Weird Steam problems...

[OCybrManO]

First, everything is great.

I go to play a game up BumperCars.

Everything went as planned.

Then I go to play Natural Selection.

Everything went as planned.

I get out and try to play BumperCars again... Steam gives an error saying Steam is busy. Ok, no problem... just wait and try again.

Not true... I wait and try again... then it asks if I want to install Half-Life and says it will take up 0MB... I am confused but I click Install anyway.

Half-Life goes greyed-out and Dedicated Server disappears. 3rd party mods are still not working.

I figure I'll just exit Steam and see if restarting it fixes the problem.

Steam exits without needing to be forced... but now it won't start back up!

Now, you are caught up to where I am now... any advice?

 

[MrWhite]

Your computer must be possessed

EDIT: I really cant think of what it could be... this is the first time I've heard about this error... I think its just steam being bitchy in general

 

[Vino]

Check for any rampant hl.exe processes still running. Kill em, and it may work. If not, try the magical computer reboot.

 

[OCybrManO]

No extra copies were running.
I restarted.
I also reinstalled on top of the current installation with the steaminstall_cs.exe installer to make sure the half-life.gcf file wasn't corrupt.

Now Steam runs but says it can't connect to the Steam network.