Corrupt game files

[eth0s7]

Hi,

I tried to load up Defense Grid, but quite of the blue it tells me:

Game data files are corrupt. Please reinstall.

My question is, if I am to reinstall - will my save games be deleted? If so, is there any way to keep the save games, and copy them into a fresh install?

Kind regards,
R.

[Eposis]

http://defensegrid.hiddenpath.com/node/269 - "You can find the save games in the Steam userdata directory - find your profile id and the game data is in the 18500 directory and its subdirectories."
Just make a backup of your savegames and then do a reinstall. Should the savegames be deleted you can then copy them back from your backup location.

[jeff]

Save games shouldn't be overwritten during install, but it is a good idea to copy them to a new directory while doing the install.* Also, sometimes you can get that message if you change the language of your steam client to one that is different from the language when you installed it.* Most of the time, Steam will download the new language files, but if you launch Defense Grid without steam, you can get that error message as well.





Jeff

[Andy]

I have now had this problem. I have made no changes to my language settings either. When I do reinstall the game however and try to launch it it comes up with the same error. Hvaing tried to reinstall the game upwards of 20 times it now provides me with an error code 51.

Any suggestions?

[jeff]

I'm not sure we have *any* error code numbers in the Defense Grid code base.* The "game data files are corrupt" error is ours though and shows up when the game can't find the files it is looking for to run the game (this doesn't come up for*saved games).





If you are getting an Error 51, I'm guessing something is wrong with your Steam installation or perhaps firewall or network for connecting to Steam.* I'm guessing though and will send an email off to them.





Jeff

[jeff]

I heard back from the folks at Steam.* If you have an Error 51 it means that your ClientRegistry.blob file in the Steam folder is corrupt.* Try deleting that file and Steam should redownload the correct version of that file.* This should fix your problem.





Good luck.





Jeff

[Andy]

Cheers for that.

No longer have the error 51 message but am still having the corrupt data files message. Any suggestions on that front?

[jeff]

Ok, if you are getting a corrupt game file error and assuming that error is coming from launching Defense Grid, that error means that it is looking for files and either they aren't there or it can't read what is there.





The most common reason it would look for files that aren't there is if your Steam client is set to one language now that is different than the language that it was set at when you downloaded the game.* In other words, if the client was in Italian when you downloaded it would download the Italian audio and text files, but not the English ones.* If you set your Steam client back to English, it is supposed to recognize this and then download the English files, but if it doesn't for some reason you'd get that error.





I know you said you removed the game and then reinstalled it 20 times, have you tried that once after fixing the error 51?* It may be that the uninstall / reinstall wasn't working because of the corrupt Steam signature before.





Jeff

[Andy]

I completed removed steam from my PC and have redownloaded it along with the game once more. It worked initially but has now come up with the same corrupt data files message.

[jeff]

We*helped someone with a similar situation via the info email, but I'm not sure if that is you or not.* Are you still having this problem?





Jeff

[MoS]

Hi,
I have exactly the same problem : game won't start saying that game files are corrupted.

The game was bought on Steam, then downloaded, then run from Steam.

I read the forum and tried what was suggested like reinstalling the game, checking the language is not changed after download, and run.



You said the problem should be caused by missing files, so here is what I tried :
<ul>[*]Install Steam on another computer I have (also Windows XP, up to date)[*]Download the game here[*]Start the game (on this computer, it worked !)[*]Then I used a diff tool to compare all binaries that looked like to be related to Defense Grid between the two computers, the only difference was in the ".ini" file and looked related to screen resolution which was different... [*]Anyway I tried this ".ini" file on the initial computer, still not working.[/list]


Are there any logs that could direct me to the missing files ? I probably missed them (Steam directory is a mess, and not every files have understandable names...)



Thanks in advance.

MoS

[jeff]

Good testing MoS.* It sounds pretty clear to me then that you are having a Steam problem and not a Defense Grid problem.* Go ahead and uninstall Steam, and then reinstall Steam.* Odds are from what you say below that this will fix your problem.





Jeff

[Andy]

Sorry for delayed response. I'm still suffering from this problem, every so often it will actually run the game without the message but the majority of the time I'm still getting the corrupted data files message.

[jeff]

1. Can you*email a screenshot of the error message to Info <at> hiddenpath .com .





2. Does the game demo work on your computer or does it have a similar problem?* Please try it if you haven't*and let us know what happens.





3. Can you*also email a screenshot of a details view in explorer of the directory that has all the Defense Grid files in it - showing size, date, and listing (maybe it will be more than one screenshot to get the whole list)?*





This would all be helpful.





Thanks,








Jeff

[MoS]

Hi Jeff,

Si I did what you suggested, and uninstalled all other Steam games I previously downloaded (all 4 of them were working like a charm), uninstalled Defense Grid, and finally uninstalled Steam itself.

I checked, everything seemed to have been erased in "Program Files\Steam". Then I reinstalled Steam and Defense Grid, but I still have the same error : "Game files are corrupted. Reinstall it" (poor translation of mine from the french message).

Well... I really want to play the game, so if you have any clues, any other leads, I will be happy to test them.

Thanks in advance

MoS

[MoS]

Hi,

I just sent at given address an email containing to-dos results. Here is a summary:

1. <LI>I sent the snapshot of the error. I noticed the modal popup showed here appears twice. I mean when I click "OK", same popup shows again, I click "OK" again and this time the "big white window" exits.
   
   Litteral translation of the error message is "Game datas are corrupted. Reinstall it."</LI>
   
   
   <LI>I didn't try the demo on this computer, only on another one before buying the real game. I'm actually trying to install it, but strangely now that I bought the game, I cannot install the demo any more. I explain, when I click on the link "Install game demo" on the Steam website (browsed through Steam itself), nothing happens (behaviour when something is already installed). Strange, so I uninstalled (again) Defense Grid (the full game) and clicked the "install demo" link. And now it works... but seems to install the full game !
   
   Is it possible that Steam link to the demo targets the full game if your Steam account owns it ??
   
   Anyway I installed it (pretty sure the full game was installed instead of the demo, because Steam says so in "My games" tab), same error.</LI>
   
   
   <LI>I sent several snapshots and individual file details about the game installation performed in step 2. (told to be the demo, but appears to me to be the full game).</LI>

Hope that helps, thanks for your time.

MoS

[jeff]

Hi MoS,





So, I'm not actually sure why you are getting the error message you are getting, but after looking at the materials you have sent, we've determined that you should instead be getting a different error message - mainly one*that explains that your computer does not meet the minimum system requirements for*graphics capability.*





It unfortunately also does not meet the minimum system requirements for CPU capability either.* Your comptuer is a 1.4Ghz Pentium M computer which is below the 1.8GHz or higher minimum requirement.





Additionally your computer has an internal Intel 82852/55 graphics controller with 64MB of memory.** This*graphics chip does not support any pixel shader model, and unfortunately we require a card that has at least pixel shader 2.0 support.* In the minimum system requirements shown at the bottom of the Steam description page we list these requirements and a list of video cards which satisfy the shader 2.0 requirement.*





I understand with laptops that this can be difficult to determine the hardware specification, but in this situation, the laptop you have just doesn't have what is needed inside to run Defense Grid.





So, I am sorry to bring you this sad news, and I wish there was something*we could do.* It is always difficult in designing a game to balance the features*that make the game what it is with the required hardware needed.





In this case our graphics engine requires a graphics part that understands how to modify pixels using the shader 2 spec, and likely even if your laptop had a graphics card that could do this, the game framerate would run very slowly because of the CPU.





I don't know what Steam's policy is on purchasing games that don't meet the minimum specification.* Obviously if you get access to different hardware that does meet the minimum spec, you can download the game onto that computer as well because of the flexibility that Steam provides.





Jeff

[jeff]

Andy, are you still having an issue where you get a corrupt files message sometimes?





If so, send*a DXDiag*output report and an MSInfo32 output report to info <at> hiddenpath .com.* Additionally if you can get a screen capture of the*error message that would be helpful.*





Jeff

[Andy]

Hi Jeff,

Yeah I still seem to be suffering from this problem. Hopefully have done what you asked correctly have sent the email.

Cheers,


Andy

[MoS]

Hi Jeff,

Well this is not really a surprise, I was starting to suspect the hardware capabilities despite of the error message, that's why I sent you my dxdiag details.

No worries, I won't be able to play on my laptop when I'm travelling in foreign countries, but my desktop computer at home runs the game (played a lot already ;-)). I truly understand that maintaining backward compatibility with some old hardware has a cost in time and code (emulating with software some missing hardware capabilities, or find a way to avoid them), and that not every company can afford or want to invest on this additional code. So I don't blame anyone !

Anyway thanks a lot for your patience and reactivity and well... the moral of this is that making this error message more explicit will save you guys some support time in the future

MoS