No episodes of Steam's Sam and Max Season 1 Pack work for me

[mikeywong]

I just purchased and installed the Sam and Max Season 1 (Episodes 1-3) Pack on Steam. Whenever I try to launch episode 1 or 2, I get:

"sammax101.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience."
or
"sammax102.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience."

When I try to launch episode 3, I get:

"sammax103_drm.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience."

I have uninstalled and re-downloaded/extracted all 3 games with no luck. I have been using Steam for quite some time and have not encountered these problems with other games. I realize I could try downloading the same episodes from GameTap, but my personal experiences with GameTap have been fraught with issues. I am running a Radeon X1600 card with the latest drivers.

Any help anyone can provide would be greatly appreciated.

P.S. Is there a reason the executable in the episode 3 directory has a different naming scheme? That is, sammax103_drm.exe rather than sammax103.exe? I have no idea what the testapp_drm.exe in each of the directories does either.

[TheSpyder]

are you running vista? many other threads about this issue.

For me, it works randomly (I only know because by fluke, the first one I ever loaded worked fine). Keep trying and eventually it should work.

It doesn't matter what other steam games work, what you're really downloading is the telltale games package and it obviously has a different activation mechanism to the valve games.

[mikeywong]

Originally Posted by TheSpyder

are you running vista? many other threads about this issue.

For me, it works randomly (I only know because by fluke, the first one I ever loaded worked fine). Keep trying and eventually it should work.

It doesn't matter what other steam games work, what you're really downloading is the telltale games package and it obviously has a different activation mechanism to the valve games.

I'm running XP Home. I'm hoping it's a minor activation issue on my end. I'll keep trying with my fingers crossed...

[AdamG]

Yes, many users are reporting problems with activating their Steam version of Sam & Max. I believe the Steam version is using a different version of activation then TellTale's, so until someone from TellTale comments on it, you might want to try the Steam message board (There is one, right? :/ ). This probably has a lot to do with the big jump in guests on here...

Gosh, this is not good... It was just released on Steam and this is the one rare occassion I haven't seen Jake/Emily/Ryan/ect on. : / First Gametap goofed up (several times), now it's messed up on Steam... Arg!

[jmm]

Try turning DEP off.

One thing I know support will ask for are System specs (HW and OS), and don't forget to run DX Diag (Start->Run->dxdiag) and get the driver data for sound and/or video (Version/Date/etc)

[Emily]

Vista should not be an issue with Steam's versions of the games, nor should DEP (but turning it off is worth a try).

They are using a different activation system than we do so this is probably a question for them. To be sure, you might try downloading the trial versions of the same episodes from our website and see if you get errors. You can get them from the www.telltalegames.com/samandmax page - just download any of the demos (which are actually the full games, with only the demo portion available) and see what happens.

Gosh, this is not good... It was just released on Steam and this is the one rare occassion I haven't seen Jake/Emily/Ryan/ect on.

Well, the original post was made at 5:39 am on a Saturday morning. We're dedicated, but not THAT dedicated.

EDIT: Could you tell us your computer specs (video card, etc)?

[mikeywong]

Thanks for responding, everyone!

I tried downloading the trial versions of the same episodes off the Telltale site. Episode 1 went black and unresponsive after displaying the Gametap and Telltale logos, and Episodes 2 and 3 gave me access violation errors immediately after launch.

I've tried some of the suggestions made around the forums (various combinations of rebooting, deleting the prefs file, lowering my screen resolution, and turning off DEP) with both the Steam and trial versions, bu to no avail.

My system specs are as follows:

Dell Dimension 9100 Intel
Pentium D CPU 2.80GHz
2.5 GB of RAM
Radeon X1600, with latest drivers
Windows XP Home Edition, Service Pack 2
Monitor: Dell 2405FPW
DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904), with latest update

If these errors are all activation issues, would I be able to avoid them in the retail box copy coming out in a couple of months?

Thanks.

Originally Posted by Emily

Vista should not be an issue with Steam's versions of the games, nor should DEP (but turning it off is worth a try).

They are using a different activation system than we do so this is probably a question for them. To be sure, you might try downloading the trial versions of the same episodes from our website and see if you get errors. You can get them from the www.telltalegames.com/samandmax page - just download any of the demos (which are actually the full games, with only the demo portion available) and see what happens.



Well, the original post was made at 5:39 am on a Saturday morning. We're dedicated, but not THAT dedicated.

EDIT: Could you tell us your computer specs (video card, etc)?

[Emily]

Hi Mikey,

Could you give the episode 6 demo a try? The earlier episodes used an earlier version of the activation software that had some bugs in it, and I'd like to rule that out as the cause of the problem you're having with our versions of the games.

If the problems are caused by the activation software, then yes, the retail version should be okay. But technically the Steam version should be okay, too, so there might be more going on here than we realized.

[TheSpyder]

btw I just tried all 6 episodes from steam on my XP Pro box at work - they load fine. I copied everything including the props files from my home machine.

It's a Dell P4 3.2ghz with HT, 2gb ram.

[AdamG]

I do not like Dells. : I They always cause problems. : / HP is just as bad, they both give me a bad taste in my mouth. I worked on a computer once for a friend of my Dad's, it was a Dell, and the power supply was some no-name 160 watt Chinese power supply! Which promptly died, since it was trying to supply over 250 watts of parts...

Anyway, do you have any problems like this with other software? I'd assume not, but it's always a good idea to ask. The non-standard amount of RAM that you have (2.5GB) has me interested, since that's a rare setup.

[mikeywong]

Episode 6 gives me another Access Violation error immediately after I click "Play the FREE TRIAL."

It does seem like something else is going on here. Do any of the other Telltale products use the same activation system as Sam & Max? If so, I wonder if I can get one of their trials running correctly...

Thanks for all you attention in this matter!

Originally Posted by Emily

Hi Mikey,

Could you give the episode 6 demo a try? The earlier episodes used an earlier version of the activation software that had some bugs in it, and I'd like to rule that out as the cause of the problem you're having with our versions of the games.

If the problems are caused by the activation software, then yes, the retail version should be okay. But technically the Steam version should be okay, too, so there might be more going on here than we realized.

[mikeywong]

No, I haven't had these sorts of problems before (but I've had it for a few years, and my long-term memory stinks ). I know I'm supposed to balance my RAM evenly across my DIMM slots, but it's never caused a problem before. But I'll certainly see if evening it out helps when I get a chance later today.

Originally Posted by AdamG

I do not like Dells. : I They always cause problems. : / HP is just as bad, they both give me a bad taste in my mouth. I worked on a computer once for a friend of my Dad's, it was a Dell, and the power supply was some no-name 160 watt Chinese power supply! Which promptly died, since it was trying to supply over 250 watts of parts...

Anyway, do you have any problems like this with other software? I'd assume not, but it's always a good idea to ask. The non-standard amount of RAM that you have (2.5GB) has me interested, since that's a rare setup.

[Emily]

All our games use the same activation system, but various versions of it. We are going to be updating everything to the newest version this summer - starting with Sam & Max, which we're working on now.

I'm still hoping to get the Steam versions working for you since that's what you paid for. I hadn't heard back from Valve on my initlal email so I wrote back yesterday, and hopefully someone will be in touch today with information.

[Emily]

I just sent you a PM with instructions for trying out a slightly different version of Sam & Max that Valve put together. Please give it a try and let us know if it solves the problem you're having.

[Howitzer]

I purchased Season One on Steam, and am having the same problem, but only with episode 6.

Got though the first 5 episodes with no problem, and now I can't play the last one.

EDIT: After fiddling around with it a bit (tried disabling that DEP, which did nothing, then I tried running the EXE directly, rather then though steam) I managed to get rid of the sammax106_drm.exe cannot run error message.

Unfortunately, now what happens is I get the telltale logo screen, then the screen goes blank, and that's it. I have to use the windows key on the keyboard to get back to the desktop so I can shut it down. Episodes 1 though 5 still work fine.

[Howitzer]

Oh, and my setup:

ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard (nVidia nForce chipset)
Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4600+
2GB DDR2 RAM
nVidia GeForce 7950 GT 512MB Video
Vista Ultimate x64

[Howitzer]

apparently there was a problem with the download. I tried verifying it in the steam client, it found a problem, redownloaded it, and it's working now.

so you can ignore the previous two posts

[Jake]

Woo! Glad you were able to fix it by monkeying with Steam.