*CRASH* The memory could not be 'read' error, for HL2 and CS:S

[ptymona]

hmmm do girls play half life

Yes, At least I do. And I was the first member of the family to find it (my father almost took it over when he found out how cool it was).

Amy

 

[rado907]

no virtual memory you say...

 

[rado907]

nope no use

 

[falyfal]

cool i like girls........i cant find where you change graphic driver properties that hopefully could fix my prob

 

[Marx]

Hey all, i've been having the exact same problem with crashing, and of course have tried every god dam thing there has been but to no avail. Does anyone think the sound stutter patch will in some way help with the crashing?

 

[rado907]

probably not
but who knows
this problem is weird as it is, anything might solve it for anyone...

 

[CSharkbytes]

I have tried everything. Still crashes to desktop. Sometimes after 10 minutes, sometimes after 2 minutes, occassionally I can play for an hour beofre it crashes. No one area is my problem happens for no good damn reason. Still stutters too. Mostly right after saves, auto or manual makes no diff.

If We could get a real update patch (come on Valve) We would love this very incredible game.

Yes, women play games. We sure do. My kids (they are all adults) are probably older than the majority of you all and I still love gaming. I even build and mod my on rigs. I've made computers out of household items. Some make nice cases. Go to LAN parties, too. There's lots of us out there.

 

[mikekrosoft]

lucky of you who have been able to play at least an hour... I bought the game and I can't even create a new game, I can't pass that screen without getting the blue screen and then a hard reboot (this is so frustrating, pay for something you can't use) by the way, I made every trick mentioned in this thread.
Basically I guess we are stuck on waiting for a patch.
Mentioned that... does any of you guys got a reply from steam/valve/sierra ?

 

[Antic2]

I second that call - this has been going on for days, and although there have been some very, very constructive and helpful comments and information coming out of these forums, WE NEED TO HEAR VALVE SPEAK. Where are they?

Say something, Oh Valve! Your silence is worrisome! We of the faithful, who have waited so long for your second coming, need our tribulations to be heard, and ye Patch of Life to be applied to our vessels of worship! Truly, we live in a Half Life, wandering in the shadow of your towers of Steam!

So give us a sign, for #&@%'s sake!!!

 

[pharamir]

The instruction "0x241f8977" referenced at "0x01c9f5c0". The memory could not be "read"

this is what i get, it happens in the citadel when the loading screen shows up

 

[ch0ke]

Brilliant, that's fixed it for me - mucho thanks :cheese:
It was already set to use dcc, but after setting it to match the desktop it worked

Background: I'd get the memory error when trying to set the display to fullscreen on any resolution... running in a window worked, but who wants to do that with such a sweet looking game?!
This problem only started for me since the steam update on the 19th.
Radeon 9600pro (overclocked) (using reforce) (using Catalyst 4.12beta)
AthlonXP2600 @ 2.05GHz
768MB DDR3200
Windows XP Pro SP1

picklemonkey what is DCC? and how would i attempt this using on an nvidia drivers?

 

[JTQQ]

I have the same problem, every 5 minutes the game crashes at random points. The sounds starts looping and my Screen shuts itself down.
Sometimes I get the error:

1. Signal frequency out of range, please change signal timing.
2. VPU has recovered your video card settings, because it wasn't responding to driver commands(or something like that)

I've tried changing all the settings to "low", but it didn't work...
I've also tried the new validating updates from steampowered, no luck either...
I've tried downloading the models.cfg again, no luck...
AGRESSIVE!!!

System:

Pentium4 3Ghz
1024 mb RAM
Ati Radeon 9600 xt 256 mb (installed latest drivers)
Iiyama TFT scherm
Audigy 2 soundcard
Windows professional & Service Pack 2

Please anybody, any suggestions???

 

[Deuge]

picklemonkey what is DCC? and how would i attempt this using on an nvidia drivers?

Yeah, I'm getting the same problem. Halflife2 will not run full screen - it gets the cant read memory error.

It will run in a window ok, but not full screen.

I have a Nvidia GF4 Ti4200. Is there any fix like there is for ATI cards that lets it run full screen??

 

[Bambi]

I have a GF4Ti4200 64Mb card and HL runs OK. Still get the memory error at random intervals and the occasional BSOD.
Tweaking with AGP timings and PCI latency seemed to help reduce the frequency of errors.
Just out of interest who here, who is suffering from the now classic memory fault has a VIA chipset mobo? VIA are notorious for sound related issues. SB and VIA are a no go.

Try here for tweaking your system for Hl2
http://gear.ign.com/articles/554/554744p2.html?fromint=1

 

[Toastier]

A FIX for me.

OK just to confirm setting my pagefile to 512 minimum and maximum fixed it for me. 2 days and no crashes.

Try this and post results.

 

[rado907]

ill try, sure ;-)
-----
nope still crashed.

btw what's that desktop dcc or whatever stuff? is it only ATI?

 

[Ripley (R)]

Roll back your video driver **

worked for me

 

[falyfal]

how how how how how

 

[falyfal]

how do i rollback my drivers

 

[Checkmate]

Ok, for those who cannot wait for the official patch, and those solutions above don't work (and of course you are a good shooter), try to disable the autosave feature (by set read-only to all the autosave.* in hl/SAVE folder), 99% it will fix the memory problem, but remember when manually save, it still crash you, but atleast, you can play longer.
However, my advice is only saving when you're in a small area (go to small room and look at the wall), so 50% it won't crash you.

 

[rado907]

yeah he's right, game crashes only during save for me
well or soon after save ;-)

well... better than nothing i suppose ;-).

 

[04kz]

my $0.02

Hi all, here's my experience so far:

-downloaded steam, bought the bronze edition game
-let it start downloading, and MISTAKINGLY tried to play before it was 100% complete (did this more the once).
-finally read up to let it go to 100% before trying to play... did that
-in my attempts to play before 100% complete, my system hung and crashed, so I assume my download is buggared up somewhat
-whilst leaving it to download to 100%, i got an OUT OF GAME crash of IRQ_NOT_LESS_EQUAL_TO and a blue screen... this happened once and never since... my system is totally stable otherwise(has been for a year or more)
- finally got the game and was ready to play
-the game "chose" some settings for me, 800x600, all video detail on high... i left em alone
-when playing, i noticed a few nasty effects that seem to be related to transparency(alpha items turnign black & white)... also some sound stuttering
-got my first crash about 5 mintues in
-had to reboot
-played some more, with random crashes, all forcing system reboot
-most crashes left memory address references on the BLUE SCREEN on death, not via an in game windows dialog
-i have gotten a bit farther in the game, likely sheer luck, but still get random crashes and stuttering... but now my BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH is blank and contains no info... this has been the case in the last 3 crashes
-i re-installed the latest radeon driver package... i have XP SP2 and EVERYTHING on my system is up to date(specs below).
- i have not tried any of these kludges as I am waiting for valve to fix the problem... but i may try the bin directory trick as well as the hard cdoing screen resolution to match desktop. I may also eventually re-download HL2... and maybe even roll back my radeon driver... but all of this is a pain in the ass, so i will likely procrastinate

-my spec:
380W PSU antec
asus p4p800 deluxe motherboard
4 sticks of kingston 256 MB hyper X(1GB total)
2 seagate serial ATA HDD 80gb each, NOT in raid mode
-onboard lan & audio
-sapphire radeon 9600 ultra with 128 MB (the ultra is simply fanless, and uses a heat pipe, otherwise its like all other 9600 with 128mb)
-intel p4 2.6

my bios originally had a few overclock parameters set(memory turbo mode etc etc)... i turned all that off to defaults.
I disable my zone alarm, my antivirus and everythign in my systray before playing... i tried reducing my video details to medium.
so for all sanituy sake, i have a stock system now, and cant play reliably for longer then 20 minutes.
-other less useful info, dlink di624 router, gaming PC is on wired ethernet(not wireless)
-speedstream 5660 dsl modem
-br800 va APC UPS (battery backup and voltage regulation)
-dell/sony trinitron 17" monitor
-the pc also has a msi tv anywhere master tv tuner card
- 1 floppy, 2 dvd drives(one is dvd burner, other is dvd rom/cdrw)

hope this is mildly useful to someone(valve maybe) in trying to correlate hardware configs to errors, although after readin 39 pages in this thread, and being a software guy for the past 6 years, I would say this is a software issue... and I am also 99% sure it is to do with corrupt install files, be they from the net or cd or DVD.... or due to in game memroy leaks writing into save game files etc etc... bottom line... they will fix it... when who knows

 

[misterbelgic]

Apparently valve knows about the problem...ahha...


*Sigh*...Valve still knows about this problem and is still working on it. We plan to release one fix today that should help.

Again...(beating my head against a wall) If you haven't created an incident through out Support site, please do so now...if you don't we can't keep track of how many people are having each problem....the link again is...

http://steampowered.custhelp.com

Do a search for your problem, if you don't find it click on the "Ask a Question" tab and create an incident.

I know it may seem like a pain-in-the-butt to do this but it gives us visibility into the scope of the problem. Not everyone that is posting here is having exactly the same problem.

Thanks for your patience.

DougV



http://www.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=176441&perpage=15&pagenumber=32

 

[PickleMonkey]

picklemonkey what is DCC? and how would i attempt this using on an nvidia drivers?

Sorry did I say DCC? Too much IRC I think!
According to the tooltip in my catalyst settings...
DDC = Display Data Channel
A data channel used by newer monitors to communicate their properties (such as maximum resolution and refresh rate) to the associated video adaptor.

Anyway, DDC was already enabled while I was having this problem, it was the dropdown box beside that which enabled a refresh-rate override that I changed to solve my problem.
As far as I can recall, nVidia cards have a similar refresh override?
Hope this helps some of you :cheers:

 

[Bambi]

My fix

I was having the memory problem as described everywhere else. Used to crash every 2-10 mins.
Anyway here is how I managed to play for 4 hours without a single crash.
It may be a combination of the following steps or just luck..
1. Change autosave files to read only.
2. Give HL2 lots of memory: -heapsize 512000
3. Set game display to same res and frequency as desktop: -W 1600 -H 1200 REFRESH 100
4. Play the game.

Just add -heapsize (half your ram) -w (desktop w) -h (desktop h) refresh (desktop Hz) to the launch options under halflife 2 properties in steam.

I tried everything mentioned in all the other forums and nothing worked.

Oh I also tweaked the AGP apeture size and PCI latency in BIOS, but this alone made no difference. Oh I also underclocked my FSB by 1Mhz.

My PC is not great btw...
AMD XP2000+ (1667Mhz)
1Gb PC2700
64Mb Gf4Ti4200

Good luck and I hope this works for you.

 

[Donitsi]

Apparently valve knows about the problem...ahha...


*Sigh*...Valve still knows about this problem and is still working on it. We plan to release one fix today that should help.

Again...(beating my head against a wall) If you haven't created an incident through out Support site, please do so now...if you don't we can't keep track of how many people are having each problem....the link again is...

http://steampowered.custhelp.com

Do a search for your problem, if you don't find it click on the "Ask a Question" tab and create an incident.

I know it may seem like a pain-in-the-butt to do this but it gives us visibility into the scope of the problem. Not everyone that is posting here is having exactly the same problem.

Thanks for your patience.

DougV



http://www.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=176441&perpage=15&pagenumber=32

ok now this is good (i think).. come on everyone do whatever DougV asks for, and we might have a patch on our hands very soon.

 

[rado907]

Ok, for those who cannot wait for the official patch, and those solutions above don't work (and of course you are a good shooter), try to disable the autosave feature (by set read-only to all the autosave.* in hl/SAVE folder), 99% it will fix the memory problem, but remember when manually save, it still crash you, but atleast, you can play longer.
However, my advice is only saving when you're in a small area (go to small room and look at the wall), so 50% it won't crash you.

that's good advise btw
im playing that way now and effectively the game does not crash unless i save... and then only half the time as that guy said.
in a way this is even better (! the irony...) cuz the 1step-quicksave-method one usually applies to such games is, let's face it, uncool ;-).

 

[Shogo36]

Where is this ask a question tab..I dont see it at all...

 

[GOF]

Where is this ask a question tab..I dont see it at all...

Just click on any of the "answers" already there...then you can ask a question of your own.(yes very confusing i know)

Dont forget to attach a msinfo32 file.....

 

[Shogo36]

haha thanks were you mocking me??? msinfo files? sorry What do you mean?

 

[GOF]

haha thanks were you mocking me??? msinfo files? sorry What do you mean?

Heres some info on the subject...
---------------------------------------------------
MSInfo32 is a tool that was written by Microsoft and is included as part of every operating system release since Win98.

Basically what this tool does is capture a snapshot of everything that is running on your computer including what drivers, versions and applications and all the devices and their current state.

This can be a great aid to debug computer problems.

The reports are in a formatted searchable database format with a .NFO extension, or they can be exported to a text file.

Win98 reports are the most primitive and are only viewable from Win98 or a special updated version of Win2000, all other operating system reports can be directly viewed using WinXP.

WinXP reports contain a bit more information, especially the errorlog from the computer which can contain specific information about crashes and potential causes.

This information can be especially useful for Steam problems, Game problems, Server problems and Video, Sound and Network problems.

Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that your problem will be solvable just by the information provided by this tool.


What you need to do to run the tool is this:

To run MSInfo32 and capture a snapshot of what is running on your system:

start > run > msinfo32 <enter>

It will come up to a panel, make sure the topmost item is highlighted: "System Summary"

then go to:
file > save > save to a file " msinfo32.nfo" on your desktop.

Attach this file to your problem description when you "ask a question".
--------------------------------------------------------

DoudV asks for this info....very important apparently.

 

[Shogo36]

Heres some info on the subject...
---------------------------------------------------
MSInfo32 is a tool that was written by Microsoft and is included as part of every operating system release since Win98.

Basically what this tool does is capture a snapshot of everything that is running on your computer including what drivers, versions and applications and all the devices and their current state.

This can be a great aid to debug computer problems.

The reports are in a formatted searchable database format with a .NFO extension, or they can be exported to a text file.

Win98 reports are the most primitive and are only viewable from Win98 or a special updated version of Win2000, all other operating system reports can be directly viewed using WinXP.

WinXP reports contain a bit more information, especially the errorlog from the computer which can contain specific information about crashes and potential causes.

This information can be especially useful for Steam problems, Game problems, Server problems and Video, Sound and Network problems.

Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that your problem will be solvable just by the information provided by this tool.


What you need to do to run the tool is this:

To run MSInfo32 and capture a snapshot of what is running on your system:

start > run > msinfo32 <enter>

It will come up to a panel, make sure the topmost item is highlighted: "System Summary"

then go to:
file > save > save to a file " msinfo32.nfo" on your desktop.

Attach this file to your problem description when you "ask a question".
--------------------------------------------------------

DoudV asks for this info....very important apparently.

Thanks man, great help....hopefully now I can get this game running....

 

[GOF]

@Shogo36

No problem.....

I want this fixed as much as the next man.Theres more chance of that happening if valve get as much info from the sufferers of this error as possible....hence the msinfo32.People just posting their system specs in various forums is of little value to the dev`s endeavors.

 

[Shogo36]

Yea....any news on when this might possibly be fixed?Still no patch today..

 

[GOF]

Yea....any news on when this might possibly be fixed?Still no patch today..

lol....i think we can all agree theres a big fat "nope" on that one.

 

[squabbish]

I was playing CS:Source with 4 friends on a small LAN at home and we all got this same error at the same time. That made me think that it's not our computers that's the problem.

 

[GOF]

I was playing CS:Source with 4 friends on a small LAN at home and we all got this same error at the same time. That made me think that it's not our computers that's the problem.

mmm.......most interesting.

Damn you "error memory cant be read" ...damn you asunder!!!

 

[Shogo36]

I dont know if this is any help...but I think it proves its the program...ok this might be tough to follow but...


~Before procedure I had my RAM sticks in slots 1 and 3 (3 total slots).....The error message I received was - The instruction at "0x241f89977" referred memory at "0x0166fc0" The memory could not be "read."---
~I then proceeded to take the stick from slot 3, put it in slot 1, and take the ram from slot 1 and put it in slot 2....
~ I then try to play HL2....error message is not -The instruction at "0x241f89977" referred memory at "0x01d9f5co" The memory could not be "read."
~ Notice of course that the BOLD references slot 1....and the italic changes from Slot 3-2,
~Point being my computer wouldn't be able to run everything as it has without any bumps until now, if all my ram was fried/ruined as this error is telling me..

 

[DarkReign27]

I too have this memory reference error x000.... etc. I have Windows 2000 Pro SP4, AMD Athlon 1800+ XP, 512DDR, 60GB Harddrive, Geforce FX5200 128MB videocard and still no use. It runs perfectly fine when Gman is talking to me, but it crashes in different parts of that video I can't even get to the moving part yet but when it shows Gman it is fine the graphics are great no slowness but then the error just all of a sudden kills it. I very much hope they solve this.

 

[GOF]

I dont know if this is any help...but I think it proves its the program...ok this might be tough to follow but...


~Before procedure I had my RAM sticks in slots 1 and 3 (3 total slots).....The error message I received was - The instruction at "0x241f89977" referred memory at "0x0166fc0" The memory could not be "read."---
~I then proceeded to take the stick from slot 3, put it in slot 1, and take the ram from slot 1 and put it in slot 2....
~ I then try to play HL2....error message is not -The instruction at "0x241f89977" referred memory at "0x01d9f5co" The memory could not be "read."
~ Notice of course that the BOLD references slot 1....and the italic changes from Slot 3-2,
~Point being my computer wouldn't be able to run everything as it has without any bumps until now, if all my ram was fried/ruined as this error is telling me..

Yo dude...

I know i keep harping about this but stuff like that needs to be sent to steam support.

At least im happy the devs have acknowledged its a problem.

Ive still got about ten days before i have to return the game.

heres hoping.