voice lines/announcer/music not working

[Pupaganda]

I have already verified the game cache and no files are missing, deleted both steam/tf2 and reinstalled, removed custom launch options, added exclusions for malwarebytes and windows defender for tf2/bin/steam folders and hl2.exe, and it still isn't working... I have already googled my problem and tried all of the listed solutions (which I listed previously), if anyone could help it would be much appriciated.

[GhostyOsty]

Do you have them turned off?

[Pupaganda]

Originally posted by GhostyOsty:

Do you have them turned off?

no? they all worked fine previously, came back to the game after not playing basically at all last month and it hasn't been working.

[stolen hi]

Originally posted by purps:

Originally posted by GhostyOsty:

Do you have them turned off?

no? they all worked fine previously, came back to the game after not playing basically at all last month and it hasn't been working.

I had a similar problem. I assume you are getting the error message "failed to create decoder" in console which eventually crashes the game.
Here's what I did to fix my issue:
- Delete all sound.cache files
- Go into game and open console. Type "snd_restart" twice.

And that's it. It took me a long time to solve this issue.

You should note that when deleting sound.cache files, you must delete every single one in the /tf/ directory.
(in programfiles/steam/steamapps/common/teamfortress2/tf/)
Use the search function to find all sound.cache files, highlight them all and delete.
Hope this helps.

[Pupaganda]

Originally posted by not Drifter:

Originally posted by purps:

no? they all worked fine previously, came back to the game after not playing basically at all last month and it hasn't been working.

I had a similar problem. I assume you are getting the error message "failed to create decoder" in console which eventually crashes the game.
Here's what I did to fix my issue:
- Delete all sound.cache files
- Go into game and open console. Type "snd_restart" twice.

And that's it. It took me a long time to solve this issue.

You should note that when deleting sound.cache files, you must delete every single one in the /tf/ directory.
(in programfiles/steam/steamapps/common/teamfortress2/tf/)
Use the search function to find all sound.cache files, highlight them all and delete.
Hope this helps.

thanks! i am getting this error, hopefully this works!

[Pupaganda]

Originally posted by not Drifter:

Originally posted by purps:

no? they all worked fine previously, came back to the game after not playing basically at all last month and it hasn't been working.

I had a similar problem. I assume you are getting the error message "failed to create decoder" in console which eventually crashes the game.
Here's what I did to fix my issue:
- Delete all sound.cache files
- Go into game and open console. Type "snd_restart" twice.

And that's it. It took me a long time to solve this issue.

You should note that when deleting sound.cache files, you must delete every single one in the /tf/ directory.
(in programfiles/steam/steamapps/common/teamfortress2/tf/)
Use the search function to find all sound.cache files, highlight them all and delete.
Hope this helps.

i deleted all the sound.cache files in the tf directory and snd_restart'd twice, and i am still getting the decoder error.

[stolen hi]

Originally posted by purps:

Originally posted by not Drifter:

I had a similar problem. I assume you are getting the error message "failed to create decoder" in console which eventually crashes the game.
Here's what I did to fix my issue:
- Delete all sound.cache files
- Go into game and open console. Type "snd_restart" twice.

And that's it. It took me a long time to solve this issue.

You should note that when deleting sound.cache files, you must delete every single one in the /tf/ directory.
(in programfiles/steam/steamapps/common/teamfortress2/tf/)
Use the search function to find all sound.cache files, highlight them all and delete.
Hope this helps.

i deleted all the sound.cache files in the tf directory and snd_restart'd twice, and i am still getting the decoder error.

Well, there are other solutions, but it may be time consuming if you have many files.

1) The reason for the failure in decoding is normally an invalid sample rate on the .mp3
You'll have to open up every file in something such as audacity and make the rates correct- I can't remember the number, it should be on the wiki or accessible by a google search.
* You shouldn't need to unpack .vpk files, only the .mp3 files in your /custom/ folder.

2) The other solution I've used before is converting files from .mp3 to .wav
This will also have to be done for every file. It probably isn't worth it for annoucer files, may be easier to delete the mod.
* You will have to make sure that the .wav files have the same name as the .mp3s

Sorry for the late reply.

[Pupaganda]

Originally posted by not Drifter:

Originally posted by purps:

i deleted all the sound.cache files in the tf directory and snd_restart'd twice, and i am still getting the decoder error.

Well, there are other solutions, but it may be time consuming if you have many files.

1) The reason for the failure in decoding is normally an invalid sample rate on the .mp3
You'll have to open up every file in something such as audacity and make the rates correct- I can't remember the number, it should be on the wiki or accessible by a google search.
* You shouldn't need to unpack .vpk files, only the .mp3 files in your /custom/ folder.

2) The other solution I've used before is converting files from .mp3 to .wav
This will also have to be done for every file. It probably isn't worth it for annoucer files, may be easier to delete the mod.

Sorry for the late reply.

it's okay, the sounds i'm missing aren't from a mod or something though,
all of the voice lines from the characters such as "medic!" ect don't play, the announcer doesn't say "the intelligence has been taken!" and such.

[ultimateHQ]

This worked dude thx

[theWalrusman]

Hey! Have you solded this issue since then? I have the same problem

[Maiq]

Originally posted by TheWalrusMan:

Hey! Have you solded this issue since then? I have the same problem

Did you tried what he suggested?

Originally posted by Drifter:

I had a similar problem. I assume you are getting the error message "failed to create decoder" in console which eventually crashes the game.
Here's what I did to fix my issue:
- Delete all sound.cache files
- Go into game and open console. Type "snd_restart" twice.

And that's it. It took me a long time to solve this issue.

You should note that when deleting sound.cache files, you must delete every single one in the /tf/ directory.
(in programfiles/steam/steamapps/common/teamfortress2/tf/)
Use the search function to find all sound.cache files, highlight them all and delete.
Hope this helps.

[I'll Take Your Entire Stock!!!!!]

What I do is click out of window. Or if you use Mac, option or control tab then click back in. I do that a lot with gmod and tf2

[CareBear]

I have tried this solution, I am still getting this issue.

[Montea]

Sorry for the necro in advance but in case someone is still having this issue or a similar issue like me then try deleting your sound cache and then verify your game files by going to steam then right clicking tf2 then go to properties>local files>Verify integrity of game cache.

It managed to fix my issues which was the game's console spamming "Failed to initiate decoder for mp3 (Insert audio file name here)" which eventually crashed my game because it would cause my game to suddenly just close out of nowhere mid-game.

[⚡nana-pyun⚡]

still getting this error

[Swagdom]

same here and i have tried everything listed here