DM wont work please LOOK!

[head_crabs]

when i try to play deathmatch and i try to get into a game, ya know the place were all the games are and u pic one. i dont know what its called. there isnt anything there i just get the following message:

could not contact master game server to retrieve server list.

could someone help me with that and tell me how to fix it, or what it means. please be simple im dumb.

 

[Beerdude26]

Do you have a firewall (a program thingy that pertects your computer from bad thingies) activated (=on)?

That's about as simple as I can ask

 

[head_crabs]

yes but if i take it off isnt my chances of catching a virus or trojan or what ever u catch on the internet higher? if not how do i turn it off cuz its my dads comp and if i mess it up im dead

 

[head_crabs]

its been like 6 days now. will it screw up my comp if i take off the fire wall?????

 

[head_crabs]

i wont take it off untill i know if its gunna bite me in the ass later. please someone reply!!! thanx for looking and atempting to help

 

[Stupidsmartarse]

i wont take it off untill i know if its gunna bite me in the ass later. please someone reply!!! thanx for looking and atempting to help

You dont have to disable your firewall, you just need to allow hl2dm to connect to the net. How you do this depends on which firewall you are using so it might be best to google for some info or look at your firewalls website. gl

 

[Mechagodzilla]

First things first, you do not need two threads for this.
Second, you do not need to continually fill those threads with "please help me!!!" messages after the first.
Third, you are far more likely to get the solution in the appropriate forums. The community support forum on this website or steam's official tech support are certainly more likely to provide the help you need.

However, in your clone version of this thread, you were provided with very detailed advice that you haven't shown any indication of taking yet.
Here it is again:

There are a few things that can cause this.

Probably the #1 cause is you are running one or more firewalls. You should only be running one firewall and you can't just "disable" one, you must remove all references to steam.exe, hl.exe and hl2.exe before you disable them. Some firewalls like ZoneAlarm do not work well under XP SP2, you should uninstall ZA and just use the XP2 firewall if you have connection problems.

The next biggest possible cause is that you are running "Deterministic Network Enhancer" which is used with Cisco and a few other VPN applications. Other VPN programs have other network hooking methods that can cause internet connection problems. Uninstall all VPN programs if you are having connection problems.

The #3 biggest problem is you have X-Fire or Google Remote Desktop or one of a few other applications that hijack your network connection. There are number of spyware programs that do this too. If you installed Ultimate Arena, that also installs a hijack for your network connection and can cause network problems. Uninstall it.

Here are some general guidelines on how to figure out what is causing it.

The first question is has this just started after a Steam update or has it been happening for a while?

Steam Just Updated - it's your Firewall
If it just started after a Steam update, then chances are very good that your Firewall is blocking Steam.

To fix this, remove Steam.exe and all instances of HL.exe from the firewall permissions and re-add them or let the firewall re-discover them when you run the game. Be sure to give permission for all ports and for TCP and UPD for Steam.exe and for every hl.exe that pops up (it will ask permission for each different game you run).

You might see the symptom where you can see servers from the Steam ServerBrowser but not from the in-game ServerBrowser (at the splash screen). This means that your firewall is blocking hl.exe but not Steam.exe.

If it's the other way around, IE: you can't see Servers in Steam but you can while in-game, then your firewall is blocking Steam.exe. There may be other symptoms if Steam.exe is blocked (friends won't work, etc).

No Steam Update
If this just started out of the blue, you should go check over at the Steampowered forums and see if other players are having this problem. If this is happening to a number of players then the Steam Network might be having problems. Certainly if you are unable to get to the Steam Forum that would also indicate that this is a Steam Network problem.

If no one else is having this problem and you have your firewall properly configured, then you might have a routing problem with your ISP, or some network connection between you and the Master Servers. If the problem persists more then a day then you might need to call your ISP.

Additional Firewall Information
Certainly, if you just installed a new firewall or updated your firewall software then you need to make sure you configure it before you start looking for outside problems. Some anti-Virus programs have a built-in firewall too, so be sure to check there.

The latest XP SP2 update has a more aggressive firewall, so if this just started happening after you did a Windows update then you will need to look at the SP2 firewall for this problem.

This is straight from Valve so it is your best, if not only, option.
Read it and do as it says where it applies to you.

 

[Beerdude26]

Btw, what firewall do you have (Eg : ZoneAlarm, McAfee)

 

[head_crabs]

i have norton now but when i had macafee it worked. i got rid of it and got norton and it doesnt work. its not a clone thread i put the other one on a wile ago and it came back to the first page for some reason. and it was like 6 days till someone helped me thats y i said plz help.

 

[head_crabs]

my question is if i shut it all down will it increse my chances of catching some kind of bug

 

[head_crabs]

these threads are 1 month apart

 

[Fliko]

Can you please just take a deep breathe and use the edit post button, thanks.

 

[WySiWyG]

I use no antivirus, no firewall and dont scan for spyware.

 

[AfternoonLemon]

I use no antivirus, no firewall and dont scan for spyware.

Me neither, no need for antivirus unless you visit dodgy sites and/or download dodgy material.
I have a firewall built into my router, but I wouldn't be shaking in my boots if it wasn't there.
When I encounter Spyware, I manually remove it, it is far more effective.

CTRL-ALT-DEL (Task Manager) -> view running processes, query any you're unsure about into google (ie. search for LSASS.EXE - which is not spyware btw ). If you find that it is spyware, end the process with Task Manager, search for the same process in your registry (start/run/regedit), and delete all traces of it.