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/forum....php?t=1041962

A quote from the thread:

Originally Posted by Mnty4d

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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.