Ok, I searched on these forums for an answer and no luck.

I keep getting this error. "Service Communication Failure: PnkBsterB.exe driver failure (PnkBsterk.sys) ffab.

Now i have delt with the ever so horrible pb ways. I have even went to evenbalance.com and downloaded the lastest clients for the game. Am i missing anything? A patch or something?

Hi,

NOT sure, but if you are using Vista64, then give the following link a read. There is a workaround for this error. Read the posts made by JeLa as well as Cursian (Last one). It's for 'Far Cry 2'. But did you ask this for FC2 or Far Cry ?

http://www.punksbusted.com/for....php?showtopic=56997

I'm NOT much familiar with PB, but have you tried disabling any personal Firewall and Anti-Virus programs ? And did you delete the entire PB folder from the game's installation path, before running PBSetup again. Do this and then run PBSetup and let it check for updates. Make sure you don't run PBSetup from inside the PB folder.

If you are using VISTA, then run the game's exe as 'Administrator'. Also run PBSVC as administrator. Are you sure both the services PnkBstrA.exe and PnkBsrtB.exe are enabled ?

There are many solutions for this kind of error. Some have told to do a search for the PnkBstrK.sys file. It's usually found under the path 'C:\Windows\System32\Drivers' or the 'Application Data' folder. If you happen to find it, delete it and again run 'pbsvc.exe'. You can try to Google search for more help and info, or make a post at the PB forums. You will most likely get an answer there.

Cheers.

When using V64, you have to put PB in a few locations for it to work.

I used the PBsetup to manually add PB, in its entirety, to the following folders:

sysWOW64
sys32
users>yourname>appdata>local>Punkbuster>FCX
FC2 bin Folder

If PB is not in all of the above locations, you will get the driver error and you will not be able to play PB enabled matches.

I have both played the game and run a server on V64 bit by doing this. Again, I used PBsetup ad manually browsed to the locations listed above. As an alternative, you can just copy-paste the entire PB folder from one location to all of these.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Agent00Kevin,

Ok well forgive me, i should have given more info. I am currently running w7 64pro. And i did add the pb folder to Sys32 and WOW64 folders. I am going to try it now. However i do not have a Appsdata folder in the users folder.

Thanks for the update.

OK, under Windows 7 you need to look here e.g.: C:\users\username\appdata\ folder.

Don't look for the Application Data, which is not an actual folder, it's an environment variable. It's a junction/shortcut. If the 'AppData' folder is not shown, then make sure the *Show Hidden files, folders* option, is selected/enabled at the Folder Options.

Hope this helps ? You can Try this for Win 7 64 bit:
Copy PnkBstrA.exe and PnkBstrB.exe from "\Windows\SysWOW64" to "\Windows\System32". And also run the game and all those .exes as Administrator. (Compatibility Mode). Also to avoid any API related PB kicks, make sure the *Allow service to interact with desktop* option is enabled for PnkBstrA & PnkBstrB.

Oh, I see, I dont know anything about W7, that is a very common V64 bit error.

So, there IS a workaround to this API problem? Is that known to fix it in most cases?

Yes, as per my knowledge, the known workarounds for VISTA should apply on Win 7 easily. There is not much of a difference between both of them. Win 7 is just a twin brother of Vista TBH. Many have failed to understand that Win 7 is not an entirely new and stable platform. NO. In fact Vista will continue to perform better until we see driver updates, patches and fixes.

Some unknown API kicks also depend on the version of Windows 7 used, so not sure if any fix will apply for all of them. The *Allow this service to interact with desktop* option doesn't work properly under Vista. But it should fix some of the PB issues under Win 7.

bartotheman can try the solution as told, and if it doesn't work, then we will look for other alternatives. The method has known to work on the Win 7 RTM version, so let's see what happens now. **Fingers crossed**.

One thing we have noticed while playing COD4 once, that the 'PnkBstrB' service resets itself every time you join a Server. So we need to hack the registry to prevent this from reverting. This happens occasionally on the 64 bit versions of Win 7 and Vista.

Cheers.