Sam & Max Season 1 Steam problem

der_ketzer

There is a widely spread problem with the steam-version of Sam & Max Season 1.
Episodes 3-6 are "unavailable" for all users. The first 2 episodes seem to work (I haven't tested them yet).
Edit: Tested Culture Shock. Episode 1 is working normally.

The gamefiles are complete (tested it with episode 3) but the game still will not launch.

I played through this game twice without problems. This seems to be kind of "new"

Thread on the steam-forums:
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1041962

A quote from the thread:

Mnty4d wrote: »

Well, I put in a ticket as well...
And I also have played through episode 105 already... but it's been maybe a month since then.

So I was going to play 106 last Friday, and when I started steam up, it wanted to update all the Sam and Max episodes... so I let it update. And, of course, then I couldn't get 103 through 106 to work.

So whatever that update was supposed to be, seems to have broken them.

PS: The normal Steam-fix for this problem doesn't seem to work. (deleting everything except the steam.exe and the steamapps-folder and checking the cache files)


System:
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2800+
GPU: Geforce5200FX
Ram: 1GB
OS: Win XP SP3, latest patches & updates

Steam: there is no difference in using the latest version or the client beta. Same error.

der_ketzer

Some more info:


Working Episodes / games on steam:
Strong Bad all episodes: Tested and confirmed. startable
Sam & Max Season 2: all episodes are playable
Bone: both Episodes are playable
TT-TexasHoldem: tested. It is starting

Sam & Max Season 1:
Episode 1 (Culture Shock): Tested and confirmed. startable
Episode 2 (Situation:Comedy): Tested and confirmed. startable
interesting: in my backup the .exe-files have the same name as in the current version. sammax101.exe and sammax102.exe


Not playable:

Episode 3 (Mole, Mob & Meatball): Tested and confirmed: Not playable
.exe-files in folder: SamMax103.exe, testapp.exe (both 6.26 mb)
files in Pack-folder: 1758 (213 mb)
my backup-files:
.exe: SamMax103_drm.exe, testapp_drm.exe (both 5.71 mb)
files in Pack-folder: 1759 (212 mb)


Episode 4: (Abe Lincoln Must die): Tested and confirmed: Not playable
.exe-files in folder: SamMax104.exe, testapp.exe (both 6.26 mb)
files in Pack-folder: 2588 (255 mb)
my backup:
.exe: SamMax104_drm.exe, testapp_drm.exe (both 5.71)
files in Pack-folder: 2589 (254 mb)

Version on telltale.com: tested. The game does start.
The .exe produces an error when used with the steam-version.
files: 2590 264MB
Missing files in Steam-version: ttg_splash_b_gt.d3dtx, ttg_splash_c_ttg.d3dtx and of course the aSamMax104_english_browser.ttarch.
Interesting file size-difference: SamMax104_english.ttarch: 221mb [Telltale] 213mb [Steam]
Swapping these 2 files has no effect on the problem.


Episode 5: (reality 2.0): tested and confirmed: not playable
.exe-files in folder: SamMax105.exe, testapp.exe (both 6.26 mb)
files in Pack-folder: 2218 (199 mb)
my backup:
.exe: SamMax105_drm.exe, testapp_drm.exe (both 5.71 mb)
files in Pack-folder: 2219 (198 mb)


Episode 6: (bright side of the moon): tested and confirmed. Not startable
.exe-files in folder: SamMax106.exe, testapp.exe (both 6.27 mb)
files in Pack-folder: 2037 (235 mb)
my backup:
.exe: SamMax106_drm.exe, testapp_drm.exe (both 5.71 mb)
files in Pack-folder: 2038 (234 mb)


The Error:
When I try to start the games steam is loading but before the game can start there is a steam-error-message:



The error also appears when I try to start the games with the executables outside steam wether steam is running at the time or not makes no difference.


Things I am planning:
3. testing if the old executeables would fix this error
done: this will not help with the error

4. Testing if 104Abe from this site will run/start and if it's .exe will start the games
The game runs but it's .exe will not help with the steam version unless some big files are swapped.

Spira Mirabilis

Same problem here. I played 1 and 2 today and they worked fine, but 3 gets the game unavailable message from Steam. =|
No one on the Steam forums seems to have a solution yet.

der_ketzer

at least you can install episode 104 from Telltales Site. This version of the episode is working:
http://www.telltalegames.com/store/lincolnmustdie
Size 84-85 mb

Will

Looking into it guys. Thanks for the heads up.

Will

Oh and for the record, I would not suggest trying to swap ttarchs from our version to the Steam version. They are from two different era's of the engine, and thus probably won't play nice together.

der_ketzer

Will wrote: »

Oh and for the record, I would not suggest trying to swap ttarchs from our version to the Steam version. They are from two different era's of the engine, and thus probably won't play nice together.

I already noticed that.
But Steam will redownload the original if you verify the cache afterwards.

Will

Bam, give it a shot now.

Spira Mirabilis

Works perfectly now. Thankyou.

der_ketzer

Thanks. You Are the best.