Steam fucked my shit up

Technology and Gaming Help and Support
#1

Okay, so I reformatted my PC. I had my programs etc. reinstalled, I was adding my backups into steam again (I copy over steamapps, and just reinstall the games via the library).

So anyway it crashed when I was doing this. No problem, I thought I might have been pushing it abit too far with the parallel downloads and installs. So I shut my PC off for the night, thinking I’d sort it in the morning. This morning, steam refused to start, it would say “logging onto account xxx”…then just disappear, the process just vanishes. So I reinstalled steam. On first run, I get this error;

subsequent runs, it updates, lets me get to loggin…but logging in it crashes with a generic windows error :mono:

This cycle repeats everytime I reinstall; first run, error, everything after that, login crash.

Anyone have any ideas what it could be? My shockwave plugin in Chrome has stopped working at the same time, so no youtube either :S

#2

Do this:

Delete every file + folder in your Steam installation directory except for Steam.exe and the SteamApps folder. Right-click on Steam.exe and click Run as Administrator, and let it do its thing. Don’t exit or open anything steam-related until the logon prompt comes up.

#3

Did what you said, still got that error.

Started steam again, it’s updating as we speak :confused:

EDIT: updated, entered details, and it just disappeared again. It always leaves the process ‘steamerrorreporter’ running though.

#4

Well fuck me I was on steam support, and I think AVG 2011 was interfering with it

…despite having run for months, up until last night, with both programs in parallel…

:rolleyes:

Anyway, this is just one time, if it crashes again, I’ll shout and rage in this thread again :stuck_out_tongue:

#5

just try not to doublepost

#6

yeah well, I went to restart steam, and it did it again; disappears without a trace while logging on

:rage:

#7

Yeah, I had that a while ago after an update. It sort of fixed itself with the next update. Using XP SP2.

This doesn’t really help, does it? :stuck_out_tongue:

#8

There might be help about a clean install but I cant remember where I saw the right article.

Try these perhaps?
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Cleanly_reinstalling_Steam
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9609-OBMP-2526

#9

I can access it if I log onto the administrator account, but not mine. What gives, I’m an admin, with full access rights, so whats wrong with my account huh steam?

I’ll try those thanks catz :slight_smile: I’ve uninstalled and swept with programs to remove registry values and such, but I guess it wouldn’t harm to do that stuff manually

#10

It is worth a try I guess eh?

#11

no joy :expressionless:

Edit:
Unlike my previous windows install, I have like, a billion restore points. SO I’m using one from early last night, when I was driver installing. Before I started getting all these Steam errors, hopefully it should help :S

Edit: fixed, a restore point did the job. But it makes me wonder how steam crashing once could cause such a deep problem o_0

#12

goodness. Who knows with steam. They are constantly having to fix their fixes… so it doesnt surprize me that one of their fixes to a fix broke a different fix. :s hrug:

#13

steam fucked up again :mono:

So there we go, time to restore again, and reinstall things one by one…I hate tedious tasks like this

Edit: Apparently, ATI tray tools is the cause :frowning:

#14

Nothing like blaming steam for fucking things up when it’s actually over-zealous antivirus fucking shit up.

Way to go. Any chance you’d tone down the vulgarisms in the thread title via Edit button?

#15

censorship? :faint:

#16

No actually, I won’t Mr.sensitive. I would have if catz had asked, but as she didn’t…

Hello Mr. high-and-mighty-attitude. ATI tray tools isn’t an anti-virus, I hope you know that? And you can hardly say I was ‘blaming steam’, unless that and ‘trying to find an answer’ are the same thing in your book. It’s just a thread title broadly explaining the issue…and it works well enough.

On a side note, the error cropped up AGAIN when I tried to drop my backups in. So I guess I’ll be redownloading everything, to be safe

#17

looks like you might have trouble with steam until your next reformat

#18

I reformatted on Tuesday, I’ve started having issues since then :stuck_out_tongue:

#19

Looking at the very first screenshot, access denied? Try to get more access to the steam directory using the take ownership mod, just for the heck of it.

If that doesn’t help, try installing steam into another directory, preferably not Program Files.

#20

My steam is installed to C:\GAMING\Steam - so it’s not that

I have complete control of files through windows already

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