Failed launch - xrGameSpy.dll Thread - STALKER Complete 2009 (2012) mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl

Installed in English
Patched to 1.005
Complete installed

Faulting application name: XR_3DA.exe, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x472217f9Faulting module name: xrGameSpy.dll, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x4721d8dfException code: 0xc0000005Fault offset: 0x00008824Faulting process id: 0x13b4Faulting application start time: 0x01cdd3e953e7b3feFaulting application path: E:\Programs\STALKER\bin\XR_3DA.exeFaulting module path: E:\Programs\STALKER\bin\xrGameSpy.dllReport Id: a0e3c03b-3fdc-11e2-b65f-002215105961
The game was running yesterday, but today is failing to reach the main menu. After searching I failed to find any reference to xrGameSpy.dll. According to metacognix.com/stlkrsoc/CrashesStillInTheGame a workaround is blocking it in windows firewall, but disabling the entries still causes a crash. The game will run if I'm completely offline. Any ideas?

this exact same thing has just started happening to me today as well, was fine yesterday o_O

haven't tried running offline yet though, will give it a go

The SAME thing has happened to me too... ?

I took my Ethernet cable out for offline mode and it worked.

What on earth is going on?

Holy SHIT.
I thought I was the only one and I can't find ANYTHING about this.
I've been playing some STALKER every morning now for quite some time and now it won't work for me anymore and I couldn't find out any information anywhere.
I was scared maybe I messed something else up but I reinstalled the game and all my mods and it still doesn't work.

Maybe this is related to Gamespy arcade shutting down which effected SWAT 4? The .dll at fault seems to be xrgamespy.dll

Food for thought. I really want this fixed.

HEY GUYS I FOUND A FIX.
Hurray I'm finally the first one to fix something.
What the problem is is that you need to block stalker from accessing the internet. You can play singleplayer (I only play singleplayer, I don't even think LURK mod has multiplayer) if you do this.

On windows vista or 7 go to your little search bar at the bottom of the menu that pops up when you press the windows button or the click the windows button in the bottom left hand corner of your screen. Type "Windows firewall with" or anything like that and click the thing that says windows firewall with advanced security.

Create a new inbound and outbound rule by selecting the catergory and then clicking new rule. Make it for a program, in the select program page navigate first to your stalker "bin" folder (for me it's C:\Program Files (x86)\THQ\S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Shadow of Chernobyl\bin) and then select the XR program which is the main stalker program, click block all connections, name it Stalker cock blocker inbound1, make the rule.

Do the SAME for outbound rule too.

THEN go back and do the same steps over again except with the .exe inside of the folder named "dedicated" inside of the bin folder
(C:\Program Files (x86)\THQ\S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Shadow of Chernobyl\bin\dedicated)

Stalker should run perfectly after that, it does for me.

This will work with any firewall that support custom rules, not just windows firewall.

In the last couple days I haven't had an issue. I was simply disabling my network to launch, then alt+tab out to re-enable. I believe this was a glitch with the gamespy dll not finding a server to contact, and erroring out due to poor coding. It seems the issue is no longer a problem, but it may happen again in the future.