Overview
What to do when “completed” Half-Life 2 achievements don’t show as unlocked on Steam.
The Problem
Achievements show as unlocked or completed on the in-game menu, but not on Steam.
Possible causes:
- There is something unreliable about the way Half-Life 2 communicates with Steam.
- Temporary loss of connection with the internet or Steam server.
- Two players are using Half-Life 2 on the same computer (either they both own the game, or are using Family Sharing). Achievements may only unlock for the first player who completes them.
If an achievement does NOT show as unlocked on the in-game menu, then the requirements for the achievement have not been met.
Achievements will NOT unlock in these cases:
- Offline mode
- Commentary mode
- Cheats active (sv_cheats 1) at any time during your play session.
THE FIX
Quit Half-Life 2, if it is running.
Rename *(or delete) the file …steamsteamappscommonHalf-Life 2hl2gamestate.txt
Make sure you are online AND connected to Steam.
Then start Half-Life 2, and replay the part relevant to the achievement.
* If you are part-way through the Lambda Locator achievement, “rename” the file to keep as a backup (for example: “gamestate.txt.bak” or “gamestate – Copy.txt”), and read below.
More Information
To easily find where your game files are stored:
In your Steam Library, select Half-Life 2, select Manage (gear icon), then Manage > Browse local files
Half-Life 2 uses a local file named gamestate.txt (shared by all players using the same computer) to record progress with achievements – if they are already unlocked, they won’t be triggered a second time.
When you start Half-Life 2, the game checks both the local gamestate.txt file and the online list of achievements associated with your Steam account, and combines them in to the list of achievements displayed in-game. Each time you quit Half-Life 2, the gamestate.txt file gets re-created based on the combined progress. After using the fix, you can delete the new file and replace it with the file you renamed earlier. (Actual progress on Lambda Locator will be lost if you don’t keep the original file.)
In each case, you only need to replay the exact moment where the achievement is triggered. So use a saved game, if you have one (unless cheats were active). If that doesn’t work, try starting a New Game from the nearest chapter.
Since the problem is about Half-Life 2 communicating with Steam, even the fix may not work the first time – so TRY AGAIN!
Other things to try
Verify Integrity of Game Files:
[link]
Clear Download Cache:
[link]