Punkbuster kick problem

Matt5p

Registered User
Joined
Aug 9, 2009
Messages
233
Age
38
Hello guys, i need help. Since today can't play on TBG Servers. After 1 minute inside to the game the server kicks me with this message.

Game disconnected: you were kicked by PunkBuster. Stated reason: PunkBuster kicked player 'Matt5p' (for 0 minutes) ... RESTRICTION: Service Communication Failure: PnkBstrB.exe initialization failed



PunkBuster is up to date. Any Ideas?
 
Last edited:
Is there more to the right of the message? Should be and that would be diagnostically useful. If its up to date not sure what to tell you. But network problems could be at play as well as software interfering with pb. But would happen on all servers more than likely.
 
punkbuster has two services - PnkBstrA.exe and PnkBstrB.exe that run on your machine. You get usually that message when one of the threads has crashed. I got it all the time in BF2 days. PBSetup should solve the problem.
 
I started getting this message yesterday also. It appears Avast antivirus started removing these files to virus chest:

PunkBstrB.exe
PunkBstrB..xtr
PunkBstrB..ex0

And I cant find PunkBstrA.exe So I know the A and B are valid files but what are the others? Are they new to BF3? Viruses? Anyway sent an email to Avast with them attached. I did a restore yesterday and disabled avast and was able to play but when I re enabled Avast couldn't play again.
 
Hydro add an exception to those files from within Avast. The services only run when they are being used by the game so it makes them difficult to find, but not impossible. There are three that you need to be aware of PB A, PB B, PB X. I'm sure someone here all ready knows exactly where they are.


Matt and everyone else having issues with PB. There are two programs that everyone should have regarding PB. The first is pbsetup.exe and it manually updates all PB enabled games on your computer. The second program is pbsvc.exe and you can find both at the links below. Pbsvc.exe will completely remove and reinstall PB for the games you have and it will also test all the PB services to make sure they are running/communicating correctly. Make sure you run both as administrator on Vista/Win7 machines otherwise they will not work properly.

pbsetup.exe can be found here; PunkBuster Online Countermeasures
pbsvc.exe can be found here; PunkBuster Online Countermeasures
 
Thx bob, I reinstalled PB and can now play again. Also sent the files to Avast and asked them to look into them I will let you know what they say. The virus chest files say they were infected with Win32:Malware-gen.
 
The problem has been solved with Avast! update. Thanks Bob
 
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