Cannot connect to steam network

[jabber1052]

Alright, well this problem is all over the forums and no where has anyone gotten an answer that made it work for them, so I'm thinking that there is some common hardware configuration that all of these people have (including myself) that give us the common error "could not connect to steam network. the steam network might be down or there might be a problem with your internet connection," or something like that. I've done all of the usual things, from portforwarding through all of my firewalls, disabling windows firewall, connecting directly to the modem, bypassing the router, deleting the client registry Blob, uninstalling and reinstalling steam, deleting all traces of steam and valve programs and registry traces of any of this software and reinstalling it all, running it in safemode (and it wouldn't work there either), etc. I ran steam on another computer in my house and it worked fine there, however. What's strange is that when I start steam, it asks for the username and password, so I put those in, and then it says "connecting to [my account]," but there is no yellow status bar on this little window showing its progress and it eventually comes up with that error message after about a minute or so. Also, I've noticed that the common steam://support/?Issues=* thing does not work for me. If I put it into firefox or internet explorer or the run dialog box and run it, it opens steam, and asks for the username and password and tries to log in as usual, saying the "connecting to [my account]" but then that error message from before comes up again. Can someone please help me with this problem? I've tried shutting down all software not needed in the taskmanager and running steam, and yet it still doesn't work. I'm convinced something in my hardware settings is screwing me over.

OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Manufacturer ASUSTeK Computer INC.
System Model A7N8X2.0
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 10 Stepping 0 AuthenticAMD ~1829 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date Phoenix Technologies, LTD ASUS A7N8X2.0 Deluxe ACPI BIOS Rev 1003, 3/19/2003
SMBIOS Version 2.2
Windows Directory F:\WINDOWS
System Directory F:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158)"
Total Physical Memory 1,024.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 612.20 MB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 1.65 GB
Page File F:\pagefile.sys

I've been trying to look for problem devices on my computer, but device manager and the "system information" thing don't show any problems. I'm thinking that the problem may have something to do with having two hard drives, but that doesn't make any sense to me. My main hard drive is f.

 

[jabber1052]

bump bump

 

[jabber1052]

any ideas, anybody?

 

[Barney Fife]

Right-click My Computer, Properties, Advanced, In the setting click Performance, and then click Data Execution Prevention and click Add and add Steam there. Press OK and then OK.
Press Star, Control Panel, Windows Firewall, Exceptions. Look for Steam there and marked, if not, press Add Program, Look for Steam Icon and add steam to your exception list.
Also open up your second party Firewall configuration dialog and make sure Steam has full access and not only outbound access.
Also set your router accordingly and make sure steam has full access through your router by manually adding Steam to your router exception list specially if you access Internet by way of Wireless.

Good Luck.

 

[jabber1052]

Also, I noticed in my Steam LOG file, several messages that say:
ReconnectThread(1072) Starting
CreateSession(myaccountname,7,32)=0 attempt 1
did not find an existing connection, attempting new connection, 0, 69.28.***.***:***** for 0:1:1784263
Attempting new connection
connected
Recv Worker (1140) Starting
Adding session 0
Removing session 0
Disconnect(0)
Recv Worker(1140) Told to exit
disconnected
attempt 1 failed: server rejected login
attempt 2
Did not find an existing connection, attempting new connection 1, 69.25.**.**:***** for 0:1:1784263
attempting new connection
connected
adding session 0
removing session 0
disconnect(1)
Recv Worker(1140) Told to exit
disconnected
attempt 2 failed: server rejected session login
...all the way through attempt 3 just like those above, which fails with the same message: server rejected session login

I think I notice two problems in this log file: did not find an existing connection, attempting new connection; and attempt 1 (or 2, 3) failed: server rejected session login.

Could these be why I cannot connect to the Steam network? How can I resolve these problems?


Edit: One more symptom I noticed: when I first install Steam, when it goes to update, it updates to about 26% or so and then stops, closes the box that shows the updating, and then a new update box appears and starts at 0% again and finishes the updating.

 

[jabber1052]

Bumpity bump. Maybe a moderator can sticky this because a lot of people have this problem and there is yet to be a solution.

 

[jabber1052]

come on, people, there's gotta be a solution

 

[3vil]

I see or I think you have a ASUS motherboard.

If you have the Nvidia Network Manager disable the firewall and active armour. otherwise just remove it that will resolve the problem if you have the Nvidia Network Manager. Although im not sure because this problem only seems to occur to happen to people like me with the A8N boards. Im not sure if the Nvdia Network Manager comes with any other boards, maybe did with yours, just go to add/remove progs and uninstall it if you do. It seems the prog is very buggy.

Also, if you have problem download achive files, exe files etc this could also be down to the same problem.

Id say it'll be your motherboard, if that above failes try getting hold of a PCI Network card and see if you have any look using that instead of the onboard.

Possibly useful links...

http://www.anetforums.com/posts.aspx?ThreadIndex=32700
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=4926379#post4926379

Sorry if non of this infomation relates to you, but alot of ppl have this problem and dont relise its their ASUS mobo!

 

[jabber1052]

Unfortunately, I don't have an A8N Asus motherboard, I have an a7n8x deluxe, which does not have the nvidia network manager. I actually wish it did so that I would know how to fix it. But thanks a lot, good idea!

 

[3vil]

oo well, sorry man i dont know what to suggest then

good luck!

 

[jabber1052]

Bump. Problem still hasn't been fixed yet...