RE: Error model has been modified since starting the engine.

[Dennis Hall]

This is one I was having trouble with for a long time. I've read some old
Usenet posts and stuff on the web about this problem and never saw anyone
give a good answer, and never could come up with any myself until recently.
I even stopped playing altogether for awhile because of this. I finally
found the solution. I hope this helps someone.

First a description of the problem:

While playing Counter-Strike, the following error would come up during map
changes: 'Error blah.mdl has been modified since starting the engine!'.
Then, I would get kicked from the server because the server was enforcing
file consistency, even if I was hosting it myself!

The problem would soon pop up again if I replaced the model with a backup
copy, if I reinstalled Counter-Strike, even if I formatted the hard drive
and did a clean install of just Windows, Half-Life, and Counter-Strike.
There was no evidence of any virus, and no virus scanning program could
detect anything.

I was also having a few other intermittent errors in other games and
applications, but they were rare. However, the model error would occur
every time. Eventually, my WON ID was banned from most servers because of
the file consistency problems. Evidently, they believed I was a cheater
using custom skins.

However, the problems got more severe. System stability got worse and
worse. Soon, reinstalling windows gave me all sorts of errors as well.
There were all sorts of hardware problems I thought it might be. I
suspected some sort of IO malfunction, because most of the errors were file
corruption problems.

THE SOLUTION:

Exasperated, I finally began to suspect the memory, so I downloaded
Memtest86, a free software memory checker. I ran it and the results were
crystal clear. There was a single bit in RAM that was stuck at 0 during all
tests. This is what was causing all those file corruption errors.

The memory was replaced through the manufacturer's lifetime warranty, and my
system stability and file corruption and IO errors are all gone.

Bottom line: if you are having either a 'file modified since starting
engine' error or a 'enforcing file consistency' error and have no idea what
the problem is, check your RAM.