Bugs

Bugs (or Glitches, as they are sometimes known) are an unwanted result of a coding or programming error in a video game. There used to be many bugs in Left 4 Dead that were used to gain achievements or an advantage in Versus, or used just for fun. Bugs are normally fixed by a patch downloaded from the developers, so normally a very well-known bug won't exist for long. This page is meant to provide a comprehensive list of currently and previously known bugs for both Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2.

Left 4 Dead
1) Death Toll -, 2) No Mercy - , 3) Dead Air - , 4) Blood Harvest - <--- This is by far the hardest of all 4 campaigns to complete
 * In the first chapter of No Mercy, when playing as the Infected in Versus Mode, there is a military vehicle protruding through the wall of the apartments on the bottom floor. If you go within a few feet of the vehicle, you die instantly for no apparent reason and tanks will constantly take 400 damage.This also applies for survivors. The vehicle is commonly referred to by players as "The Killer Jeep," although the vehicle is technically a Humvee.
 * If a Survivor is standing next to an object that cannot be moved, and a Tank punches them into the object, the Survivor will get stuck. The Survivors will not be able to use any guns, or items while stuck. The only actions possible are spinning in circles and turning your flashlight on and off. It is possible to be freed by being pounced by a Hunter or getting incapacitated. (You will teleport back to the other survivors after a set amount of time.)
 * Near the end of The Sewer, the AI will sometime get stuck next to the manhole, and be unable to move away from it.
 * On occasion if you touch an object previously punched by a Tank, you may be killed. (May be due to the fact the object is moving slightly. Even if they're moving noticeably slow, objects can still incap survivors.)
 * "Crouch Running" - It is possible to crouch and go running speed as both Infected or Survivor.
 * A strange turret glitch with the new campaign Crash Course. This occurs when you stand on top of the machine gun turret and operate it. This bug is commonly referred to by players as "Doing the Monkey".
 * In the Crash Course DLC (possibly other campaigns, untested), in Versus mode; Special Infected can be killed by shooting where they are standing (during spawn period) before they have spawned.
 * In the Xbox 360 game (possibly PC version as well) it is possible to start a Versus mode game against a team entirely composed of computers. This is caused when t woor more people are playing and one of them joins the Infected team and the other is a Survivor, although the Survivor cannot be the host. If the Survivor goes to the menu to change characters, the host can restart the server with the Survivor on the Infected team. This is actually still possible and serves as a great way to practice your Infected tactics such as hiding spots and Hunter wall jumps. You will only be able to spawn at the beginning of a campaign (No Mercy's "The Apartments" for example), as the AI do not open Safe Room doors, most likely to avoid irritating players. UPDATE: If you wait long enough, the doors will open by themselves and be unable to close. possible due to problems with survivor teams not opening the door, and then leaving, causing infected players to be stuck in spawn mode (this has been tested on PC and Xbox 360)
 * If a player is healing someone and the person being healed is constricted by a Smoker and pulled away, a glitch will allow the person to be healed while dragged.
 * If a Witch is on the other side of a door and a player opens it, she will not be startled but instead act as if she has killed a Survivor and run off.
 * If you start to reload and then pause your game, the reload will still continue. However, when you resume the game, you will have to reload again. This works best on an auto shotgun. If you use all of the shells, pause and then reload the game at the eighth shell. It will reload the other two. Resuming the game will cause it to reload all 10 shells. However, it will still say eight shells until the ninth and 10th are entered into the gun. This glitch is only effective on the PC version.
 * On Xbox 360, you can make expert campaigns easier using the safe room exploitation. First, play through any campaign on easy until you reach the safe room before the finale. After the finale is loaded, do not exit the safe room. Call a vote to return to the lobby. Once back in the lobby, change the difficulty to expert and change the level to the finale. Once you have done this, load the game. You should start in the same safe room before you called the vote to return to the lobby. All your progress for the campaign has been instantly changed so it counts towards expert completion. However, you must complete the finale level on expert which can be very difficult. It is recommended to use campaign-specific finale exploits/methods to make the finale easier. Recommendations are listed below in order of increasing difficulty:
 * Rarely in Campaign mode if your team loses while you are incapped, you might come back with the screen slanted, as if you were still incapped. This remains until the round ends, even getting incapped will not help, this just makes the slant twice as bad.
 * If you startle the Witch just as a Smoker constricts you, instead of killing you, the Witch will get rid of the Smoker's tongue. It will not work on the 360.
 * In the campaign mode for Dead Air during the Finale, it is possible to get on top of the airplane. If a luggage cart is positioned near the left wing of the aircraft, and there are at least three propane tanks, it is possible for a survivor to pile the three propane tanks under the cart, explode them, flip the cart over near the edge of the wing, and jump atop of the wing. Being on top of the plane gives 100% protection from Tanks, Boomers, and the Horde. Smokers can still pull survivors off, and Hunters can pounce them. The rear of the plane has no planning and any survivors that walk on it will fall through the aircraft, so survivors must stay on the wings on the center of the aircraft. This has been removed for versus play as no luggage carts spawn near enough to the plane for a survivor to flip on near the wing.
 * Known only to work with Hunting Rifle, other weapons untested. It is possible to get a headshot by meleeing with your weapon, though rare.
 * There is an odd glitch that sometimes occurs when Bill is shot by Francis. He will scold Francis almost instantly instead of a second after being shot. This has caused some strange yet humorous situations where he can scold Francis while falling to the ground incapacitated or when he is killed by Francis (his mouth won't move since he's already dead).
 * It turns out that the glitch is in Francis instead of Bill. When the glitch occurs, one can see (as a different Survivor or in third-person view) that Francis' head and mouth move, which is in sync with Bill's words. When shooting Bill from a distance, the Francis player can hear Bill's scolding clearly, as if Francis was speaking with Bill's voice. Francis also displayed Bill's unique facial animation. Using one of Francis's voice commands while shooting Bill will cause the friendly fire quotes to play properly.
 * An easy way to see this is by selecting Francis, aiming at Bill, then switching into third-person shoulder mode and setting "cam_idealyaw" to something around 100 to 150.

Left 4 Dead 2

 * If you deploy an ammo pack before you end a Chapter in a safe room or anywhere you can revisit, you can actually get two lots out of it as long as it is still there, so three people can take from it, but it must still be there. This can be useful on finales with the safe room close to the actual Crescendo Event in case you need some extra firepower.
 * Many players have reported unexpected crashing as a result of loading or connecting to a server in spite of the most recent Left 4 Dead 2 patch fix. This may include an abrupt exit to the desktop without showing an error message, or errors such as a C++ runtime library error. A fix has not yet been released, but it is suspected to be due to inefficiencies within the Source engine or older versions of Vista (prior to the Service Packs 1 and 2), and not due to hardware limitations.
 * Chargers might occasionally ram players into bushes or other obstacles, causing them to get stuck indefinitely until they are killed. This may even happen on solid ground.
 * In Versus mode, if another player charges past you as the Charger when you are not spawned yet, you will stumble as if you were spawned at the time.
 * If a Survivor dies while in an elevator, such as the one in the first chapter of Dead Center, the elevator will descend but the survivor will not. If the elevator starts moving and the survivor is revived while ascending, the survivor may respawn on top of the elevator. However, the game will quickly take notice, and will spawn you with your team shortly.
 * It is possible for four to five of the same Special Infected to spawn at the same time in Campaign mode. This is currently unconfirmed for the Tank and Witch.
 * Rarely in The Concert, the final horde and a Tank will spawn as soon as you start the tape, and the rescue helicopter will instantly spawn at one of the two stationary points for pick-up. This has also been reported to happen during The Plantation finale, where the gate will be broken down as soon as you call for rescue from Virgil. It also happens during the Atrium Finale where the final horde and endless Tanks show up once you exit the elevator. Even if you gather all 13 gas cans and gather the survivors by the car, you can't complete the finale, and this bug will recur if all the survivors are killed, forcing you to return to the lobby and restart the campaign.
 * If you are rammed by a Charger into a temporarily unmovable object (e.g. a Survivor who is healing) the Charger will stall for a second, then run backwards, still carrying you, until a medium distance away from the group of Survivors. It will then pummel you normally.
 * If during the Atrium Finale, once the car is full if the Survivors fail to escape and at least one Survivor is incapped on the podium with the car, the game will show the beginning of the escape scene while playing the death music, the scene will stop once it reaches the slow motion part. After a short while the game will reload the Safe Room except the game will still be in slow motion.
 * If you create your own server in the Atrium Finale in Dead Center and skip the elevator by noclipping, it is possible to start the Finale by pressing the use key on the Information stand near the car, though the Finale has been started, it will behave strangely. Sometimes when you get all the cans into the car, you will not be able to complete the level. Other times, it will behave as normal. (Confirmed on PC and XBOX using a different method). It is also possible to do this on the Xbox by starting the elevator when someone is incapped outside of the elevator.
 * It is possible to get past the downed airplane in Swamp Fever without ever triggering the alarm. If you walk the length of the plane to the back rows of seats there is a large gash on the right side. On the far side of the gash, crouch and walk towards the hull you will be partially outside the plane. If you stay crouched and jump you will reach the roof of the plane and from there able to jump down without the crescendo event starting. This can be difficult to accomplish.
 * During the Bus Depot level of The Parish while playing Survival mode, it is possible to get on top of one of the buildings to avoid Common Infected. When you start the event and turn around to go to the fence adjacent to the starting point, there is a corner with trash bags and three pipes on the wall. Continuously jump in the corner until you are on the object. Shimmy over and jump on to one of the pipes, then the next, the next, and then to the roof.
 * The Charger does a tiny bit of damage to anyone who is near the Charger while it is charging. It is possible to be incapacitated by this, and a couple of strange things can happen:
 * You will be thrown away normally, but you will "bump" up and down while doing so.
 * You will get up, but when the animation finishes, you will be instantly incapacitated.
 * A very rare glitch may occur when a firearm appears in a fixed position between the feet of the Survivor. This may happen when a Survivor was wielding a melee weapon. The firearm cannot be picked up. (confirmed on PC)
 * Occasionally, items in a metal storage truck can be pushed through the bottom of the truck by a Jockey crouching on the item. Also, just melee attacking it as any other infected can cause an item to move and sometimes teleport short distances away. Accomplished with the Oxygen tank and the Defibrillator. (unconfirmed on 360)
 * On the PC, while in a local server, switching to third-person shoulder can cause your melee weapon to become invisible. The weapon can still be used properly, although you do suffer from character model issues. E.G. your arm goes the wrong direction and inside your body when you pick up a weapon.
 * There is a very strange glitch where, if you get hit by a Tank while changing from your melee weapon to your gun, you will be stuck with your melee weapon until hit by a tank again. (Unconfirmed)
 * If someone else on the other team votes on kicking a player, you will be able to see a vote passed and failed window. This is unpredictable, and will show random things in the window. (Such as "Vote passed! Kicking player - Unnamed, then changes to the actual name of the player on the other team.)
 * On the 360, if you are being pummeled by the Charger whilst you have a Hunting Rifle equipped, if you click in the right stick, you will be able to view through the scope of your rifle in the direction which the camera is facing. This has been confirmed and will work on PC.
 * In survival mode, if you get a Grenade Launcher and have another person jump on a ledge above you, you may shoot them with a grenade and they will fly about 50-100 feet to an inaccessible area, earning you an easy gold medal. (Confirmed on 360 and PC)
 * Similar to the first game, there is a safe room exploitation in Left 4 Dead 2 that allows you to complete expert/realism campaigns easily on Xbox 360. This exploit requires human players because there is a lot of team coordination and timing involved. Unlike L4D1, not everyone receives expert or realism credit for completing the campaign using this exploit. Each member of the team will need to be assigned one of two roles before starting the campaign: Sleepers and Glitchers. Sleepers will be receiving the credit for expert/realism completion. Glitchers actually perform the glitch but will not receive credit. The best scenario is to have 2 sleepers and 2 glitchers and then trade roles. Before starting the campaign, make sure the game is set to private and have everyone in party chat. Like L4D1, play through any campaign on easy until you reach the safe room before the finale. Once the finale safe room loads, do not leave the safe room. Sleepers quit out of the game and return to the main menu leaving the glitchers and bots in the safe room. Before leaving the safe room, one of the glitchers needs to send game invites to all the sleepers. Sleepers need to open the invite, and highlight "accept invite" but do not accept the invite yet. Glitchers can now exit the safe room and play through the finale on easy. Right before the rescue vehicle arrives (after the second tank), a glitcher needs to call a vote and change the difficulty to expert. The moment the vote passes, sleepers need to hit accept invite and enter the game. Once in the game, sleepers need to immediately get to the rescue vehicle. If done correctly, any sleeper who makes it to the rescue vehicle receives credit for completing the campaign on expert (and realism, if enabled). NOTE: This glitch is listed here because by definition, it is a glitch. Once you have unlocked any achievements, they can't be undone. This exploit in not recommended if you do not wish to be deprived the experience of receiving "THE REAL DEAL" and "STILL SOMETHING TO PROVE" legitimately.
 * While playing versus and/or scavenger on The Passing: The Port, it has been observed that being vomited on by a boomer does not always spawn a horde. Typically being "boomed on" spawns additional infected at the nearest spawn site, the sole reason why a boomer is combat effective. In some cases it has been observed to attract no additional infected at all, rendering the boomer useless. This is not known to be observed on any other level.
 * Any player who downloaded The Passing or is playing with a player who downloaded The Passing, during any finale survivors may yell out either something to do with the bridge or Jimmy Gibbs Jr.'s car, regardless of the rescue vehicle. Although the survivors can yell out the correct rescue vehicle, most of the time, they do not. This has been fixed on the PC. (tested on both Xbox and PC)
 * Rarely in Hard Rain, you can spawn as a Tank under the cane field. Unfortunately, you cannot attack the survivors, because you will be too far down. (Not tested on other campaigns or PC)
 * During the final chapter of Hard Rain, standing on one of the tables in the Burger Tank will make the said survivor invisible; both common and special infected (including Tanks) will almost always ignore anyone on the table.
 * If you have full captions turned on when interacting with weapons while holding a chainsaw, it will show the [Chainsaw starts] caption, even though you're not switching to your chainsaw.
 * A silenced pistol glitch can be done while incapacitated. If you are down hold the shove button, and fire off your pistol, this will cause the pistols not to make any noise whatsoever
 * You can get up onto the track of the Screaming Oaks rollercoaster in the Dark Carnival without turning it on by jumping and walking on the various diagonal and horizontal planks that support the tracks. Have not tested to see if you'll be safe from common and special infected. HOWEVER, you cannot go all the way since there is an invisible barrier above the coaster gate, so you still have to have someone flip the switch. Also, you risk falling to your death if you're not careful. UPDATE: You can make it to the safe room without starting the coaster. The trick is to take advantage of the horizontal and diagonal planks to 'climb' up to the tracks. First, find one of the diagonal planks in the center of the main support structure. It'll be on the right side if your back is to the activation switch. Walk up the diagonal plank, jump onto the horizontal plank on top of it and carefully make your way across that plank. Next, you need to try jump onto one of the diagonal planks that faces the space the coaster circles around. This part can be quite hard, but just try to aim your jump a little bit above that diagonal plank. Once you get onto that diagonal plank, you can walk up and jump on the next horizontal and diagonal planks and slowly make your way up towards the track. You might have trouble jumping up onto the flat part of the track. It's easier to try jump onto the ramp part of the track (the very first ramp when you go up when you open the gate). You might have to go across one horizontal plank and then jump onto the next horizontal plank to your right in order to be able to jump onto the ramp part of the track since the horizontal plank right below the flat part of the track can't be jumped onto from the diagonal plank below it. Be careful when you make that jump and try to keep close to the support planks.
 * In Hard Rain, when playing with bots in Milltown, they will grab the tier 2 weapons in the Safe Room of Return To Town (right after the small trailer that you cannot get back over). They walk up to the wall and grab the weapon right through the wall, and they can also grab pain pills and adrenaline shots. You cannot do this as a human player.
 * You can damage yourself by hitting the green trashcans (like the ones right outside the saferoom in the 3rd stage of The Passing) with a melee weapon. For some reason, when the trashcan touches you when it goes flying when you hit it, it'll hurt. It'll only do 1 damage, though. Not sure if you can hurt others by hitting them with the trashcan.
 * You can freeze the game during suvival mode in The Parish's finale the Bridge. Begin by placing a propane tank at the off ramp and use the 'Skywalk' glitch to pass the fence and arrive on the bridge. Once on the bridge, you can run all the way to the end, where the bridge's gate isn't lowered. When you walk right up to it, the game will freeze, making you have to restart.UPDATE: 'Skywalking' is patched.
 * Another glitch in the same area, if you use the Skywalk glitch to get around the fence, Walking up to it will make the Rescue Vehicle message pop up and the sounds of the helicopter starting up will occur, but the propeller won't start spinning.
 * You can play on a hidden Survival level by going to the Motel on Survival, getting a grenade launcher and blasting somebody over the invisible wall by the fence. Then, they heal using a kit and/or pills. If they land on the concrete and not the grass, they will be alive with a little bit of health. They can then go through the level and to the saferoom. They can also start the game by shooting the car outside of the saferoom. Once everybody else has died, they will continue through the campaign, until they get to the part before the roller coaster and restart the round, they will appear in the coaster area, as the fence is blocked off. The coaster is completely supplied and set up like a survival map.
 * There is a glitch where if you empty the whole clip on any weapon and then swap it for a Sniper/Hunting Rifle and zoom in to the weapon you emptied the clip on and pick it up, it will switch you to your pistol/magnum and still be zoomed in. (Tested on Xbox 360.)
 * If a door closes on an Assault Rifle while it's in midair after being dropped by a survivor, the Assault Rifle will cause the door to shut halfway and standing in the corner where the gun is will cause the survivor to rotate clockwise until they step away from the door. (This has not been tried with any other gun.)
 * On The Sacrifice and No Mercy for Left 4 Dead 2, the original survivors use the falling/death screams for the sequel survivors. This creates some humorous situations where you can be playing as Francis, and hear Rochelle! (Untested on PC)
 * In Versus or Realism Versus, if the Survivors are incapacitated in the safe room, the score will calculate twice. Once because all four Survivors are downed, and again because they reached the safe room. Though the Survivors do not receive the 25 point survival bonus, their score is effectively doubled.
 * Car alarms will not go off if shot with Incendiary Ammunition, even if the car is shot at point blank range. This allows players to be less careful around car alarms if they have fire bullets loaded.
 * The Taannkk!! Mutation has numerous bugs and issues, most notably that Tanks can spawn outside of the map, and are unable to attack the survivors or respawn unless killed by another Tank. This seems to occur most frequently in No Mercy. In addition, it's quite common for Tanks to spawn far behind survivors, and be unable to catch up to them.

Fixed bugs
The following is a list of bugs that have been mentioned as being in the game, but need confirmation as to whether or not they are still in the game as of the most recent patch. These can be discussed on the talk page.
 * Cr0wning a witch (even without incendiary ammo) can occasionally render her invulnerable (extremely rare). Fixed on 12/1 update. (PC)
 * Power Shot: you are able to fire the entire magazine of an Assault Rifle or Submachine Gun in one second. Fixed on 9/22 update.
 * "Molotov replication" - A molotov glitch involving a gas can. This can give you infinite Molotov's and can be very useful in a Crescendo Event or a finale. Fixed on 9/22 update.-Appears to be usable on Xbox360.
 * Sometimes a Common Infected can be glitched and will become invincible which means it cannot be killed and it will continue to attack you. To get rid of the glitched Infected, trap it inside a place and close the door so it can't get out. Melee attacks are useful at this.
 * After the battle with the horde at the elevator in The Hospital level, if a Survivor managed to become incapacitated inside the elevator for any reason and was revived once the elevator had been activated, they were left behind. The elevator would rise but they would not. They would also have been unable to leave the elevator shaft, and have been easy prey to any other Infected.
 * Also in The Hospital's elevator, if you jumped enough you could fall through the elevator to your death. This has been prevented by not letting you jump at all.
 * Throwing a propane tank, a gas can or an oxygen tank at anyone while in the elevator in The Hospital would cause them to fall through the floor, often falling to their death.
 * If you throw a propane tank at a Witch and shoot it, the Witch will disappear but you can still hear her crying.
 * Switching weapons while using your melee attack would allow you to attack faster than normal.
 * Hitting the minigun repeatedly with your melee attack and jumping onto the minigun would launch the player a certain distance, depending on the number of times you hit it. By using this glitch, it was possible to skip decent sized chunks of many maps, including the forklift crescendo in Death Toll and the door in No Mercy, as well as get to out-of-reach places.
 * "Grenade Spamming" - If you tossed either a Pipe bomb or a Molotov, then immediately picked up another, you could continuously spawn new grenades. This was very useful against hordes.
 * "Ghost Scratching" - You're able to claw a Survivor while still selecting a spawn point in the game, and they cannot defend against it at all. (Now you spawn near the Survivors, not on them.) Fixed on 9/22 update.
 * In Left 4 Dead 2, there is a way to have more than four Survivors. You must first have a defibrillator and dead Survivor. Go to a rescue closet, and the second you open the door to the closet, start to revive the dead Survivor. You will bring back two at the same time. This can be repeated as long as you have defibrillators.(Now when you save the Survivor in the closet, their corpse disappears.)
 * In Left 4 Dead 2, after being in the close vicinity of an explosion, rapidly changing weapons would cause the player to stumble backwards until the player collided with a wall or if weapon cycling ceased (allowing entry to normally unreachable areas).
 * M60 Replication - On any survival map of The Passing, there was a way to refill the M60's ammo. If you picked up a weapon close to the spawn point of the M60, it would go back to its spawn position. Upon being picked again, the M60 would be refilled with 150 bullets, regardless of how much you used. This was patched for the PC on the 06/09/10 update, and then on the Xbox 360 with the 07/02/10 update.