models missing/crashing hammer

This is new. I open my map in hammer, try to set a static prop, go into properties, and select world model, then crash.

So I try to use model viewer to see if its a localized problem with hammer, and when I try to open up a model it also crashes. This leads me to believe its more than just a small hammer glitch. I tried refreshing the SDK content, I opened the GameInfo.txt and set the steamapp to 220, and I pasted the Gameinfo.txt in the game.ini file to point to the gameinfo.txt.I believe all is well with hammer configs, but nothing seems to help. Any suggestions?

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Quote from Nietzsche....God is dead
Quote from God....Nietzsche is dead

Well after trying everything,including un-installing and re-installing the whole sdk, I ran across this post at the steam forums in the HLDM maps section:

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<TD vAlign=top noWrap width=175 bgColor=#3e4637><A name=post3565120></A>Gobanzo_Mon
[size=24]?[/size]

Registered: Aug 2004

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Warning:

If you unzip the castle map into your game's directory, it places a .jpg image into your models folder which confuses HLMV and VHE any time you try to browse the mod's models. To fix it, remove the jpg from the models folder.

This took me a long time to figure out.

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This instantly solved the problem. Dam!.

ah, that old chestnut. strange thing though, because to have a preview of the model, you need to have a jpg with the same name in the same folder as the model. i've used PSP with 100% success, but any time that i, or anyone else i've spoken to, has used photoshop to make the pic, it crashes hammer.

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i eat paint