Post your Steam questions here!

[seireikhaan]

Well, it took a while, but rebooting did finally work. I'm a tad concerned however. Why would it bar me from playing like that?

[A Very Super Market]

I doubt it was anything special, just a program messing up.

[miniwally]

why does steam keep randomly signing me out or getting disconnected when i play on E:TW?

[miniwally]

Steam freezes when i press join game or spectate online everything grays out and no progress onto next screen help plz i want to go online :'(

[Polemists]

So I recently bought Dawn of War 2, installed it fine, was downloading steam, things were good. Went to restart steam, no get steam error and it won't connect to the network. Even in offline mode I get a connection error. Chances are high i'm going to have to uninstall steam, and reinstall empire completely along with DOW 2.

Moral of this story, steam is not a very friendly program when it has more then one game in it.

I am going to try to back up my empire files when I reinstall, but since I can't actually see where my saves are...seems slim I will manage to keep them....oh well.....

[RZST]

uhm, i have approx 10 games installed via steam.....nothing wrong with it.

if it was a network error did you check your uh, network settings? modem? internet line? ethernet?

[Polemists]

It's a steam network error. My internet is working just fine, surfs fine, works fine, does fine. I played Empire total war the past 2-3 days just fine. Installed DOW II, steam broke, it's that simple. Now I'm trying to figure out how to fix it.

The error is that it cannot connect to steam network, then if I put it offline I get same error.

When installing DOW2 the game installed just fine, activated just fine. Then it went into patching, got about 80% of way and all the problems started.

Havn't seen anyway to fix steam, and since there is no setup file it dosn't seem like you can easily reinstall it.

Further since steam handles all games, if one game causes a error that means you can't play any of your other games either.

Also since I can't find where it put DOWII's patch I can't delete that, if indeed that file is causing the problem.

I tried deleting Clientblob after the error hoping it would reupdate itself into a fix, no soultion. Now i'm going to try Appupdatedstats delete and let it reupdate and hope it works.

Steam updates fine, it just won't connect to the main steam hub for whatever reason.

As this may be more of a dow2 error then a steam error feel free to pm me if the devs decide this topic is irrelvant. Yet as it is a steam error i'm getting and not a application or internet error I think the problem has to do with steam somehow.

[A Very Super Market]

Ptolemists, don't do anything yet.

Go into program files
Go into steam
Go into steamapps
Take ETW out
Reinstall steam
Put ETW back in

Chances are, it didn't corrupt any files, just steam itself.

[Polemists]

Yes but that's my point, how do you reinstall steam? Other then deleting it and redownloading it?

It dosn't seem to have any setup file app I can see.

[A Very Super Market]

Well, thats the way you uninstall anything. Just the other things have their own programs.

[Polemists]

Funny nearly every other program I have I can go into add/remove programs, hit repair and it will fix.

Steam will not.


I miss the days when I could just you know, install a game and play it, those were nice

[pevergreen]

ETW discs have steam on them. The steam exe is like 1.7 mb.

[Polemists]

I did not know that.


So I went home, and completely reinstalled steam from scratch. Removed it and reinstalled it using the official steam file on the website.

Now it seems to jump when updating.

Sometimes it gets to 26 then restarts, 32 restarts, farthest I saw it get was 68 before it went back to 28 and started again. I'm not sure if it just keeps updating itself, or what, but it's annoying. I dont' really know what to do other then to reinstall it and try again until it stops doing to crazy mutli patch thing.

Soultions are welcome, but really I don't want to hear I love steam and steam works for me. I want soultions. This problem is vexing, consider me vexed.

[A Very Super Market]

Have you tried restarting steam? Apparently, that works.

Also, if it is simply updating, force it into offline mode until you have the patience to put up with program crazyness.

[Polemists]

I solved the issue by the following means after many trials and errors last evening. I'll list when i did, may not help anyone.


I completely uninstalled steam by using the uninstall program from the steam download install on the steam powered site.

I used Dawn of War's 2 CD to install steam, and then hook to games for windows first this time. I let steam update.

I had to restart steam once but after that it updated fine.

I installed Empire

I let empire update.


Both games seem to work now and problem solved, HUZZAH

So I think morale of this story is to use the steam on your cds and not the steam from steam's website.

[A Very Super Market]

Quite peculiar, your situation....

[Polemists]

Not at all, actually you read around there are quite a few problems with Dow 2 and ETW working together with steam.

The problem is in the Games for Windows Live .dll file. Which if you exit out of steam why updating for whatever reason will make steam think your registry is incorrect and require you reinstall it completely.

Some people even had to reformat things.

This seems to be do to fact it's first time to programs have to overwrite steam to tell it to launch with them. (Where as games like Half-Life 2 and Half-Life don't require steam to launch)

[BharatRakshak]

Question: I am yet to buy ETW. I was going to buy, but I have read some of the comments here about how the AI doesn't transport troops by sea, so I am holding back. I believe patches are being made to fix issues like this. What is the deal with patches? If I am connected online, will ETW automatically be able to update and download these patches from Steam? In that case I won't mind buying the game right now, but not otherwise.

[Wausser]

If you have automatic updates on in Steam, then the game will automatically update as soon as a new patch comes available.

[aimlesswanderer]

When I tried to install, it wanted to install Steam, I told it to piss off, and was surprised that the whole game install process stopped. I never thought that the developers would make us install an extra program just so we have the priviledge of playing the game which I bought. For multi yes, or as an option, but not compulsory! Why didn't they just stick with the old method? Now I have another program running, the save games are in some random place, and the game files are in the stupid steam folder.

I bought the bloody DVDs, maybe I should have waited a year or so till a decent version came out.

[pevergreen]

As before, this game is a steam game. It will be with steam. If you don't like it, I guess you made a mistake when you bought this game.

If it was not steam, then it would be secuROM. Would you like something with possible Ring 0 access on your computer? Something you can't delete? Something that uninstalling the game doesnt get rid of? If it doesnt like something you do, it can stop you from using your computer?

Steam is currently the best DRM out there. Be thankful.

[Tarquinius]

So I fear I've just screwed myself over:(. I had to re-install steam to get it working again, for it wouldn't start anymore, not even in offline mode. Yet whilst doing so I forgot to copy my empire files. Does this mean I've just lost all the progress I've made in my campaings, I'm not sure where the save files are stored but I seemed steam just took everything with it while de-installing.

[A Very Super Market]

GAH, why didn't you copy your ETW files?

Alright, anything inside the steam folder is gone. Luckily, your saves are not in there, so I think you'll at least have those

[Tarquinius]

Haha, slip of the mind I guess. Anyway, after re-installing Steam it was able to find my old game so it prevented me from having to start all over.

[mrfister169]

ok i am not good with computers or forums or figuring things out. can anyone tell me what disc 2 is for? i put it in and nothing happens. sorry for dumb question

[A Very Super Market]

There are too many files in ETW to put on one disc, so they made two.

Halfway through installation, it will ask you to put disc two in. Simple?

[Northnovas]

Okay I finally got the game delivered. I set up the new computer and added my Steam profile. It's nice and clean with no demo. I understand there was one patch released already. When I install the game and activate will the patch be downloaded automatically or do I have to look for it?
Any other tips for a proper install would be appreciated.

[A Very Super Market]

You install, then click launch.

Steam auto-updates, as long as you have internet, which you obviously do.

[Incongruous]

Ok, so I installed the latest patch, ETW is once again broken, I re-started my pc, steam now will not let me login because it cannot connect to its servers.

What should I take away from my two week experience with Empire? CA released ETW as a broken and unfinished product, Bopa now very sad...
Looks back at the days of STW and MTW, when CA made great games, not just good ones, begins to cry.

[Kulgan]

I can not start my TW game anymore as of today, thank you steam!

I really find it outragous I buy a game I have to start with some program and that program does nothing. And don't start me on starting a procedure where I have to do that and that to fix my game, I shouldn't be fixing someone else's mess

I might was well start burning my money this way, at least that gives me some heat out of the process