, blamed Steam, then found out that my RAM was broken which eventually caused a harddisk crash which made me loose most of my personal files, map sources, etc. I always recommend checking RAM in these cases. It's one of the most unpredictable and random causes of trouble, and first symptoms usually are large files, failing CRC checks and so on. I know, I know, your RAM is quality and fine...

I'd give Steam another chance. Once you solved this (probably just one re-load away), the problem might not ever turn up again. And it's quite comfortable now.

you know that already... not judging for doing it, btw

No offense taken.

Steam is really working now. I know how ignorant it sounds

A person who has a brain and actually knows a thing about what they're talking about doesn't sound ignorant, if you get what I'm saying.

As for the rest of your post, well I'm currently re-downloading once again (ugnh) after a clean install of steam.

EDIT: in my previous post, i mean to say "steam is un-installed", not "steam isn't un-installed" /me headdesk.

EDIT2: Oh Sh***! that's nasty, why is that even a freaking smiley?!

Somebody please tell me that he isn't rubbing a....!?

Hes rubbing his kitty. Yes I thought it looked like a... a while back.

But yeah I recommend you download Hiren's boot CD (PC Doctor 2004 -> Linear verify on the drive), burn it, boot to it, and test your machine (Its pretty good considering its free, its not great compared to the tools we have but it does the job). I work as a PC tech, and I have to say that the cause of most PC problems, whether it be slow down out of no where, blue screens, or programs acting erratically, its normally the hard drive having bad sectors, which means the hard drive is no longer reliable, and thus no longer fit to support your operating system.

FYI by steam support I actually meant go to the forums, and have a moderator help you or something. Even email someone at valve.

[Story time:]Surprisingly I sent an email about the map compiler to gabe (I wanted to inquire as to BSP entity numbers), and he forwarded my email to the programmer who wrote the compiler. Subsequently I meet him 3 months later at the GDC 2007 when he + 1 more valve employee were checking out Eternal-Silence mod. [end story time]

I find Steam to be pretty fussy (if you want to play a game in offline mode, make sure you run the game in online mode first and close down steam properly, should work) but I haven't really every had problems with it.

I like to use Steam's back up feature, it's really great! No more DVDs or redownloading games. I saved the backup on my portable hdd so whenever I want to reinstall a particular game I just select which game I want to install (it actually has an interactive ui which I wasn't expecting) and it takes like two seconds.

If your Counter-Strike is pirated that could be the problem.

As for Steam support, I'm actually pretty happy with their service.

And imo, Valve dosen't really do alot of community stuff in a certain sense, but at least Gabe responds to his emails! I have another friend who sent Gabe a little questionnaire with random questions on it about Half-Life 1 and game design and so on and Gabe answered the questions! I wish other studios weren't so stuck up about personally interacting with their fans.

<-- stroking it's pussy.

Btw, that's a nice story Omegaslayer, the gaming development industry in Australia isn't big enough yet for anything like GDC to happen here.

---

Aaron's Stuff

By the way, while Steam isn't running try and delete steam/ClientRegistry.blob and see if that fixes the problem.

---

Aaron's Stuff

Hes rubbing his kitty.

Thank god.

<-- stroking it's pussy.

I realize by pussy you mean a cat, but could you rephrase that...? :P

If your Counter-Strike is pirated that could be the problem.

No... I already told you that before.

FYI by steam support I actually meant go to the forums, and have a moderator help you or something.

Ah, that makes sense.

As for the rest, a clean install did the trick, it's still a damn inconvenience though, when all steam had to do was re-download the proper gcf.

You have cracked your Steam ,didn't you?I had a different problem with cracked Steam,and I had black models in a non-steam version.So I got angry and went to Pulsar and bought a 35 euro copy of The Orange Box(I'm 15 yers old so I'm not allowed to own a credit card ).

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Never think about bad things!
TNKqwe:The New Killer qwe
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I am Engineer - Play Free Online Games
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Citizen Arms

Well that's it, i have just fucking had it, i play for 2 minutes, the game randomly crashes, then it starts closing on startup again.

My computer is fine, there is no point in downloading 20 programs to confirm it, my harddrive is also fine, i am going to do what twhl says "you should have saved yourself the effort by simply deleting clientregistry.blob" and if that doesn't work then I'm not going to bother with 15 steps to play a god damn game.

EDIT: again my computer is fine, i can play on the exact same server with the exact same map with the exact same people, and it never crashed once, in the non-steam version of course.

EDIT2: The game launched and got to the menu, then my whole pc locked up, and i could hear the lovely little "ding" of windows, indicating that the game crashed. Now here's the best part: my computer was frozen, so i couldn't SEE the error, let alone do anything but force my computer to restart.

You know what, screw it, I'll play it tomorrow, if i can, that is.

I will say this, I had the exact same issue as you are speaking of: the startup window displayed and then disappeared without launching the game. However, after simply restarting steam it worked on mine, or maybe I restarted my computer, hasn't happened since. Good luck on fixing yours man, you might just try asking google, if you haven't already. Either way, good luck, and welcome to the pit?

Your friendly neighborhood Stringfats

Thanks, I'll let you guys know if i ever manage to fix this.