Steam Offline Mode glitch

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Q-BZ

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Sep 28, 2007
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I'm in Ohio and we lost power from that crazy storm. Thankfully we got off easy compared to a lot of other people and are very grateful for that so the following complaint I'm going to voice here is certainly a very minor quibble in the scheme of things vs people living in CO right now or all the people still without power and storm damage in this overall crazy heatwave the bulk of the USA in.

Just so everyone knows I have perspective here. :) I hope everyone around here is ok that may be in any trouble areas.


So here's the quibble and subject of the thread:

When our power was restored the Internet was not so I figured I'd go ahead and fire up a game on Steam in offline mode and be on my merry way.

Guess what? Didn't work. Strangely enough, my sister's did but that didn't do me any good.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2119850

Steam starts with a message that it's trying to update, using the old Steam GUI.

The cancel button on this update window does not work either. The window elements, on both the old GUI and the new GUI are horrible aligned as well by the way.

After it pops up with the can't connect window, I pick Offline Mode, and then it tells me it can't connect to Steam and just exits Steam.
Click to expand...


That's exactly what happened to me.

So the question is: How? Why? Is it something I could have avoided?

I can look around the Steam forums and see a number of complaints about this that go back at least two years.

At least I know I'm not alone but it sure made me pretty angry to have several thousand dollars worth of my games that I paid for unavailable to me simply because a feature that is supposed to to work...offline mode...simply didn't and there was nothing I can do about it.

Guess what kind of behavior that encourages even for people that normally might not consider going that way?
 
sadly, this is not uncommon Steam behaviour. You might be stuck till you get internet again. There's something wierd about it's updating that it chooses to do so just before you lose connection. If you travel with a laptop, always connect before you leave, update and close, then login "offline" before leaving home.
 
weebling1 said:
sadly, this is not uncommon Steam behaviour. You might be stuck till you get internet again. There's something wierd about it's updating that it chooses to do so just before you lose connection.
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Yup, I think you're right.


If you travel with a laptop, always connect before you leave, update and close, then login "offline" before leaving home.
Click to expand...

Several people are telling me it comes down to making sure that you exit Steam itself first before shutting computers down or anything like that.

I just tested that theory. I exited Steam, disabled my Internet, fired it back up and offline mode worked properly in that instance. I hope that's all that it takes. I'll make far more of a point of exiting Steam first before shutting the computer down.
 
I had the same problem a few days ago when my internet was out for over six hours. Offline mode refused to work. It's been an issue since day 1 of Steam and Valve doesn't seem to care to fix it.
 
Steams offline mode IS A PIECE OF SHIT! Never has it worked right for me when I most needed it. Sure it works great.. if you go online first then click to activate "Go into offline mode." but when your power suddenly goes out? God forbid you didn't attempt to go offline first because then your stuck with constant error messages asking you to go online. I live in South Florida and I go through the same shit every year.
 
Q-BZ said:
Several people are telling me it comes down to making sure that you exit Steam itself first before shutting computers down or anything like that.

I just tested that theory. I exited Steam, disabled my Internet, fired it back up and offline mode worked properly in that instance. I hope that's all that it takes. I'll make far more of a point of exiting Steam first before shutting the computer down.
Click to expand...

This has been my experience. It stinks, but works.
 
Whoa whoa whoa slow your roll, Steam is absolutely, hands down, the most infallible piece of software ever written. It was put out by the Buddy Christ of gaming himself ffs. I sincerely hope you're flogged repeatedly for this travesty and for being a heretic. It is your fault for not being omniscient.

Anyways, just create or edit your steam.cfg (where the executable is) to include

Code: 
BootStrapperInhibitAll=enable
ForceOfflineMode=enable

Should work as long as you have Steam set to remember your password.
 
I've been lucky enough not to have the problem. I can see how I would get reminded that Steam at it's core is DRM.

But I'm curious to know if anyone knows how to make that popup go away.
 
boredreflux said:
Anyways, just create or edit your steam.cfg (where the executable is) to include

BootStrapperInhibitAll=enable
ForceOfflineMode=enable

Should work as long as you have Steam set to remember your password.
Click to expand...

Nice!
 
Last edited:
Parmenides said:
I've been lucky enough not to have the problem. I can see how I would get reminded that Steam at it's core is DRM.

But I'm curious to know if anyone knows how to make that popup go away.
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If you're talking about the check out these shitty games popup view > settings > interface > uncheck notify me towards the bottom. If not I have no clue, I barely even use Steam.
 
boredreflux said:
If you're talking about the check out these shitty games popup view > settings > interface > uncheck notify me towards the bottom. If not I have no clue, I barely even use Steam.
Click to expand...

You're 2/2 for the hook ups in this thread. :)
 
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