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

[gordon13]

My Struggle Con't

I am a simple man, I like simple things. I like knowing that when I leave something in working order I can expect it to work the next time I use it. Take for example HL2, I spent the better part of a week getting it to run right, during this week, I laughed, I cried, I pulled my hair out, and was tempted to return it. But I stuck with it and eventually got the game to run perfectly, no skips, no crahes, just gameplay bliss. Now call me crazy, call me foolish, but I turned off the auto-update for HL2, if it ain't broke don't fix it, right? Well after downloading HL2DM, I now get the memory errors again. Words cannot begin to describe my flustration, or the rage I am currently feeling. I know I have to be reasonable, but after spending honest money (54.95) on agame that crashes more that window 3.11, one has to wonder what was valve thinking when they realised it to the public.:flame:

 

[budgie55]

well I finally got to play the game.... perhaps SHOULD have tried this earlier however I didn't really think it would make a difference.

My machine memory config is 1X512mb DDR266 CAS2.5 and 2X256mb DDR266 CAS2.5 (all Crucial memory sticks).

I decided to remove 1 of the 256mb sticks and retry Half Life 2. Low and behold I played the game for hours with no crash what so ever... Why does it work?? not a clue ... my next step is to swap the order of the sticks around and try and get the game to run with the full 1gig of memory rather than just the 768mb...

I really hope this helps some people out with more than 1 stick of ram, however, I was lucky I had the memory setup I had people with say 2X512mb stick are going to be left with only 512mb of memory which may have a significant impact on the game performance

HOWEVER cant STRESS ENOUGH AT LEAST TRY AND MOVE YOUR MEMORY STICKS ABOUT!! ... I really had tried EVERY OTHER option out there.... best of luck guys

p.s. the game is worth the wait its AMAZING!!!

 

[winds of war]

would this work for a laptop as well???

Also, my memory crashes takes me to the blue screen of death and a hard reboot. Is anybody else getting this? Takes much longer to restart from a reboot then just getting kicked to desktop...so consider yourselves lucky

 

[budgie55]

would this work for a laptop as well???

Also, my memory crashes takes me to the blue screen of death and a hard reboot. Is anybody else getting this? Takes much longer to restart from a reboot then just getting kicked to desktop...so consider yourselves lucky

ermmmm could work for a laptop although I really have no idea why it works on my machine to be honest... presumably the memory cannot be read at an address between 769 and 1024mb (1GIG) of ram on my machine. By removing the 256mb stick this error does not happen.

I really dont know much more than that, why the program bombs when I have 1gig in and not when i have 768mb of ram in is anyones guess. Im not a programmer so haven't a clue.

Best thing I can suggest is give it a try in the laptop, if you cant play anyway due to crashes you have nothig to lose! :cheese:

 

[RISEN1]

Man they still havent fixed this bs of a game.Shocking absolutely shocking. I have since moved on completely convinced its a programming problem and am just hoping that they might come out with a patch that actually works. It would be ashame if they delay the patch for another year as they are so fond of doing.

But for now.........

:cheers:

 

[winds of war]

darn darn

memory trick didnt work. Is there any word on another patch coming out???

plus still curious if people are getting the blue screen of death or if thats just me. only saw two posts about it in 54 pages..not a good sign :/

 

[destrukt]

there will be a patch sometime, just noone knows.

 

[ithink101]

i had this error when trying to load autosaves

so i backed up my saved games , and deleted the auto save games and one of the quicksaves that was corrupt loaded the game and finally got to finish this awesome game ,
try this it it worked for me
:cheers:

 

[Mr_Kittles]

Maybe thats it, maybe its just the old save files dont work with the new version, although that wouldent explain why the fresh installers diddent work... just an idea.

 

[Andy6681]

aggggghhhhhhh

I am getting the memory error while HL2 is still loading... same as a few other posts (blurry loading screen, 2 beeps and multiple ESC to get back to the desktop)..... I am a bit releived in a way though that soooo many other people are having the exact same problem..... makes me feel a little better that its not just my system or my stupidity (and I'm a Helpdesk Hardware / Software Tech for a major IT firm). I am just a bit pissed off at valve for not fixing this / releasing bad software...

Anyone got a phone number for them? I say every single person should call their helpdesk everyday until they fix this shit!

 

[Zacmaniac]

Hm, well I'm not going to read this whole thread, but is everyone else getting these errors when they try to load a map in either CS: S or HL2, or are you actually getting into the game, then it crashes? Because I can't even load either game, it just crashes at the end of loading a map/level/save.

This didn't happen yesterday. Now it does. I am pissed and want to play.

 

[destrukt]

some peopel can get into the game, and it crashes usually after 5 minutes, sometiems longer sometimes shorter.

 

[exodusuk]

the heapsize thing worked for me , which is rather cool cheers whoever posted it first

 

[exodusuk]

oh i read it somewhere else anyway its -heapsize 50000 in your launch propeties

 

[yummifruitbat]

My symptoms are EXACTLY the same as the original post. Happens completely at random, so far in every level up to Anticitizen One. I had thought it might be graphics related because I had similar problems a while back with C&C Generals, which were 95% sorted by fitting a beefy VGA Cooler; but apparently not. Sometimes it'll crash twenty times in an hour, other times not at all - I played for 3 hours solid yesterday before it gave up on me.

I always close all excess processes before playing (although not closing them doesn't help either), leaving Apache, McAfee and Tiny Personal Firewall 2 running and nothing else.

As an aside, I don't think it's burner related because my I've had the same problem with two different drives; first MSI and now Asus. Besides my DVD is separate and that's where the disc goes.

Box:
AMD Athlon 3200 Barton
512MB DDR400
Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB w/ Omega 2.5.90 drivers (tried various Catalysts too, same problem)
Hitachi/IBM Deskstar 80GB
Asus NForce2 mobo w/ onboard sound/LAN
NEC DV-5800C DVD-ROM
Asus CRW-5232AS CD-RW
XP Home SP2

 

[CS2x]

I think it may be the recent patch.

My game worked fine till I got to the Santraps section. I thought it was an error with this particular section of the game, but now even Counterstrike Source won't work.

It has only started happening recently, too.

 

[Space Cowboy]

some peopel can get into the game, and it crashes usually after 5 minutes, sometiems longer sometimes shorter.

That's what's weird about this problem. I have never experienced a crash at the same particular point. It is always at random. Sometimes it can go for 20mins, other times barely 10.

Maybe there is some sort of distinction to make with this problem. Comps that give up at certain points and others that are just more random.

 

[Zacmaniac]

I think it may be the recent patch.

My game worked fine till I got to the Santraps section. I thought it was an error with this particular section of the game, but now even Counterstrike Source won't work.

It has only started happening recently, too.

Same.

 

[yummifruitbat]

It's not the patch - I had the same problem before I applied it... I sort of hoped the patch might fix this, but nope

 

[eatherfast]

I know a lot of people that had the same problem running with nvidia card, We uninstalled the nvidia driver, and downloaded the year old plain jane driver off microsoft's website. It worked great for me and all my friends. I only know 1 person with a radeon card His started crashing after the update and he tryed everything, he using my old gforce 64 card now with the old drivers until valve fixes this game. It a great game once you get it running.

 

[CS2x]

I KNOW it's a great game-it WAS running fine (bar the odd stutter) until recently!

I can only assume it is a software issue, as I have tried fiddling about with my hardware and drivers enough now. This is absolutely ridiculous; I've never had this kind of experience with a game, ever,

 

[budgie55]

Recent post re the memory cannot be read from DougV on steamforums

May help some I haven't tried it yet but at least another response from VALVe on the matter and a possible future patch to resolve the issues!! Apologies if this already been posted

Original link to official forums : http://www.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=189238&perpage=15&pagenumber=21


DougV
Valve


Registered: Jul 2004
All,

We've discovered that updating to the latest version of the Miles Sound System software appears to solve the problem for some of the people that are getting the "Memory can't be read" errors as well as the audio stuttering problems. We will be releasing a game update soon but wanted to make the manual install known as quickly as possible.

Additionally, if you were successful in correcting the memory could not be read error by adding "-nosound" to the launch options for Half-Life 2, upgrading to the latest version of the Miles Sound System should allow you to play with sound and remove the error.

You can download the latest version of the miles sound system here:

http://www.radgametools.com/down/Mi...Sys/MSSDemo.exe

Once the download has completed and you have run the installer, copy the files from the "C:\MilesDem\redist" directory to the Half-Life 2 directory "C:\Program Files\Valve\Steam\SteamApps\accountname\half-life 2".

If you are encountering the memory could not be read error with the other Source games you can also copy the Miles Sound System files to the following directories as well:

half-life 2 deathmatch
counter-strike source
half-life source

After these files have been copied, if you added the "- nosound" make sure you remove it from your launch options for Half-Life 2, then start the game.

If you encounter any other problems please let us know.

Thanks,

Doug

 

[daveodeth]

am i right in saying he wants us to download the system demo? Not the tools.

 

[budgie55]

daveodeth presume so m8 as thats the link he also posted in the thread on the steam forums.... I think the directory he specifies may also be incorrect... I think the files may be in the bin directory and not the one he quotes.... check the thread on the steam forums a little later on than his post.

Allan

 

[daveodeth]

looks to me that this is a random stab in the dark.

 

[daveodeth]

nice it made it worse, ALOT worse.

 

[Brazooka]

After trying a number of useless solutions, this huge command line has allowed me to play for 10 minutes(before I could play for only 2 minutes max): (Thanks to those of you who have posted the commands first)

+mat_forcehardwaresync 0 +mat_forcemanagedtextureintohardware 0 +map_background none +snd_async_prefetch_priority 1 -gl -developer -heapsize 50000

I have the feeling that some of the commands doesn't even do anything, but no harm to have them there so...

Does anyone added any commands other then those?

 

[kocho]

Ill try that... this error has got worse the last week.

 

[OmegaX]

I recently started getting this error too. So are there any good solutions? I dont feel like going through all the posts. This is a horrible problem and needs to be fixed by VALVe/Steam

 

[hypobifty]

Hey, I got a new graphics card, and seemed to fix the problem for me. Something about my intergrated card that screwed things up.

 

[copy]

my work around

upon reaching the last part of ravenholm, i saved my game and went to bed. the next day i loaded up the saved game and received the 'memory could not be read..." error message before the level even finished loading.
after tinkering around for a couple days trying to get the game to work, i realized that i could still start a new game and load up the ravenholm level and play with no problems. another option if you're reluctant to go through the whole level if you're almost done, you can enable cheats in the console (sv_cheats 1) and load a sub-level directly (you can find the specific codes for each sub level on any hl2 cheat code site). the only drawback of course is that you're inventory will be defaulted, so you'll have to build up your ammo again. but at least you'll be playing again! i've been playing (and quicksaving) for a few days now and have not received the error message yet.
my only theory as to how it occured in the first place is that i might have chosen the 'save my game before quiting' option when shutting the game down, which could possibly have caused the problem. it's obviously got something to do with corrupted save games, so who knows. to be safe i always choose 'don't save'.
hope this helps some people out!

 

[Crazycanuck]

I think I finally found my fix. My computer use to lock up and get the memory read problem everytime my son died or loaded to the next level. This only started when my son hit chapter 8, I think it is.

I had my cpu overclocked for over a year now without any problems. I reset everything to default and voila. I just tested it, and I died and I died and I died ( no idea how my boy does it?) , but never locked up.

 

[3rd Ranger Batt]

I have fixed my problem...or rather my local PC store did. About 3 wks ago my mobo was having probs and resetting things in my bios. The store replaced it......I was finally fed up with my problem with HL2,JOTR/JOE, and Vampire Masquerade.....I told them to take my PC and not return it to me until it was fixed.

I mentioned that a forum for HL2 (this one) stated that switching/replacing mem sticks worked for some. He took note and off I went. An hour later they called and said that the mem sticks were in fact defective and he had been playing HL2 for the past hour w/out a crash (kinda funny I thought...although I told him to test my games to ensure no crash of any type). He half-heartedly handed over my games and my PC.

I know this has worked for some and others it has not...for that I share your frustration and understand where the latter group is coming from.

Good luck to all that are still looking for a fix.

 

[Crazycanuck]

I overclocked my cpu again by only increasing my multiplyer. This time I did not adjust my FSB. My son just finished playing the game for a little over an hour without a crash.
At least now I've got it narrowed down to the FSB.
Hope it helps some of you, who may have also overclocked and getting the mem error.

Come to think of it, one other thing I did do was increase my page file (virtual memory). HL2 does require a fair chunk of virtual memory. I have a gig of ram (1024) so I set my page file on my second harddrive at min. 1020 and max 2040. No page file on my primary harddrive. (minimum is just less than the ram you have, max to just under double the ram you have)

So it could be either the page file setting or the FSB. One or the other fixed it, or both.

 

[!@bLah:(]

I could not play for the first three weeks of the game with this problem but I finallly got it to run . The steam support page was updated with some tips to fix the problem. Adding, +mat_forcehardwaresync 0 +snd_async_prefetch_priority 1, to the launch properties made it work for me.

Btw i have a crappy computer 2.8 celeron, 256 mb mem, 80 gb hd, and Intel "Extreme" integrated graphics.

 

[NLplay]

I could not play for the first three weeks of the game with this problem but I finallly got it to run . The steam support page was updated with some tips to fix the problem. Adding, +mat_forcehardwaresync 0 +snd_async_prefetch_priority 1, to the launch properties made it work for me.

Btw i have a crappy computer 2.8 celeron, 256 mb mem, 80 gb hd, and Intel "Extreme" integrated graphics.

Those settings did it for me too! :bounce:
I have a slightly better computer, but with the same crappy graphics (I was told). Seems to work all right, though, only the flashlight is kind of useless.

 

[seanahrens]

AMD XP 2800+
160 GB SATA RAID (80+80)
1G DDR RAM
WIN XP PRO

original problem: would get "memory error- cannot read...", 6 seconds into the intro for a new game, or during loading

the attempted solution: i added the new miles sound driver things into both of the disputed folders. I got about 10 seconds further in the intro for a new game after this.

the second attempted solution: i took the advice of someone in the forum and removed one ram stick (went from 1G to 512mb). I ran HL, started new game, and got all the way from the train to barney in the interrogation room. then it crashed with the same old memory error. ive been playing since then with it crashing (w/ the memory error) randomly (around 3-15 minutes) from that point on.

just thought id give you another testimony.
-sean

 

[Crazycanuck]

Did you overclock your pc?

 

[seanahrens]

at least not intentionally...i mean ive screwed around in the BIOS just to try to get it to recognize my processor and memory speed. but no ive never intentionally overclocked...

overclocking isnt that simple right? just changing the speed in your BIOS?

 

[seanahrens]

Adding, +mat_forcehardwaresync 0 +snd_async_prefetch_priority 1, to the launch properties made it work for me.

by adding those lines to the "launch properties" what do you mean? do i right click on the HL2 link and go to properties...then add those lines to the end of what is in the "target" box?

thanks