Punkbuster Error: MD5Tool Mismatch Troubleshooting

[jOHNNYdOUBE]

Oh, man, gOOD lUCK Kilroy...
and if you never come back
at least
............KILROY was HERE.......

[arn354]

I had 4 DDR sticks 512mb each for a total of 2GB of RAM. There was an error on one of the four sticks. So I started doing a memtest86 at least 2 complete passes on each of the memory sticks. I found that NONE of the memory sticks had any errors after 2 to 3 passes each. So I believe that one of my DIMM slots on the motherboard itself is busted. I ordered two 1GB sticks of DDR400 memory and got them in yesterday. I have fully tested with memtest86 and my two primary slots are good to go and so are the sticks. Full dual memory 2GB without error.

you will be back in business - believe me.

There was an error on one of the four sticks. I found that NONE of the memory sticks had any errors after 2 to 3 passes each. So I believe that one of my DIMM slots on the motherboard itself is busted.

As i said to you - if no bf2 runs md5gen probably uses the memory which is not corrupt - enough ram available.
If bf2 runs - bf2 uses your 100% correct memory and there is no more space left for punkbuster if he tries to take the md5hashes. If punkbuster has to work with corrupt memory he will fail to take a correct hash.

Corrupt memory or the slot on your motherboard doesn't mean that your computer is not running normally if using windows programs - the corrupt data are reread untill the correct ones are in ram. But punkbuster needs a one shot - one hit.
Punkbuster is as sensible like a virusscanner - partly even more.
You will not believe how many people are outthere who only know due to punkbuster that there system is not 100% working correct or is infected even if a virusscanner is used. They all now love punkbuster - because having that issue prevented them from loosing data completely on systemfailure or a worser virusinfection.
You don't have to love punkbuster, ok - but it is him who showed you that one memorystick or ramslot is not working correctly. You now had the trouble playin a game - but think about having a ramproblem in another situation you don't expect it. Perhaps you should check if there is a bios-update and on the manufacturer homepage of the mainboard if there is a ram compatibility list. But your buying of 2x1GB and just using 2 working raamslots will solve it.

Killroy you will be back on the Battlefield - you nailed down the problem for your computer - congrats!

And correct me or fed me with infos if you still have a problem - you are welcome mate

[squall6677]

Good luck Killroy, i see your at the same position i was in yesterday. there might be light at the end of the tunnel yet though, Spearhead seems to know what he's talking about, i acutally got onto the game yesterday and today without a kick, but im not going to speak too soon, yet the future looks good.

here is what i have done since the Re-format.

Installed BF2 (took 3 days to re-download from EA)
Patched up to 1.41.
Restart
Installed PR core
restart
Installed PR levels
restart
tested, Warning.bik activated.
installed PR patch
Restart
tested, Warning.bik activated.
installed BAT script (thanks deadfast)
tested, woot i could now play for an hour between kicks. i soon got fed up though
Un-installed THE LOT
Restarted
then after i almost gave up hope, i spoke with Spearhead and here is what happend:
Installed BF2 (didn't re-download, i still had the game in the EADM cache)
Restarted
Installed PR core (notice i didn't patch BF2)
Installed PR levels
restart (notice also i didn't restart between installing the core and levels)
tested, warning screen again.
Installed PR patch
restart
tested and once again, same issue.
backed up old shaders client (C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2\mods\bf2 shaders_client.zip (i copied this to another easy-to-find location)
copied the PR shaders client (C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2\mods\pr shaders_client.zip
Pasted into C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2\mods\bf2 (this overwrites the file).

tested...... works, so far.

i have not yet been kicked (played for well over 3 hours testing) but my connection is messing me about (thanks virgin media) so i cannot play to true potential and fully test all servers just yet.

hope this helps.

[kilroy0097]

jOHNNYdOUBE I won't be leaving anytime soon. I have certain obligations to the PR Dev team. I just won't be playing .756 if I can't get it to work. Which I miss terribly since I feel it's the best FPS Mod/Game out right now. If it was a professional release and it worked with less issues I would gladly shell out $50 for it just like any retail game. Which is why I had no issue becoming a Supporting Member. That's just IMO.

squall6677 it seems like the ole shaders_client.zip replacement fix worked for you. That was one of the first things I discovered and tried when I first started getting the MD5 shaders kick error. It fixed it back then for a few hours and then I started to get the MD5 levels client.zip Mismatch kick error. Which is the current issue I have right now. Anyone who gets the shaders_client.zip kick should immediately attempt the replacement fix if a simple reinstall of the game, mod and PB doesn't work.

Honestly for most people a reinstall of BF2, PB and the Mod will fix their issue. For the rest you have file replacement work arounds. And for the 0.1% of us who are unlucky enough to have bigger issues we have to start looking at HDD failure, Motherboard issues or Memory errors. I don't know what comes after that since I'm on the last possible step right now. I'll update on how that goes.

[[R-DEV]Spearhead]

Yea if the game is working but only a few hours here and there and then sometimes a kick comes it looks to me like a little more complicated case. If something is wrong about the memory or HD I would expect the problems to occur for relatively random files. If it's consistently reporting a problem with the shaders_client.zip I would rule out any hardware faults since it's a very small file and not likely to be the first one reported as corrupted by punkbuster. My conclusion thus is:

If Punkbuster kicks frequently/consistently for the shaders_client.zip file it should not be due to faulty hardware.


If PB kicks for a wrong shaders_client.zip please make sure of two things first check the MD5 of the file (It's in BF2/MODS/PR/ for all new to this thread). I recommend using the MD5Summer the MD5 should be:

ac2d7ffbbf9de308cc4515d50212232e

If the MD5 is correct but PB still kicks for this filethe next step is to see if PR.exe really replaces the file as it is supposed to do. The best way to do this is to start up PR with the PR.exe and then Alt-Tab out of the game (keep it running) and have MD5Summer check the MD5 of the shaders_client.zip in the BF2/mods/BF2/ folder. If PR.exe failed to replace the BF2 vanilla shader file it should be having the MD5 checksum:

17e23343d4f4baed4706cb8b62631cbb

If this is the checksum you get while running PR then you have the problem that PR.exe is blocked from doing it's work. You can circumvent this by doing the replacement yourself (copy the shaders_client.zip from the MODS/PR to the MODS/BF2 folder. This will however prevent you from playing vBF2 or other mods online unless the original file is restored)

If the checksum matches with the first one listed here then you may have to delete your shader cache to apply the new shaders. Simply delete the contents of the \MY DOCUMENTS\Battlefield 2\mods\bf2 and pr folders to clear your shader cache. If done correctly the next time you load a map the game will display the message "Optimizing shaders".

If the checksum does not match any of the 2 numbers then your shaders_client.zip is likely to be corrupted and needs to be replaced by the correct file.

If someone has still any trouble with Punkbuster please report exactly which message you get and when. Also please do the two MD5 checks as instructed above and state your results.

Good luck on getting things running.

P.S: If anyone knows exactly which programs prevent our PR.exe from doing it's job and how to stop them doing so please post that here too.

[arn354]

Spearhead is absolutly correct in describing possible steps to get further.
His assumptions are fine with my knowledge and experiences.

People experiencing problems with pr.exe should login is administrator, disable UAC and try again.

If pr.exe does not his job, it's a problem of file-virtualization and UAC enabled. XP-SP2 compatibility mode and running pr.exe as administrator works for sure - pb will not kick. Granting full-access to bf2-folder for the used limited vista-useraccount easies things up aswell.

I really can't confirm that using EA-Store or EA-Downloader makes pr.exe not working. It is working fine here on multiple machines- all available vista-versions.
If someone shows me in a remotesession that he can't use pr.exe due to EA-Store or EA-Downloader - i start believing it. But unless that i persist on my own experiences (and of others) that pr.exe is working with EA-Store and EA-Downloader.

[Deadfast]

Originally Posted by arn354

I really can't confirm that using EA-Store or EA-Downloader makes pr.exe not working. It is working fine here on multiple machines- all available vista-versions.
If someone shows me in a remotesession that he can't use pr.exe due to EA-Store or EA-Downloader - i start believing it. But unless that i persist on my own experiences (and of others) that pr.exe is working with EA-Store and EA-Downloader.

Rawkk couldn't use pr.exe with EA Downloader version on Windows XP.

[umop-3p!sdn]

I recently re-installed BF2 and am about to install PR again ...

I will say thou, before now, I was NEVER able to start PR with PR.exe.
It stated that BF2 was not present. I had them both in different volumes.
PR worked fine from the .lnk ... but not from PR.exe. I have no EA downloader or the like
I also am running XP.

I'll reply to this later after I re-install.
This time, they will be in the same volume.


THNKS FOR THE MD5 POST SPEARHEAD!!!!!
I'm going to noodle with the new install and see if there's much of a difference for me ...

[crAck_sh0t]

Ive tried all fixes i could UNDERSTAND but still i get black screen when i run pr.exe and then it crashes to desktop. Theres an easy fix to this.take the bloody pb checks off for the supression effect , its just silly so many people who love the game can't play because of a very small minority of cheaters.

Is there any fixes here for people with minor pc knowledge or are we doomed to play FH2 forever? cos that would be hell.

[Dutch(CAN)]

I agree with crackshot. I still get suppressed....usually I get my ass handed to me, however, all I can play is battlearena and I so desperately want to play TG.

C'mon GUYS!!!