Friends problem - GTA IV doesn't start anymore

[HDM018]

First of all this is my first post here, so hello to everybody.

 

I got 2 problems with my GTA IV.

 

First is the friends problem, since a while I can't use special abilities anymore. The Like and Respect stats are between 90% and 100%. When I call them, the abilities are not available... I don't know how this suddenly came up.

 

 

Second one is far more irritating though. I installed patch 1.0.0.4 recently and ran the game, all went fine. Since a while though, GTA IV doesn't launch anymore. This is what I do/what happens:

 

1. I start up taskmanager to disable antivirus and give GTAIV.exe high priority, and I start RGSC (I start both as admin)

2. Disc goes in pc

3. Autorun.exe screen appears. NOTICE: there's no logical stuff in it, only some weird numbers etc. I close this screen as usual.

4. I go to RGSC, and press Play.

 

Now usually 5-10 secs after pressing Play the screen will turn black and start up GTA IV. But now nothing happens. The GTAIV.exe stays in the processes list, but note that I can't end the proces. Also if I want to view a website, I start up IE and it keeps loading and loading, no site appears though.

 

I know the start-up will be messed up when that unlogical-stuff autorun shows up. In the bottom it shows some arrows, a square and !!'s. If everything usually goes allright, the upper line with the numbers and letters is the only text in that screen.

 

I never installed mods since I see you have to keep updating it when downloading the patches, and I'm happy enough with how it is now. However, I did install trainers twice. The first was a whole while ago, maybe like 4 months ago, and after removing it the game always worked as fine as before. The second one however, might be the one bringing me into problems. I moved all files away from the IV directory, keeping in the standard directory files. After this the game worked fine for about 2 times, but now it doesn't start.

 

To take away doubts: the game is original and worked fine untill this week that start-up (read: lack of) turned up. I never installed mods, only two trainers (never using them, I threw them away the same day I installed them), of which I think the last one messed it up. I'm not getting any errorcodes.

 

If you need more info, just ask. Thanks in advance.

 

PS: you might have noticed by the ''start as admin'' lines: I use Vista 32-bit.

Edited December 4, 2009 by CLR-GTR

[mkey82]

Uninstall, delete the install dir manually and reinstall with 5th update. Then report back.

[HDM018]

Do I also need to do anything to the RGSC thing directory? Or only the GTA IV directory?

Edited December 5, 2009 by CLR-GTR

[mkey82]

You can also reinstall that one.

[HDM018]

Ok, I'm back, I uninstalled GTA IV, I uninstalled RGSC.

 

I just finished re-installing both, and tried to start the game. But nope, it still doesn't work. This is what I now did:

 

- Anti-virus was already off before I installed GTA IV.

- Installed GTA IV and RGSC.

- I put back the AppData folders for IV and RGSC. Also installed patch 1.0.0.4, aka patch 5.

- Started taskmanager and RGSC, it recognized me ofcourse.

- Pressed PLAY.

 

After pressing play, I heared the dvd drive was zooming silently as usual, and the mousepointer even changed to this spinning disc. Then it turned into the usual Vista-arrow with loadingring.

 

Usually the screen should now go black, starting up IV. But it didn't. The proces once again appeared in taskmanager, but the pc didn't do anything. Also, again when I fire up IE it only says ''Searching xxx.xxx.xxx'' or whatever it says, those numbers.

 

I dunno if this might have to do with one of the recent (last week) Windows Defender updates of Windows Update (I usually check for updates, and always let it install the Defender ones).

 

 

[mkey82]

Try using xliveless and maybe you should reactivate the game.

[HDM018]

But I read that Xliveless blocks achievements, which is the one of the bigger reasons I still wanna play the game.

 

Reactivation, dunno about that. During uninstall it asked me about revoking the activation. I searched around, and found out is should only be used when installing on other pc's or having changed your hardware, so I clicked Exit instead. With this I would assume re-activation is not needed...

Edited December 5, 2009 by CLR-GTR

[HDM018]

Sorry for the bump, but here is a screenshot of the autorun screen:

 

 

See the bottom line with arrows etc, shouldn't be there when the game is ok...