Not allowed to play offline

[markjudith]

Is this some kind of bug I wonder?
Played Railworks, shut down pc, restarted 30 mins later, tried to start RW got this message;

Unable to connect to 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.

Hmmm, if no login info is stored on my pc, how was I able to play it 30 min's ago?

Mark

[AndyM77]

You need to make sure that you first choose "offline" mode whilst your connected...

So open Steam, connect and then goto "File", choose Go "Offline", confirm and then Steam will ask you to restart Steam in 'Offline Mode' - Steam will restart and you'll be surprise, surprise in "Offline" mode.

You only have to do this once, subsequent times you won't have to do this procedure.

Edit: There was no need to shout BTW

PS - The Steam FAQ should cover this

[markjudith]

That was the strange thing though, I was already in offline mode when I last played it and had been for some time before. I couldn't connect to steam as I didn't have internet access on that machine ( bad line/connection) at the time so couldn't access steam when connected to implement the changes, so couldn't use RW. BTW I had and always have my password remembered in steam as I only go online to update one every few weeks or so, as I said previous I had played the game some 30 mins earlier, off line that is why I was concerned that this may be some kind of glitch.

Cheers
Mark

[Acorncomputer]

That was the strange thing though, I was already in offline mode when I last played it and had been for some time before. I couldn't connect to steam as I didn't have internet access on that machine at the time so couldn't access steam when connected to implement the changes, so couldn't use RW.

Mark

Deja Vu - http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 14&t=99584

[smarty2]

Yes i switched on my pc this morning and steam wanted me to log in even though i had ticked the remember my login info previously?

[choccy]

For me steam used to log in automatically but now it doesn't. Every day I boot the PC. steam gives me a box to fill by adding my password.

Mark

[AndyM77]

What OS'es are you all running on? Is your Steam Client up to date? Are all Windows Updates installed? Any changes to Internet Explorer security settings?

The reason why I ask these is that I am seeing no login problems with Steam, and have not for a number of months. For reference, I'm running Steam on an XP Sp3 machine, Client is the latest (25 Sept 2009 / API: v008), fully up to date via "Microsoft Update" (not Windows update as that only checks for Windows & not extras such as GFW Live!, Silverlight, some .Net releases, etc.. - Yes, it can be enabled in Vista / Win7 too), and Internet Explorer is at default security settings. (Internet Explorer settings are important as Steam bases its netcode / operatability through Internet Explorer - the 'Flash' used on the Steam homepage comes from the installed Adobe plug-in for Internet Explorer).

I'm just wondering if perhaps you're running on Vista x86 / x64 or Win7 RC / RTM x86 / x64 and an update or a UAC issue is affecting your Steam installs.

For reference, with Steam and pretty much most "games" under Vista / Win7 I find that installing on a different Partition or NOT using the default "programme files" folders reduces problems with UAC and webupdate issues under these OS'es.

[sniper297]

I had STEAM about five years ago for Half Life 2, hadn't used it since until I got railworks. So I haven't really tinkered with it enough to learn all the quirks, but a few observations;

1. There's a setup to disable storing account credentials, normally you don't use that unless you're playing it temporarily on another computer. If that box is checked and the info isn't stored on the computer then you would need to register or validate or whatever it is each time.

2. I have FireFox configured to empty the cache each time I close it, and when I defrag my hard disk I usually delete all cookies and temp files before defragging. The passcards I use for login at various websites don't get deleted, but somewhere in all them cookies and tempfiles the STEAM login must be stored, because whenever I do that I need to log in to STEAM again.

I haven't fiddled with offline mode much since they're still in the process of patching this thing, but the one time I tried it I unplugged the cable to the modem and it did work. The process of getting it set for offline mode is a bit complicated, I suspect when a simple step by step process is written for that people will have less trouble with it. I have XP media edition and have never seen Vista, but from what I've heard you need to set practically everything to "run as administrator" to get it to work, which of course begs the question why did they put that in there in the first place. I like things that are foolproof and failsafe, but it strikes me that a lot of the effort to keep dummies from wrecking something makes it so complicated they can't figure out how to run it at all, and the point of diminishing returns was passed long ago.

[choccy]

I eventually managed to fix the steam login problem whereby the steam software asked me for my password every time I logged on. The trick is to open steam, go to the file menu and select change user. You will then be asked for both your user name and password but, from then on, steam will once again remember your password.

Well, until the next glitch that is!

Mark

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/s ... stcount=60

[Basherz]

I eventually managed to fix the steam login problem whereby the steam software asked me for my password every time I logged on. The trick is to open steam, go to the file menu and select change user. You will then be asked for both your user name and password but, from then on, steam will once again remember your password.

Well, until the next glitch that is!

Mark

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/s ... stcount=60

But surely, this doesn't appear to be a glitch, but more "user error" in using thier software.

[choccy]

A user, error! Not so. It seems that if anyone has a legitimate problem with steam someone on these forums always has to exonerate the software and blame the user.

See here for many examples which led up to to the link I quoted above.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/s ... st11352526

Mark

[markpullinger]

Hi, on going to the latest full steam client - from either direction - beta or upgrade my steam lost the account details - but going to either the previous client or the latest beta, I don't get this problem.

Mark

[Acorncomputer]

No Comment this time - other than the situation speaks for itself.

[AndyM77]

A user, error! Not so. It seems that if anyone has a legitimate problem with steam someone on these forums always has to exonerate the software and blame the user.

See here for many examples which led up to to the link I quoted above.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/s ... st11352526

Mark

Perhaps not a user error as such, but perhaps a OS / software setup bug. It seems that the Majority of gamers using Steam are not seeing this issue, or at least it's not being widely reported in the other gaming forums where I hang out, and this issue is being seen by some. This is why I was wondering in an earlier post if these users are on the newer Vista (x86 & x64) / Windows7 RC / RTM (x86 & x64) as UAC is a factor and other security "tweaks" which Xp SP3 wouldn't have had.

As a rule of thumb, I've never used the Steam client BETA software ever as the release clients are often very stable and you're almost guaranteed that you're not going to run into problems purchasing or using other community features, etc...

[markjudith]

I'm using windows XP, not had any problems since my original post and have been offline ever since, so it was a once off thankfully.

Mark