Help! Crash when joining server after 1.21 patch

[ltmayonnaise]

Hey all, I've been playing BF2 and Special Forces for quite a long time without any problems. Then came the 1.21 Patch. I installed the incremental patch (as I was already running 1.2) and I havent been able to play either BF2 or SF since. What happens is that as soon as I click "Join Server" after highlighting a match in the server browser the game just freezes. No error, no crash to desktop, nothing. The music fades and BF2 is completely locked. I have to CTRL-ALT-DEL to get out of the game. Single player works fine (as has multiplayer for months) so I dont think its a problem with my hardware or drivers, this only occurs with multiplayer.

I've tried uninstalling BF2 and SF and re-installing several times. I've tried the following methods:

1) Install BF2 > Install SF > Install 1.21 Patch
2) Install BF2 > Install 1.21 Patch > Install SF > Install 1.21 Patch

I do have Daemon Tools installed... but its never given me a problem with BF2 or SF before and I dont use it with them either. I purchased the games and am using a valid serial for both BF2 and SF with the original BF2 DVD in the drive.

Anyone got any ideas? This is driving me nuts...
ltmayonnaise

[C4ninja]

Re: Help! Crash when joining server after 1.21 patch

TRy a manuel update of PunkBuster, it fixed it for me!

[ltmayonnaise]

Re: Help! Crash when joining server after 1.21 patch

Thanks for the help! I took your advice and did a manual download of punkbuster, turns out it WAS out of date for BF2. So thats all fine and dandy, except that I still have the same problem. Great. I've tried joining non-punkbuster servers as well, doesnt work either.

Also, I just tried using QTracker (similar to xfire) to join games (bypassing the BF2 serverbrowser). Now the game freezes exactly as before accept now it is at the main screen instead of in the server browser.

I have also tried removing Daemon Tools, which I thought might be causing some problem with Safedisk4, alas, it solved nothing.

This sucks and i'm at a loss.

I can't believe nobody else has this problem!?

I just tried installing just battlefield2 (no SF) and patching to 1.21 and got the same results. Cannot join any multiplayer server.

Nobody else is experiencing anything like this! I ****ing hate this 1.21 patch, everything worked A-OK for me before it.

I'm at a total loss what happened here, i'm going to try the 1.2 patch and see if i am still getting this weird problem.

[noriego]

Re: Help! Crash when joining server after 1.21 patch

I am having this same problem. Am also using Dameon. Single player is fine.

EDIT: Updated Punkbuster but still no go. Guess I will reinstall now.

EDIT2: Ok I fixed my prob. I think it was a registry issue. My BF2 install was from a different OS install and therefore there were no correlating registry entries. So I reinstalled which took only a few secs since it skipped all the files that were alreay there (all of them). Didn't even need to patch. Once I did that I got an "Invalid CD Key" error. I used the EA fix and now I can connect.

Hope this helps.

[ltmayonnaise]

Re: Help! Crash when joining server after 1.21 patch

Thanks for the suggestions, unfortunately they didnt work for me... I tried manually resetting the cdkeys as well as reinstalling battlefield 2 on top of my existing installation. I'm trying to repatch over that right now... but i doubt it will fix anything. Argh!