Glitches

“

Grrrrr...[mumbles] Click to listen — The Engineer fed up with game-breaking glitches

”

A glitch is a bug or error in the game or map. It is not to be mistaken for an exploit, which is abusable to the benefit of a player using them or general griefing. A glitch would be along the lines of not being able to load a menu screen or jumping out of the map by accident.

Console versions

Xbox 360

• Accessing Developer Console. Unlike the PC version, the console versions of Team Fortress 2 are denied access to the developer console. Before the July 21, 2009 Patch (Xbox), players could modify the binary data in any Orange Box save file and access the console via a bind to a specific button. After the update, however, the developer console was completely blocked from any modification.

• Forced Lag. Another specific Xbox 360 glitch where a strange "Deadzone" on Gravel Pit would lag all other players if the host jumps into it. This can be done by only the host and by jumping into the water hose located outside the red spawn door on the left.

• Invisible 2Fort Bridge Roof. Occasionally, a player will be able to see through the bridge roof on 2Fort. However, the roof remains solid. The cause is a texture error for the roof.

• Over the Player Limit. If the room has too many spectators, the game assumes players are still needed on the teams. Therefore, it will still be considered an open room. More players will be able to join and thus, the game will be over the maximum player limit. After the room has gone back to the lobby and another match begins, the game will automatically boot the players who recently joined that made it over the limit.

Xbox 360/PlayStation 3

• Losing the Crosshair. Occasionally, if a player leaves a laggy game and joins a new game, their crosshair or aiming reticule will not be visible on the screen.

• Losing Main Menu Sound Effects. Occasionally, if a player leaves a game during lag or gets disconnected due to lag, they may not have any sound effects in the main menu.

• Closed Mouths. Occasionally when a player does a taunt or response, the characters' mouth will not play any animation, but the sound can still be heard. The Soldier will never open his mouth when doing a Shovel Taunt. This glitch can happen on Windows/MAC versions.

• Switch Weapons On Taunt. If the player switches weapons while taunting, the player will end up having that weapon on that taunt (e.g. Heavy spinning the Minigun on the finger instead of the Shotgun).

Windows/Linux/Mac

(Note that some of these glitches may appear in the console versions)

Gameplay-specific glitches

• Reference Pose (Civilian) - A glitch that causes the player to appear to have no weapons in on their world model and causes their model to enter a reference pose.

• Respawn Timer Restart - A glitch where the respawn timer restarts, most commonly if the player is still selecting a class.

• Taunting On Round End - A glitch which, upon losing a round, causes all extra models for taunts such as weapons, the box for the Box Trot, grenade and bottle for Spent Well Spirits, etc. to be invisible/missing.

• Payload Cart Pushing - If a player stands in front of the Payload cart and a member of the enemy team walks towards it, the players will glitch into each other.

• Cow Mangler slow walk - If the player changes from the Cow Mangler 5000 to another primary weapon using a Resupply locker while charging a shot, they will be stuck with the slower moving speed until they change classes, die, or switch back to the Cow Mangler 5000 and fire another charged shot.

• Infinite Compression Blast - A glitch that causes the player to appear to be very rapidly compression blasting while shooting out flames.

A Pyro performing the infinite compression blast glitch

• Taunt Locking - A glitch that is triggered upon performing a looping taunt, such as Mannrobics, and not exiting the taunt during the humiliation period. If the taunt is not stopped, the player does not die and a new round begins, every taunt the player performs afterward will be replaced with the looping taunt they used last round (for example, drinking BONK! as Scout will still apply the effects of BONK! and end the taunt at the same usual time, but the Scout will dance instead of drink from his can). The glitch will stop once the player starts a new in-game life by dying, switching teams, or leaving the game.

• Shadows seen through walls - A glitch that causes dynamic shadows to render through walls when a player stands too close to certain thin walls. Mappers can prevent this glitch by using info_no_dynamic_shadow in the affected surfaces.

Shadows seen through walls, revealing the position of the player.

Inconsistency bugs

• Building Damaged Model - Occasionally, after repairing a building, it will still emit smoke and small electric sparks implying that it is still damaged, despite the building being at full health. This can be fixed by redeploying the building. (Partially fixed)
  • Rarely, a Sapper can be seen on the Sentry Gun in the Sapper position, but the Sentry Gun will still remain fully functional. The Sapper will be shown in the Spy's HUD, though the building's remaining health will not decrease.

A BLU Sentry Gun with a Snack Attack model on it, though no damage is being dealt.

• Invisible Player Models - This glitch occurs on the PC version occasionally when the player stops communicating with the server for too long. If affected, random players will have invisible player and weapon models, however weapon fire can still be seen. This usually happens to only a few random players with the rest of the players still being visible.
  • This glitch is most commonly found when the Alt+Tab shortcut is used while in full screen mode or to players with connection issues that experience high ping spikes.
  • The invisible player(s) affected may be 'seen' on a random place on the map. The player's model and weapons will not be visible, but one may be able to see their name, the Intelligence if one is being carried, or particles such as water particles surrounding him. However, the player will not move from the location, but the particles may move.
  • On PC, these bugs can be fixed by typing record demo; stop into the console.

A RED Scout in spawn with an invisible model, carrying the Intelligence.

• Invisible or Misplaced Props - This glitch occurs for similar reasons to the previous one, however it will affect random props instead of players.
  • Most commonly affects spawn gates, resupply cabinets, or other props that have a hidden toggle, such as the stairs next to Red's spawn on the first stage of Dustbowl.
    • Misplaced props will have some perceived physical interactions with the player, however nothing game breaking can occur, such as being able to walk on top of them.
  • Can also be fixed with record demo; stop in console.
  • A similar visual bug can occur when viewing props around corners using third person (such as with a taunt), however these props will still be visible after returning line of sight.

An invisible spawn gate for BLU on pl_thundermountain.

• Invisible Map - This glitch occurs when death spectating a player who is in an area of a map which would otherwise be culled from view. It especially happens when a far away teammate or enemy (relative to where you died) walks through a door, because map content is usually culled behind doors in order to save on space and allow for easier rendering.

A BLU Sniper walking through a door on pl_badwater where the area behind the door is invisible.

• Talking While Dead - If a player dies immediately before a taunt dialogue line begins, their character will still say the taunt and even lip-sync while dead. (Happens frequently when taunting with the Bat or Minigun)

• Taunt Loop - If a Sniper does the Huntsman Taunt to another Sniper equipped with the Huntsman, the enemy Sniper can counter with his own Arrow Taunt, even when stunned. It was previously possible to chain this infinitely until a third party intervened or one of the two decides to end it. The same thing could also happen with a pair of Engineers using the Gunslinger's taunt stun, or a pair of Medics using the Ubersaw. Example of this bug. (Partially fixed)

• Flame thrower bug - Some walls and spawn gates do not properly block flame throwers and will allow flames through at certain angles.
  • Some angles prevent the Flame Thrower from being fired, however this is bypassed if the player is standing inside a teammate.

• The Wrenchslinger - Occasionally, while a player has the Wrench equipped, it shows the Wrench being held by the Gunslinger. The method to do this is by equipping the Gunslinger, going to the resupply locker, changing to your Wrench, and going to the resupply locker once again.

• The Safety Glove Slinger - Similar to "The Wrenchslinger", sometimes the Engineer's hand will look like a regular safety glove even though he is equipped with the Gunslinger. This may occur if the player is currently having lag. For some users, using the in-game overlay and searching something or watching a video will cause them to lag. Whilst taunting with the Gunslinger, the player will appear to have a robotic hand. This glitch has also been observed when executing scripts and commands that change network settings.
  • This will always happen when using the command itemtest and testing the Gunslinger.

A BLU Engineer demonstrating the Safety Glove Slinger.

• Blinking Hats - Occasionally other player's hats will appear to "blink" from pure white to black in-game. The glitch stops upon re-joining or map change.

• Custom Model Glitch - Custom models for weapons and players can fail to appear, or appear in a Wireframe state, if the player enters a server with SV_Pure set to 1, instead of the default model loading. This error will continue to manifest until the player restarts TF2, even if they enter a server with SV_Pure set to 0. SV_Pure 2 servers do not cause this bug.

• Metallic Surface Glow Glitch - Sometimes at random times joining a server, things such as intelligence signs and hand rails begin to have their lighting break. This can also further extend to capture points and the stock Scatter Gun. When this glitch happens the surface of the object seems to glow with a glass like texture on them.

• Spy's Third Arm Glitch - When a player reloads his Revolver and quickly equips the Dead Ringer or any other form of cloaking device, a second left arm will be reloading the Revolver, while the first is holding the Dead Ringer. The glitch occurs when a player has their viewmodel_fov higher than 65. Another example is when the Spy is holding the Dead Ringer out with a weapon other than the default Sapper out, (say, the Knife) and switches to the Sapper. The Spy's left arm is holding the Dead Ringer, but a second left arm appears to turn on the Sapper. Also can happen when the player has equipped the Sharp Dresser and the Dead Ringer and the player has the viewmodel_fov higher than normal.

• Disguises dropping weapons with Dead Ringer - When a Spy, disguised as a a member of their own team, activates the Dead Ringer, the weapon the player was carrying at the time is dropped (I.E a Spy disguised as a friendly Soldier may drop a Rocket Launcher, Shotgun, or any of Soldier's possible weaponry) and other players may pick it up and use it as they would any other. This does not work for enemy disguises.

• Wrong team color on weapons and Cosmetic items - Certain weapons and cosmetics will randomly default to the RED color despite being on BLU team and vice versa.

A Scout on BLU team with a RED Poolside Polo.

• Wrong Team HUD - Occasionally being automatically balanced to the other team results in parts of the HUD being the wrong team color.[1]
  • This bug can be fixed by typing hud_reloadscheme into the console.

• Floating Critical Hits/Flame Effect - Sometimes the critical hit or flame effect will appear out of nowhere and float for some time during gameplay.

• Misplaced Laser Position - When guiding a Sentry Gun with a Wrangler, there may be moments where the laser beam will be misplaced but will still point to the target.

• Inability to lose on Mann Vs. Machine - It is possible that when the bomb detonates the game will continue without forcing a loss. The pit will appear exploded so when players from either team walk onto it they will die. This may only happen if there are only two to five players on the server.

• Infinite Reloading - If a player playing on the winning team is reloading their primary weapon when Humiliation ends, then when they respawn in the next round they will keep going through the reload animation until the player uses primary fire or switches weapons.

• Reloading while shooting - It is possible to reload while shooting if the current weapon's magazine is not empty.

• Infinite Market Gardener Crit - If a player rocket jumps just between 0 to 1 sec of the waiting for players countdown when the round starts the player's Market Gardener will crit until they die, rocket jump or hold the Rocket Launcher for too long.

• Wrong Health Hud - This bug occurs when using a custom hud, in which when a player dies, respawns with his health indicator stating he is at critical health. This can be fixed by typing hud_reloadscheme into the console.

• Cosmetics Floating - This bug occurs when there are lots of custom cosmetics and/or lag that can cause classes to appear "hatless" but still show they have cosmetics that will show if you view their items. Somewhere else their cosmetics will appear floating in a somewhat civilian pose order.

• Smoke coming from an invisible Spy - Sometimes, when a Spy is holding a Spycicle there can be "smoke" seen coming off of it, even though he is invisible.

The water in 2fort having missing textures.

• Vote-screen crash - If you open up the vote screen during the Killcam, as the camera is zooming into the person who killed you, the vote screen will remain as a static image on screen. This prevents the player from closing it and doing basically anything except moving side to side. Forcing the TF2 client to shutdown is the only fix.

• Kill Assist/Dominate Own Teammate - If a Medic heals an enemy Spy, and the Spy kills a player on the Medic's team, the Medic will get the kill assist. In the kill feed, the Medic's username will be the same color as that of the Spy's, despite the Medic not being on the Spy's team. The Medic can also dominate teammates by doing this.

• Missing Textures - Occasionally changing your graphics will make all transparent textures such as glass and water missing. This can be fixed by restarting the game.

• Spy's Reference pose glitch - When a Spy attempts to disguise as a class that uses a Shotgun as a secondary (Soldier, Pyro, Heavy), and there is no player currently playing that class on the selected team, holding the Sapper and pressing the last disguise button will cause the Spy to appear disguised and t-posing as that class.
  • After performing the glitch, enemy players will be able to see the Spy's active weapon being held by the disguised class.
    • The disguised model will also automatically switch slots whenever the Spy switches weapons, unlike normal gameplay where the last disguise button needs to be pressed first.

Glitches caused by lag compensation

• Sliding characters - Some characters will assume a default position (standing still) and slide instead of playing their running animation. This also frequently occurs as a result of pausing (with server cvar sv_pausable 1).

• Fire effects glitch - Sometimes due to latency issues/lag, a player will fire their weapon, release the primary fire key, and still have fire effects emitting from their weapon, although it has no effect.

• Mouse sliding - Occasionally, a user who was recently experiencing a lot of lag will find their movement keys no longer control their character, and the character is instead controlled by mouse movements. This is caused by the +mousemove command and can be resolved by entering -mousemove in console or by pressing a key bound to +mousemove (the Alt key by default).

Source engine glitches

• On occasion, using the Alt+Tab shortcut then returning to TF2 may cause a glitch which causes several problems such as; the prevention of the developer's console from opening (if it's not already open), no longer being able to use the "backspace" key to delete text, and the copy and paste shortcuts not working (right-clicking to copy and paste manually works).
  • The work around to this glitch is to press Alt again after returning, as after Alt+Tabbing, the game thinks you're still holding the key.
    • Another way to work around to this glitch is to use the Alt+Esc shortcut to minimize TF2 instead of the Alt+Tab shortcut.
  • Another glitch associated with Alt+Tab is the total loss of voice chat in-game on some systems, especially when playing in fullscreen. The only known remedy for this glitch is to quit the game itself and restart (and not Alt+Tab during gameplay).

Inventory glitches

Inventory glitches are glitches with the inventory system in the game. These usually result in items with abnormal traits, most frequently altered item qualities. These items are unique in that they are the product of short-term glitches that are usually fixed quickly, making them difficult to acquire without trading.

• Disappearing items - Some players have experienced at least one of their items totally disappearing from their backpacks, whether it be from crafting with no results or not receiving items they traded for, or other methods. Steam Support used to give back items upon request, although this is now denied with "no exceptions" in cases of hijacking since May 2016. However, in extraordinary exceptions such as items evidently disappearing from backpack, they may still rarely restore the item.

• Unable to craft - Occasionally, players have been unable to craft items or follow certain crafting blueprints in the menus (such as "Rebuild Headgear") with no apparent internet connection problems on either client or server sides, and thus unknown cause. Ability to craft tends to be randomly restored at a later time.

• Stretched item icons - Players with larger monitor sizes experience stretched item icons with certain weapons in both the backpack and deathcam (typically Decorated or Festivised weapons), causing a black bar to appear underneath the item icon, and the icon itself being stretched.

An item in the deathcam rendering as stretched with a black bar underneath it

• Normal Stranges - In the Gun Mettle Update, several changes to the item schema led to, for a short time, some unboxed Strange-quality items being labeled as Normal while still retaining their kill-counting abilities. These included Australium weapons found in Mann Up. These items are extremely rare, especially the Australium variants, leading to them being extremely expensive and hard to find.

• Normal Bats - Normal Bats are tradable variants of the stock Bat that retain their Normal quality, even after being renamed or described, and all have the item level 0. Additionally, their internal attributes state that they were received via in-game item drops. How they came to be is still exactly unknown.

• Steam Support Normals - Steam Support sometimes makes mistakes granting players their items back properly. Among these mistakes is incorrectly granting players Normal-quality items that should be of Unique quality. For example, a Normal Ellis' Cap and a Normal Mann Co. Supply Crate Key both exist due to Steam Support.

• Steam Support Vintages - Steam Support is also responsible for a wave of Vintage-quality items, most popularly Vintage Bill's Hats and Vintage Earbuds. This was due to players abusing Steam Support's tendency of restoring deleted items in the Vintage quality by deleting their own items and requesting their restoration; this subsequently led to Steam Support rarely granting items back and only doing so in the proper quality.

• Strange Uniques - Strange Unique items were created due to a bug after the Scream Fortress 2016 update, for a short time any item that should have been Strange quality ended up getting the Strange and Unique quality. These weapons maintain their kill-counting abilities but have the yellow Unique text instead of the orange text typically seen on Strange items.

• Painted Cow Mangler 5000 - For a very brief period of time, a glitch allowed for paint to be used on the Cow Mangler 5000 before being patched in the October 14, 2011 Patch. Very few of these Cow Mangler 5000s exist, making them extremely expensive and rare. Prior to the July 10, 2013 Patch, the Cow Mangler 5000's projectiles were also colored by the paint; a rework of the Cow Mangler 5000's particles fixed this issue.

See also

• Exploits