Ever think that a corrupt game files could cause you to be globally banned by BattleEye? Rest assured it can, and I will outline a few things that may be able to reduce the chances of being globally banned as I was recently globally banned on both my accounts due to a corrupt game file. BattleEye boasts on their website that they have made over 150,000 bans in 15 months. This is very aggressive compared to the user base that exists, but I do not disagree that BattleEye serves a useful purpose. You may be wondering the following: Is it possible to be banned from a corrupt game file? What are the symptoms of a corrupt game file? How does BattleEye handle corrupt game files? How can I prevent being globally banned if I'm not cheating? Can you get removed from the global ban list for a false-positive ban? Is it possible to be banned from a corrupt game file? Yes, I was recently banned for a corrupt game file on two accounts (Global Ban #9f52bd and #14562e). I know I was globally banned for a corrupt game file, because I never cheated and created hashes of all my game files then proceeded to validate my steam game files after I was banned. This resulted in one file being reacquired do to it not validating properly. Finally, once the file was reacquired I compared the validated game files with my previous hash list and noticed that an addon PBO file was corrupted. During game play, I also noticed various things that where missing throughout the town. What are the symptoms of a corrupt game file? There are many symptoms of a corrupt game file that I noticed when playing with one. One being a signature mismatch on PBO files, and another error I ran into was a session timeout. I would highly recommend that you validate your game files if you experience this error frequently after playing for a minute or two. However, the built-in client/server error handling does not always trigger a session timeout, and will allow you to play beyond a minute or two. During this time is when you're most likely to be banned at a server level or globally. How does BattleEye handle corrupt game files? BattleEye is mainly passive in gameplay, and will allow you to play with a corrupt game file. However, you will often notice signature mismatches on PBO files while playing. The built-in error handling is poorly written, and may allow you to play with an invalid PBO file in certain cases likes potentially yours or mine. According to BattleEye, "The BE Client (as well as the BE Server) runs within the game, allowing best possible detection of cheats. BattlEye scans the game and the system in RAM and on HDD, mainly using generic methods that globally catch all cheats/hacks of one type (including private ones as far as possible)." I believe this is extremely interesting, and scanning the process in memory can identify almost any cheat if it's comparing a known baseline. This would also be an extremely aggressive approach that would trigger a large amount of false-positives that require careful manual review or proper error handling within the DayZ application. How can I prevent being globally banned if I'm not cheating? BattleEye as an active cheat detection agent may flag you for cheating if your game is loaded with abnormalities. In the case described previously the best line of defense in ensuring you do not get banned is to validate your game files prior to launching the game every time. You will often not know if something is changed in memory, but the best you can do is to ensure your game files are loaded properly and hope nothing is weird occurs in memory. Can you get removed from the global ban list for a false-positive ban? The short answer is most likely not. I've submitted two BattleEye support once through the support contact form on their website, and once via email. I've also tried creating a DayZ issue report on feedback.dayzgame.com which was closed and removed. I have had no luck in communicating my issue with the support team. In addition, I have tried researching out to the reddit moderators of /r/dayz through reddits report function. I've wrote this on the steam community in hopes that others will not get banned for the same reason, and to bring awareness to the community. I know this is the issue, because it was reproduced on another account while a game file was corrupted as you can see with both global ban IDs. There are tons of cheaters in DayZ that use third party applications or cheat providers, and I encourage them being brought to justice. However, I do not believe one should be banned for a corrupt game file and have $34.99 wasted as the game is no longer playable once banned. This is largely due to the fact that a false-positive ban was generated and signature detection on PBO files does not always protect an end-user from loading the game with a corrupted file. Cheers!
