HL2 stays at Loading screen forever.

[MyBulletYourHead]

It finished downloading finally. I downloaded it by double clicking on the My Games section on Steam. However, when I load it the Valve credits play and then it'll stay at the Loading Screen forever. It doesn't want to go through.

I right clicked it and picked properties and it showed this.

Disk Usage : 838 MB
Amount acquired : 58%
Offline Mode : Not ready.

 

[rhk0327]

It says not ready. Are you sure it's dled completely, what does the 58 percent come from? Is it validating it. Try right clicking the steam icon (in system tray, bottom-right of windows) => monitor. Check to see if it's still downloading or validating or what bs steam comes up with.

As for me, I can play the game but the menu takes FOREVER to load (60 seconds). Same thing happens on the subareas within the game. Is it just me?

 

[DCNemesis]

exact same problem with me, after preloading it, and running it last night, i had texture problems... so thought i'd reinstall


ever since, after finishing the download and launching, it freezes at the first load screen, and when i right click in the games list it shows at 58% downloaded, needs update, no offline play..

*EDIT* oh, and i've tried deleting and re-downloading 4 times now, same problem


oh, and btw- there's about a dozen other posts on this, start responding to those and stop creating new posts for this problem!

 

[Fuxored]

Okie doke,
I think teh percentage thing in steam is a good start....I too noticed mine says 58%, and needs update....now i know i already got the update...so from time to time i would check properties again to see if the percentage went up! Voila! Its now at 63% Dunno how much longer its gonna take to get 100% but im sure it has something to do with not loading... I already ruled out vid card drivers as a suspect, updated and rolled back, no change..

 

[DCNemesis]

so, what would your possible solution be?

-leave the game ON, and at the frozen loading screen? (presuming that it might be downloading while staying "frozen", which is why we can see/hear our HD's working)

OR

-DONT load up HL2, just update as far as we can, and leave it in auto-update mode and check back later?

it sounds like you did the latter, but i'd rather be certain at this point, seeing as I've spent the entire day re-downloading and tryin to figure this out

 

[MrCuddlyTiger]

"if a game says "100%" but "Not Ready" for offline play, it may be because the purchase process for that game (cd-key or cc purchase transaction) has not yet completed. You need to wait for that to complete before playing offline."


That's from the support page over at steampowered. Still I paid for the game. I spent hours trying to get it to work. I have the retail version. 5 cds installed it twice. I'm a little miffed. I mean I expect a few bugs. But they shuold have warned us plenty in advance that you can't play offline without jumping through a ton of hoops. Valve... i know you won't read this... but just in case i'm gonna say PLEASE DON'T DO THIS FOR YOUR NEXT GAME! Perhaps just make sure it will work first, no suprises when i get it all installed, have my rootbeer ready to go, and get comfy click the icon and watch the night pass by in utter frustration. I didn't get CS source but i don't remember hearing about huge problems like this. It's just not good PR to piss off half of your fans by letting them get all excited about playing and then when they get so close (like the loading screen) just take it all away.

i'm just emotionally drained...

I'm not gonna whine anymore.. mainly i just wanted to post the thing from the steampowered page. I'm sorry Valve I'm just frustrated. I'm sure you will fix it...

 

[DCNemesis]

before this last poster derailed the topic, we almost got somewhere with a possible solution....

Fuxored, have you been able to make more progress in the update?
Can you reply to the questions I had, regarding your last post?

thanks.

 

[Fuxored]

SO far, i've noticed that if you do the latter "leave half life 2 alone, and just keep steam open with the option to automatically download any new updates (right click on hl2 icon in steam > properties, you'll see it) ....than your percentage of download will increase....the bad thing is i cannot give you a time on how long it goes for each 1 %....it seems about 5 minutes or greater though...dont qoute me on that! weelll time to go to bed, i will try again tomorrow when i have nothing to do!


I would definitely not go with leaving half life 2 on the loading screen...im tryin to use my common sense here (not alot there trust me) and think back to other installs/downloads where it wont proceed if you have a certain program open (usually the one you are updating/installing) so i advise against this.

Oh yea, since my last post i am now at 67%....you can do the math....I am also not sure if playin Counterstrike to pass the time is a good idea, i dont know if it halts the update of HL2 or not...

 

[DCNemesis]

thanks a lot, fuxored... there's a decent chance that by the time I get back home from work tomorrow, the update might be done!

crazy, how difficult this is- and how easy it SHOULD be..

i only hope valve gets their stuff together and acknowledges this, and fixes their downloader (or whatever is causing the problem)
it'd also be nice if they'd throw out a patch that resolves some of the caching/audio/artifacting/texture issues as well..

good luck!

 

[Fuxored]

Ok, i hate to burst my own bubble, but i feel like an idiot after reading previous posts.....

If you right click on the STEAM icon in your systray and go to monitor you can clearly see that your full game of HL2 is not yet done downloading...


Im on Cable and im downloading on average from 200-450 kb/s

Also, i dont have 100% of CSS either, so i experimented and clicked on that....it brought up a new download and it showed me that the newer one took precedence over HL2 in downloading, it halted HL2's download. Also my rate for CSS jumped to 1.3 gb ...man i dont want to know how many people are downloading hl2 right now :dork:


I will guarantee now that if you leave steam open all night and wake up in the morning you will feel like a little kid again rushing out into the living room to open a long awaited present...!

Happy fraggin children :cheers:

 

[DCNemesis]

confirmed, after the last "completed download" I was at 50% amount acquired... just a few mins later (maybe 10-20) I'm now at 59%

looks like by the time I wake up, all will be well with the world =)

thanks again fuxored
*edit* just saw your post and checked that for myself, you're right..

someone flag down the short bus, I've gotta get on
(cant believe i didnt check the monitor)

 

[Fuxored]

gnight :sniper: :bounce: