Half-life 2 Hangs - Won't show menu screen

[Willum]

The weird thing is, it was working fine until yesterday afternoon. Done a complete reinstall, deleted the entire Valve / Steam directory from my hard drive for a fresh start, and I still get this problem. And I've downloaded all the latest HL2 updates as far as I'm aware. It wanted to download quite a bit off STEAM earlier today after reinstalling.

I get the background image applicable to which stage of the campaign you're at, but it remains opaque, no animations start, no sound effects start, and the menu screen just doesn't appear. A look at the Task Manager shows that HL2.exe or whatever the process is called has stopped responding, forcing me to force its closure.

Specs:

OS: Windows Vista Home Premium (x64) SP1
CPU: AMD Opteron 186 overclocked from 2.6 to 2.9GHz
Motherboard: DFI Lanparty UT NF4 SLI-D
RAM: 2GB (2x1GB) Corsair ValuRAM PC3200 (400MHz)
Graphics card: BFG GeForce 8800GTS 320MB overclocked by manufacturer
Sound card: Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty
Hard drive: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200rpm 32MB cache

All the latest Windows patches and hotfixes have been applied. I am not aware of any new ones having arrived since yesterday.

I know this isn't a particularly hot machine any more (it's almost three years old now, LOL!), but it was always getting decent frame rates with everything on full-whack. I don't get this at all.

HL2: Deathmatch is unaffected. Had a great time yesterday evening getting thoroughly fragged again and again by more-skilled adversaries.

If you want extra information, then please ask.

Ta!

 

[utgort]

Same thing happened to me. Game played fine all the way through. then after trying portal it hung loading. After pulling my hair out this is what I found.

Started game in windowed mode.
Started in windowed+ console mode.
This let me see the error "Invalid version for Serverbrowser.dll"

(That was for the folks at Valve if they are interested.)

What I did to fix it was to force the game to 32 bit mode.
Open Steam
Select My Games Tab
Highlight HL2
Right click and select properties
Click Set Launch Options button
In the Box enter -32bit
Click OK

See if that fixes your problem.

 

[aus99]

I got the same error as well on vista x64 yesterday when running HL2. It would not go past the launch screen and got stuck at the bit where it changes to 64 bit mode during the blurred out part of the loading.

I made no software changes to the computer that I can think of and was trying reinstalls and everything.

This fix -32bit fix has worked for me - thanks

 

[Willum]

Well, several days on, and the suggestion above appears to be doing the trick, so thanks for that. :cheers:

It's interesting to note that another post about what would appear to be exactly the same problem has now appeared on this very forum:

http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=149156

Did a recent update via STEAM mess something up?

Would welcome official comment on this one. I'd also just like to say that if you want detailed error logs (tell me where to find them), I'll happily submit them here or by other means if they'll be of use to you.

 

[Dr.Freeman]

Start half life 2 from Launcher.exe??

 

[Laivasse]

Just ran into this problem myself. I suspect a Steam update has screwed something up, it wouldn't be the first time.

 

[Lucid_Sage]

This error is happening to me too. I wouldn't mind the 32bit workaround so much if I could use my save games. At this point I have no interest in going through the whole thing again. I guess I will have to wait until Valve fixes this before I will play again.

 

[avranju]

I am getting the same problem as well. I hope Valve will fix this soon. The 32-bit work-around while effective, does have the drawback of not being able to use all the save games. I have progressed way too much into the game to go back to the beginning.

 

[RiverFunKRon]

yeah, I am getting the same symptoms. I just bought Orange Box last night and had no problem playing any of the games except Half-Life 2. Ep. 1+2, Portal, and TF2 were all fine. I'll try the -32bit fix.

__________________
XPS m1530
Core2Duo 2.0GHz T5800
GeForce 8400m GS
4.0 GB PC2 6400 RAM
Vista SP1 x64 Ultimate

 

[Rhuaidhri Tynan]

Same here, would it be okay on Vista 64?

Well just rebuilt my system with XP x64 and I have the same problem I haven't tried the 32bit fix yet but figured I'd post and add to the requets for a proper fix. I might try Vista 64 in a day or too though I was hoping to move everything to XP x64 as Vista has been disappointing

 

[utgort]

Note if you are into playing games do not waste your time on Vista. XP is a much more dependable system for games. That is not just my opinion but also a ms evangelist.

 

[Laivasse]

Note Vista is fine for gaming. Note the 64bit hanging problem occurs in both Vista and XP. Note please don't bump weeks-old threads pointlessly.

 

[sasquatch90210]

Same thing happened to me. Game played fine all the way through. then after trying portal it hung loading. After pulling my hair out this is what I found.

Started game in windowed mode.
Started in windowed+ console mode.
This let me see the error "Invalid version for Serverbrowser.dll"

(That was for the folks at Valve if they are interested.)

What I did to fix it was to force the game to 32 bit mode.
Open Steam
Select My Games Tab
Highlight HL2
Right click and select properties
Click Set Launch Options button
In the Box enter -32bit
Click OK

See if that fixes your problem.

I had the same problem for a long time, And now it worked right! :cheers: Thanks a Million.