Countering the d4

ive been playing for several months and ive recently been having difficulty countering the black 1).....d5 after white has played 1) e4 to the point where i usaully end up losing the game.  Can anybody out there suggest any good defensive/attacking measures that will give me a solid platform to build upon, ta.

You're losing to the Blackmar-Diemer, if I'm reading that correctly, and it's pretty irritating to play against over the board. I'm by no means an expert or ready to suggest a course of action, considering how complex it can be. Maybe when Conzipe or ozzie swings by this, they'll have something to say -- if GambitKing doesn't jump by to get his say first.

What do you play against 1. e4?

I think he's talking about the scandinavian, not the blackmar diemer

here's the typical defense of the scandinavian:

See? This goes to show my cognitive senses are awful upon just waking up and staring at a chess topic. But there is somebody around here who I know favors the 2...Nf6 Scandinavian and, if they choose to share their opinion, would be extremely useful, unlike myself.

trigs, there is no queenside attack from black.  Black has no space.  Until he nullifies white's space advantage, he can't attack anything.  Black will probably play c5 and equalize the pawn structure before attempting to attack something.

I've been experimenting with a couple of replies. both have proved unsatisfactory

As follows:

1 e4 d5

2 Nc3 d4

3 Nd5 Be6 or e7

As you can see my knight  is given the runnaround.

My second is a slight improvement on the 1st, isn't?

1 e4 d5

2 Qe2 e5

3Nf3 Nc6

4 exd5 Qxd5

5 nc3 Qd6

The above Scandinnavian looks pretty awsome and i shall endeavour to master, thanks.

guess you're not a scandinavian fan

no, I'm not, but that's not the point.  In any caro-slav pawn structure(caro kann 3. Nc3 dxe4, QGA, scandinavian, slav, open catalan, etc) black needs to equalize the pawn structure or trade into an endgame.  Black is defending until he can either turn white's central pawns into targets(by trading into an endgame or by isolating the white d pawn) or equalizing the pawn structure by breaking with c5 or e5.  Without that, white will have better placed pieces and his attack will inevitably be stronger than black's.

I personally play Scandinavian and from the illustration provided by @trigs, the best move for white would be advancing to nd5, which forces my queen back to d1 and gives me double f-pawns.