Stuck in Steam limbo after reinstall

[El_Mohandess]

I had to uninstall and reinstall HL2/Steam on my laptop. Now I have my laptop at work connected to the internet via the LAN but every time I try to start Steam I get the following message:

"Steam – Error

Unable to connect to the Steam network. ‘Offline
mode’ is unavailable because there is no Steam
login information stored on this computer.

You will not be able to use Steam until you can
connect to the Steam network again.
To check the status of the Steam network please visit
http://steampowered.com/status"

Now I don't know why Steam is trying to start in offline mode unless there is a setting left over from the previous install that is telling it to start that way. I need to start in online mode so that the flies can be decrypted and the reinstallation completed.

Why is it looking for login information when this is a new install? Is there a setting somewhere that I can change to get Steam running in online mode or something I should delete? I've unistalled and re-installed several times with no improvement.

I do have it running ok in offline mode on my desktop but it looks so much better on my Alienware laptop that I just have to get it working again.

 

[_-_-SELAS-_-_]

umm sounds like a problem with you internet settings, you might need to set it up to bypass a proxy or something, otherwise just bring it to a friend who has dsl and loan it for a little while

 

[^Ben]

Firewall or proxy setting is usually the cause of this.

 

[El_Mohandess]

Thanks both. I'm working in Kenya right now and nobody I know has anything better than very slow dial-up. I have a four-day Easter weekend starting tomorrow so I'm going to do my best to crack this problem then.

 

[Tenspeed]

Wow, that's the same problem i had.. I didn't have any firewalls running, but i usually use Zone Alarm. It wasn't running so i started it, and then retried Steam. and then ZA asked its usual. "wanna let it through" bit. and then it worked, and updated the Steam Platform files, and now i'm logged on and re-decrypting the files as I type.

 

[El_Mohandess]

My problems started at home when I allowed Steam to go online while I was on my very slow dial-up connection. It downloaded updates for Steam and HL2 and the dialog box for the latter download told me the game was ready for play. It worked find online but the properties for HL2 (in the Steam games list) indicated that only 99% had downloaded and it was not ready for offline.

That is why I took my laptop into work so that I could reinstall using the high speed connection there when I unistalled and reistalled. That is when this latest problem started.

Eventually gave up and installed again at home, spent over three hours online and again although the download dialog said the game was ready to play it still showed 99% in the properties and would only play online.

In desperation I started to install and update CS:S and amazingly the properties of HL2 went to 100% and offline mode was finally available.

I have learned my lesson now and will not connect Steam online again until I have played the game all the way through.

From everything I have read online in various forums different people have had some very different experiances with Steam. I am going to think very seriously about buying any other games that use this system. I hate to think how much it has cost me in dial-up charges. The decryption should not require you to be online for the whole process - it should just download an authorization and then let you compete the rest offline. Updating the game should be optional. The end user needs more control - we don't all have high speed connections yet.

OK - as I get down from my soapbox I'd like to thank those who took the time to reply.

 

[Homie]

Forward ports or anything?

 

[Dumb Dude]

Try deleting the "clientregistry.blob" file from the Steam folder. This has happened to me once and that fixed the problem.

 

[Yucatan King]

damn i have a similar problem, i recently installed a firewall, so it stopped, so i got rid of it and went offline mode and reinstalled, it deleted my login info, so i can't connect to steam what do i do

 

[MorganFreeman911]

God DAMN man, a 5 year bump?! How you do people FIND this stuff?