Overview
What to do when “completed” Portal 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 Portal communicates with Steam.
- Temporary loss of connection with the internet or Steam server.
- Two players are using Portal 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
- Cheats active (sv_cheats 1) at any time during your play session.
- Commentary mode (it activates cheats)
If you play in commentary mode and then play an advanced chamber or challenge map, commentary (and cheats) will remain active. Commentary nodes will be visible in challenge maps, but not in advanced chambers.
To ensure commentary mode is off, start a New Game in story mode and then re-start the advanced chamber or challenge via Bonus Maps.
THE FIX
Quit Portal, if it is running.
Rename *(or delete) the file …steamsteamappscommonportalportalgamestate.txt
Make sure you are online AND connected to Steam.
Then start Portal, and replay the part relevant to the achievement:
- Story mode achievements – replay that part.
- “Cake” achievements – complete ONE advanced chamber.
- “Science” achievements – complete ONE challenge (at least bronze medal).
* If you are part-way through the Transmission Received achievement, “rename” the file to keep as a backup copy (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 Portal, select Manage (gear icon), then Manage > Browse local files
Portal 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 Portal, 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 Portal, 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 Transmission Received 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 or commentary were active). If that doesn’t work, try starting a New Game from the nearest chapter.
Since the problem is about Portal communicating with Steam, even the fix may not work the first time – so TRY AGAIN!
Transmission Received
Before you can start on this one, you first need to have unlocked the Heartbreaker achievement for completing Portal. Only then will the extra/modified radios appear.
Progress with Transmission Received is tracked in a similar way to the Lambda Locator achievement for Half-Life 2. (There are two HL2 guides that explain how.) For Portal:
Open the file …steamsteamappscommonportalportalgamestate.txt
At the end of the file will be a section starting with “id” “149”.
The value next to “data” is used to record progress toward the achievement:
0x0000000000000000 (no transmissions received)
0x0000000003FFFFFF (ALL transmissions received)
To determine which radio transmissions have already been received, take the last seven (7) digits of the “data” value and convert each digit from hexadecimal to 4-bit binary.
Then, reading from RIGHT-TO-LEFT, the binary digits indicate whether a radio transmission has been received (1) or not (0). (The two left digits will always be zeros.)
Other things to try
Verify Integrity of Game Files:
[link]
Clear Download Cache:
[link]