Error 51 and DirectX9 : V

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 7:01 am

So the past couple of weeks I've been cleaning up the debris of a really nasty virus, I'm almost done but the last thing to sort out is getting an error 51 as soon as I start up Skyrim. I don't get to the title menu, as soon as I press play I get error 51. This happens regardless of whether I start Skyrim in Steam or use the .exe.

I'm suspecting a lack of DirectX 9, as I can't find it anywhere on my computer and I've read that Skyrim can't run without it. I was just looking for some suggestions on what I can do about it. Here's what I've tried:

Uninstalling and reinstalling Skyrim
Uninstalling and reinstalling Steam
Verifying the integrity of game cache
Downloading and installing DirectX 9 (error 51 and I couldn't find it anywhere)

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what else I can do?
Thanks for any help

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 11:18 am

Have you downloaded and installed direct x from this site?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/aa937788.aspx

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 4:44 am

Have you downloaded and installed direct x from this site?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/aa937788.aspx

I just did, I didn't work however. The pop up at the end of the installation said the files were installed and ready to use, however I still get error 51 and when I check the version of DirectX I have it says 11. Any other ideas?

Thanks for the help either wayy, I appreciate it.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 5:25 am

I just did, I didn't work however. The pop up at the end of the installation said the files were installed and ready to use, however I still get error 51 and when I check the version of DirectX I have it says 11. Any other ideas?

Thanks for the help either wayy, I appreciate it.

Have you restarted your pc?

2 other things:

Check you have all the latest windows updates including service packs.

Install the direct x and vcredist found in their respective folders in the skyrim main folder. After installing those, reboot and try again.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 1:30 am

Have you restarted your pc?

2 other things:

Check you have all the latest windows updates including service packs.

Install the direct x and vcredist found in their respective folders in the skyrim main folder. After installing those, reboot and try again.

Yeah I restarted, and I just installed direct X and vcredist and restarted again to no avail. The direct X was 10, I'm not sure if that's a problem or not. Maybe it isn't something to do with Direct X after all? Well I'm going to keep looking anyway, any more advice is greatly appreciated

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 7:58 am

A google search pulled up all kinds of "error 51 and Steam" issues. Here's some things to try;

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=2235-YXVB-8261 identifies two programs that could interfere with Steam - Airfoil with it's Instant Hijack feature and F-Secure.

"If you have an Error 51 it means that your ClientRegistry.blob file in the Steam folder is corrupt. Try deleting that file and Steam should redownload the correct version of that file. This should fix your problem.

Additionally, if you get error 51 and replacing your ClientRegistry.blob file doesn't appear to fix the problem, check your firewall software. If the firewall software blocks some of steam's communication this can also lead to an error 51."

Nevermind, we figured it out, it seems there's a third way to obtain Error 51 - F-Secure Advanced Process Scanning will trigger it on quite a number of steam games, it's an old bug that's still around, kill the process scanning and all worked.

Update: I think I found the real issue. After reinstalling all my games I went to launch BC2 and got the same [censored] error. The only thing I had changed since I started fresh was update to the latest beta drivers.

it was the NVIDIDA 295.51 Beta Drivers that was causing this error.

Launching a game from Steam, the game fails to start and quotes error code 51.

Clean steamapps
This is a Steam response to the issue.

Exit Steam entirely.
Navigate to your Steam installation (Usually C:\Program Files\Steam\)
Rename the "steamapps" folder to "old_steamapps"
Re-launch Steam and re-install one of the faulty games.
Start the game.

If the issue is not resolved, you can rename the folder back to avoid having to re-install other games.

Good luck.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 4:54 am

Thanks, I tried all of that and none of it worked. However after installing a steam update and trying to start up Skyrim I got a pop up that said "the program can't start because d3d9.dll is missing from your computer", and I remember (stupidly in hindsight) deleting the d3d9.dll file after reading a suggestion that could help with error 51. I think that could be the problem, does anyone have any advice how to get it back where it belongs?

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 2:01 pm

Thanks, I tried all of that and none of it worked. However after installing a steam update and trying to start up Skyrim I got a pop up that said "the program can't start because d3d9.dll is missing from your computer", and I remember (stupidly in hindsight) deleting the d3d9.dll file after reading a suggestion that could help with error 51. I think that could be the problem, does anyone have any advice how to get it back where it belongs?

Reinstalling direct x should put that file back mate :shrug:

you could get one off the net if you google it, and find out from there where it goes, but I wouldn't recommend it.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 2:50 am

Hmm, thanks anyway. I'm probably just gonna take it to a shop or something. This is way to complicated for little old me to solve. Thanks for the help anyway guys, I appreciate it.