It won't launch, argghhh

Mutley

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When I try to play it loads the "Launching TF2..." window then it disappears and shows a Updating: 100%.

It's decrypted, anyone know a fix? Or should I reinstall it? :(
 
Okay I wish it worked, deleted local content and have to download it again... it's 4.6gb!!! Guess I won't be playing it today either, lol.
 
There were so many micro-updates, additions/replacements and things happening to the content files through the day/night that it's not surprising for many people's game files to be stuffed. Ah well.
 
Mutley, I got that as well, why is it doing it, and how can we fix it, anyone help please, HELP US!!!! WE WANT THE GLORY AND JOY YOU HAVE FELT, PLEASE HELP US!!!
 
There's a temporary fix.

Right click Team Fortress 2 and go to its Properties.

Click Set launch options

Type -window

It will launch in a window. Set your video properties. Unfortunately you may still experience issues if you swap to full screen mode here, but adjust the resoltuion of the window to something comfortable and play.
 
Damn, should of waited before re-installing, well, 45% to go! :D

Thanks Chris.
 
Thank you Chris, I love you....In a none gay way...Thank you, you've saved us!!!
 
There's a temporary fix.

Right click Team Fortress 2 and go to its Properties.

Click Set launch options

Type -window

It didn't work. :(

Same thing and I reinstalled the whole game! Help. :(

Any ideas?
 
Chris please don't lie to us and get our hopes up, we are angry and ready to kill!!
 
Ok, home at last, Chris I've tryed your technique and it comes up in a window and shows Valve Head guy then starts loading the main menu, then it crashes...
 
Well, it works for me and a lot of other people.

Other people have got it loading by using start up options of -window and +map none.
 
Yes thanks chris, I can only get it to work well without crashes in windowed mode. If I switch it back ingame it still crashes when I look at the scoreboard.
 
I have the same problem as Mutley. hl2.exe appears for less than a second in the Task Manager and then just dissapears. :( I WANTS T'PLAI
 
I couldn't even see the game at first. It was set to run in some resolution and/or frequency my monitor is not capable of. I fixed this by right-clicking on Team Fortress 2 in the games list, selecting "properties" and then "launch options" and entering:

-w 1024 -h 768 -freq 85

Width, height and frequency. Your own monitor settings will obviously be different. Now I can see it! :O It now just crashes once it's loaded for a minute. But I can now see it crash. We call this progress. ;)

Edit: I actually got it to run, took a few attempts and got on a server, moved around for 30 seconds. Crash. Hmmm...
 
Yeh, it works but it is WAY too unstable in windowed mode, it crashes every couple of minutes, yeh its an awesome game and it would be great if it would just work. What does that '+map none' one do?
 
Read my post in the unlock section, maybe it will help.

What I have noticed is it is mostly high powered video cards that are getting these crashes. From my testing of settings it seems that because the game defaults AA and AF on, on high powered video cards, that turning these two settings off (I know that sucks but do you want to play or not?) fixed the issue for me (2900xt).

Give it a shot, it can't hurt.
 
Turning AA and AF and having "-window -h 1280 -w 1024" etc just doesn't work.

The hl2.exe loads up for 5 seconds and nothing happens, then the "Launching TF2..." disappears. Nothing is working. :(
 
Try the "-h 1280 -w 1024" or whatever without the "-window". It seems for me that I had actually fixed a lot of the problem by changing the resolution and frequency but the window bit added a new problem.

I also updated my graphics card drivers.

It seems to be working perfectly now for me. Very, very cool game so far. :cheers:
 
my problem is that it brings me to the point that it's loading the main menu, then it crashes, either with no error messages or a message telling me I need a minimum of directx 8 (I have directx 10 D:<)
 
after launching tf2, it started launching the TF2 game menu, but application ended with an error on hl2.exe and it returned to windows.
"hl2.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. we are sorry for the inconvenience.".
I updated my drivers for nvidia 8800GTX
I then tried "delete local content" in steam, rebooted and started to download again. It started to continue from 32% thou.
Now, it is even worse, I start tf2 in steam and after a few seconds it quits loading. I notice in task manager hl2.exe spawning and disapearing again.
Has anybody any idea what I should do in order to fix this ?
I'm getting really dissapointed to some point of anger.
I can run and play all other games: hl2, deathmatch, DoD, CS:S, etc...
-----------------------
solution : http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=130700
 
This is pissing me off.

Nothing is working "Preparing to launch Team Fortress 2." then it closes and I'm sat looking at my games list again.
 
Hi Chris, I tried that and unfortunately it doesn't change my issue. :(

I'm updating to Nvidias beta drivers 163.69 for my 8800GTS to see if it does anything.

Edit: Also didn't work. :(
 
Hi Chris, I tried that and unfortunately it doesn't change my issue. :(

I'm updating to Nvidias beta drivers 163.69 for my 8800GTS to see if it does anything.

Edit: Also didn't work. :(
Yes, I don't think it's a driver issue. I think I'm using a pretty old version of the drivers... though perhaps that's the key.

Let me find out what drivers I've got...

I've got ForceWare 158.45 - try them... you never know.

Linkage: http://www.gamershell.com/download_19381.shtml
 
FIXED!

Thanks to a guy on the Steam forums:

I was having the same/a similar problem. This is how I fixed it:

Go to your \Steam\SteamApps\<USERID>\team fortress 2\bin\ directory.
Copy the binkw32.dll file found there to \Steam\SteamApps\<USERID>\team fortress 2\ where hl2.exe is located.

Launch Team Fortress 2 via Steam. Play.

Why does this happen?
hl2.exe is trying to call a specific entry in binkw32.dll, but it isn't pointed to the binkw32.dll located in the \bin\ directory for some reason. Instead, it looks for it in \Windows\System\ or \Windows\System32\, where the file either doesn't exist or is an older version. Instead of giving you an error (as it would if you tried to launch hl2.exe from Windows Explorer rather than Steam), Steam suppresses it and appears to do nothing.

Why does copying the file fix it?
Copying a .dll file to the same directory as the process trying to "call" it usually causes the process to use the .dll that's with it instead of where it usually looks for the .dll, e.g. \Windows\System32\.

Hopefully this helps some people.
 
How odd, this doesn't work for me.

What on earth is actually causing it. It's different for everyone. No wonder Valve are keeping quiet, I bet they haven't got a clue what's going on themselves. It seems so absolutely random.
 
Since the last Steam updates, Steam seems rather unstable and causes my system to slow way down when I exit a game or close Steam....
When I first booted up TF2 it crashed to the desktop...It was zone alarm that made it happen, asking for hl2.exe to accept connections and connect to the internet...Then I went back to the game loading screen...the game crashes to the desktop again and zone alarm asks if gameoverlayUI.exe can connect to the internet...I give it permission and then try to return to the game...then it crashes again and says that hl2.exe has encounterd and error blah blah blah...
I wasn't so hasty to delete any content...I just configured my firewall and restarted the game and it worked fine...
Though, every time I restart Steam I have to reconfigure zone alarm...which is weird.
I think it is a problem with the gameoverlayUI.exe to be honest...the game always crashes when it loads during the TF2 loading screen...
 
Ok, this has been bugging me for ages, i got 1 game outta using this.

click this link steam://runsafe/440
and click on launch, hopefully you guys can get in

Additionally to stop the steam community thing annoying you:
1. Right click on the Steam Icon from the taskbar in the right hand corner of your computer screen.
2. Click on "Settings"
3. Goto the "Friends" Tab
4. Check/Uncheck the boxes are your choice
5. Now click the "In-Game" Tab
6. Uncheck "Enable Steam Community In-Game"

goodluck
 
Well my game worked FINE till I installed the latest catalyst drivers ... ever since then it's just refused to load. NONE of my HL2 games will load!!!

I double-click them, it tries to load them, they just dont show up and then it stops trying.


Edit: I've just downgraded Catalyst drivers all the way back to 6.2 - And everythings working fine again.
 
Well my game worked FINE till I installed the latest catalyst drivers ... ever since then it's just refused to load. NONE of my HL2 games will load!!!

I double-click them, it tries to load them, they just dont show up and then it stops trying.


Edit: I've just downgraded Catalyst drivers all the way back to 6.2 - And everythings working fine again.
I find it hilarious how a series of games that tote that they are played best on ATi cards, don't work with the latest version of the ATi drivers.

I'll stick with nVidia for now. Back when I used to own a 9800 Pro I used to commonly laugh at nVidia's "The way it's meant to be gayed" message, but the tables have turned. Love my 8800 GTS :D
 
Whoever is responsible for testing the recent ATI driver releases needs to be slapped with an enormous rotting schlong. From the ATI site:
Caution: Installing the Catalyst software suite 7.8 or 7.9 on a system containing the ATI Radeon™ X1950 AGP series of product may result in either the desktop failing to be drawn properly or the operating system failing to boot. It is recommended to continue using Catalyst 7.7 for this product at this time.
"Operating system failing to boot"!!!... and replace 'may result in' with 'ABSOLUTELY CERTAINLY WILL result in'. And that's one of their more recent cards too. ****ing shocking.
 
7.8's didn't work for me - they caused Windows to fail to load, in fact, since I have an x1950 AGP. It took a while for ATI to even add the warning that I quoted :|
 
I was having the same problem on nvidia, so i don't think this has anything to do with ATI alone. Every time i went to load up TF2 or half life ep 2 it would just randomly flick back to windows then black screen and the music would just loop over and over.

I managed to fix the problem by adding -w 1280 -h 1024 -freq 60 to the launch file. Those being my default resolution and refresh rate.

I tried all the other fixes too and this is the one that worked for me. Its weird how different fixes are fixing the same problem and some arn't.
 
Tf2.

I just installed Tf2 to my computer
I used the can you run it site
and it said that i have all the things
and then when i tried to launch the game, it shows the valve head and source video and then it just closes itself leaving me at my desktop, no error message or anything.
i tried the -safe -safemode -dv
and stuff all of that and i experience the exact same thing.
has anyone encountered the same error as me?
 
Well what worked for me is:
Go onto your Steam-Library,
then right click "TeamFortress2",
click on "Properties",
then click on the "UPDATES" tab,
and untick the "Steam Cloud" box,
it should look like this:
steamcloudtf2untickthebox.jpg

And click close.

It worked for me, don't ask me why, though sometimes TF2 does crash randomly, that's why I keep my "Windows Task Manager" at the ready,
and I just keep attempting to relaunch TF2 until it works.

P.S.
Sorry for reviving this thread, though I am aware that this is still a standing issue.
 
I actually have the same problem: when I try to launch tf2 it does nothing, but the strange thing about this is that my team fortress 2 beta is working fine... any suggestions?
 
This happened to someone else that I know, make your you have the most up-to date windows.
 
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