The last time I launched Black Mesa, it was running just fine. Since then, the SDK Base migrated to Steam Pipe (that “Converting content” dialog), and now Black Mesa doesn’t launch. No error message, no trace of it running besides the outline around my Steam avatar going green, nothing. -window made no difference. Day of Defeat: Source works fine.
Where do I even begin to solve this?
e: The solution, for people who found this thread while Googling
First off, no, it did not affect Black Mesa.
Have you tried restarting Steam?
Also, the hl2.exe process occasionally doesn’t end, so you may have to do it manually through the task manager.
Just did that (well actually it was a full computer restart because of Windows Update, but details details), now Steam wants to completely redownload the SDK base (it’s acting as if it was never installed). I’ll report back when it finishes in a few minutes and let you know the results.
e: Progress! It’s spitting out an error now!
That old bug is still around? Christ, Valve, you’ve had since 2008 at least…
Anyway, the process is definitely ending itself, it’s just not telling me why.
You’re not alone with that problem:
https://forums.blackmesasource.com/showthread.php?t=16480
Unfortunately no one seems to know how to fix it.
Has anyone tried reinstalling the SDK 2007 Base? I’d imagine that’d be the first logical stop, but no one’s mentioned trying it.
Or maybe a fresh Steam install? Backup your “steam\steamapps” folder, delete everything in your \steam folder (sans the steam.exe), then put your steamapps folder back and run Steam.
For good measure you can also delete the “steamapps%usernamehere%\source sdk base 2007” folder.
If Google was helpful, I would have mentioned that, now wouldn’t I have?
Steam completely redownloaded it in my case, I’m assuming that’s like a fresh install, but I could delete it and try again if you like.
I tried both, but neither seemed to do the trick.
I only noticed, that I get a different error message depending on whether I’m in the client beta or not. When I’m not participating in the beta I get “unable to load source steam apps/username/sdk base 2007/bin/filesystem_steam.dll”, while I otherwise get the already mentioned steam interface error.
I tried deleting the “filesystem_steam.dll” file, renaming it or verifying the cache, but nothing seems to work.
EUREKA.[/SIZE] See, it was Steampipe after all.
Source SDK Base 2007 now lives in the steamapps/common folder, because of its migration to Steampipe. There’s still a folder in steamapps/your_username_here but it contains outdated files. I got Black Mesa to work, here was my process.
How do you create a symlink?
Firstly, please try regular copying and pasting, just so we’re sure on whether that works (it probably will).
Failing that, the easiest way to create a symlink is to download and install Link Shell Extension, then right click the folder in “common” and choose Pick Link Source, then going to your username folder and right clicking an empty place, and selecting Drop As > Symbolic Link.
Wow! The copy and paste worked! Thanks.
I went ahead and took the symlink bit out of it, for future Googlers.
I opted out of the beta for a brief time to see if it worked without it and found out that the copy and paste solution doesn’t work unless I was in the beta version of Steam.
I finally fixed the error for myself.
What I did was uninstall source sdk base 2007 through steam >and< then delete any trace of it from my pc (the ones under “username” and “common”).
If you only uninstall and then reinstall steam will only download a relatively small file.
But if you reinstall after deleting it from your base the file should be considerably larger.
I however had to repeat the deleting/reinstalling around 3 times, before steam finally started downloading a larger file.
After it was finished, I got an error with the hl2.exe when starting Black Mesa, so I opted back into the steam beta which fixed it for me.
Updated my post again, thank you.
Might want to update it one more time. I got in the latest version of the Steam client (not beta) and the copy and paste solution now works. This means that it doesn’t matter if you use the beta version or not.
I’m in the Steam Beta aswell, every game (supported) has SteamPipe, no problem at all, no problems met…
This is weird, my sdk base 2007 never got converted to the steampipe format. Neither did my sdk base 2006. I assumed that that Steam was just going to leave these alone so as not to break a lot of mods. I still have the GCF files for these engines and the installations are still in my folder and not in my ‘common’ folder. Everything else got ported over: hl2, ep1 & 2, css, but not these. I’m not complaining - my Black Mesa runs fine. I just think it’s weird that some people’s engines got converted while others didn’t!
Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.