From gamservers support forums:


Nothing is working right now. You cant connect through the search key, force connect, and the servers aren't showing up on the groups list.

There isn't anything anyone here can do about it right now. You can connect through HLSW. I played a whole game with bots and no one else connected. So, I assume only yourself and others with HLSW admin can connect to play together.

What's even more annoying was that there was a 2nd update the same day the new DLC was released that fixed the problems. Then the next day they released another update that screwed it all up again...

It's not gameservers.com's fault. Valve/Steam are the only ones who can fix it.

Best things to do is wait patiently until they get it fixed. Their forums are loaded with complaints and you can see for yourself here.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=130

Quote: September 29, 2009 - Left 4 Dead Update Released

Updates to Left 4 Dead have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Left 4 Dead


Made the variable "mp_gamemode" available again. Note that you can also load maps directly with different game modes by specifying it in the map command. For example, "map l4d_garage01_alleys versus" will set mp_gamemode versus for you automatically and load the first map of Crash Course

Added "mm_dedicated_force_servers" to allow specification of a list of dedicated server addresses manually used for searching (ms_force_dedicated_server is depreciated)

Updated shared libraries and DLLs preventing dedicated servers listing correctly, appearing on Steam groups, and being found via sv_search_key



Quote: September 30, 2009 - Left 4 Dead Update Released

Updates to Left 4 Dead have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Left 4 Dead (PC)


Item density calculation corrected for Versus games

Fixed weapon density in Crash Course

mp_gamemode now a valid command

New localized audio for Crash Course now available

Fixed achievement issues in Crash Course

Fixed dedicated servers not updating correctly to master server

Increased the timeout to fallback to listen server when searching for a dedicated server to 45 seconds


Left 4 Dead (360 dedicated only)

Item density calculation corrected for Versus games

Fixed weapon density in Crash Course

Player controlled special Infected will no longer be trapped if they spawn in rescue closets

Weapons and health kits in cabinets are now correctly respawned in the second Versus round

Fixed a deploment issue on Xbox 360 dedicated servers that resulted in collisions not being properly detected. This issue is a server only issue

I know it's annoying. I'm sure they'll fix it once enough people complain, like always...

epic failington. id rather have not had the dlc and stuck with a working game...

Background thread of note: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/show...ad.php?t=978584

After some research into Server problems I've found part of the issue is some core components of Sourcemod plugin (part of the readyup system) causing timeouts and disconnects.

I've gone through the source-code and stripped this out by hand. Although I can't test this yet, if anyone else can give this a go and report back it would be appreciated

However with any luck this should technically allow connection to the servers again but in a slightly different way*

Create a lobby for desired game
DON'T use sv_search_key, instead in the console use:

mm_dedicated_force_servers 217.163.30.175:27015,217.163.31.65:27015

Press 'Start Game' : (This forces the use of one of our 2 servers and is the correct syntax - it does not include quotes as seen on some forums)

However rather than typing this, you can add this as a keybind: click Here and save this file to C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\left 4 dead\left4dead\cfg (path may be slightly different e.g. Program File x86 etc.,) Each time the game loads it will execute this config and bind a key (in this case F1) to that command. Simply start a game/lobby and just remember to press F1 before you click 'start game'

At the moment without further testing and modification, this is the best I can do (although valve are planning yet another patch to fix all the stuff they ballsed up)

ta,

MonkeyFiend


*mm_dedicated_servers_force replaces the old ms_force_dedicated command. Fuck knows why :s

just tested - seemed to work, took a while to connect though, i thought it would end up hosting locally before i saw the sm splash screen

hooray

I've submitted the updated modules source-code and package to Valve with comments that they send a donation to the clan

In the meantime this will do as a work-around for getting a game on, hopefully sv_search_key will be fixed by valve soon

Will repost my previous post as a sticky for people to find more easily.

Thx for testing it btw