'STEAM GUARD' woes, Please help!

[RCAF_FB_Orville]

Mods: I know this should probably be in one of the sub sections, but can you please leave it here for a little while so it at least gets some notice? Very few people seem to view the help sections. Then shift at your leisure, that would be great. Thanks.

This is a copy/paste from Simhq

Greets all. Ok, I have some free time to play and typically things due to 'sods law' are going pear shaped lol. The problem is that when I try to log in to Steam, I get the message 'Steam Guard - Computer Authorization required' and then get told that I am logging in from another computer (when I'm not, and never have!) So, I tried the two 'solutions' for the issue, one of which involves renaming a file called 'ClientRegistry.blob' which I renamed as 'ClientRegistry123.blob' (any change to the name should be sufficient, aye?); then restarted and tried again. No joy. Next I tried the 'delete everything bar Steam.exe and 'SteamApps' folder method, done and after a reboot tried again. No joy.

Steam are saying they will send out a steam guard authorisation code to my email addy, but they have not. Checked in spam, too. They are not even replying to my 'support account' questions. I'm rapidly going off Steam now (had a bit bother in the past with Empire:Total War which I bought retail DVD, but was forced to download from them due to a release bug at the time). In fact, I probably wouldn't bother with it at all if it wasn't a necessary evil for CoD.

Any one else had this problem before? I'm all for extra layers of security, this is a good thing....But not when I can't play my own frikking games I've paid for, lol.

Prior to the Steam bother when booting up, I also had a BSOD message reading thus;

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033

Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: 1e
BCP1: 0000000000000000
BCP2: 0000000000000000
BCP3: 0000000000000000
BCP4: 0000000000000000
OS Version: 6_1_7601
Service Pack: 1_0
Product: 768_1
Files that help describe the problem:
C:\Windows\Minidump\090811-25552-01.dmp
C:\Users\M\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-38688-0.sysdata.xml


Could this possibly be related to the problem that Steam thinks I am logging in using a different computer, or just coincidental? Probably not I would think, but who knows. It's all Chinese to me lol, and I haven't tried to research it yet.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks chaps.

ive had this what a pain, leme do some reading, but ultimatly i had to get into steam and then deactivate that nonsense.

edit. ok from what i remeber, i had to wait practically a day to get that authorisation but... i did manage to get in. in the steam help website there an area that explains what to do. im sure i deleted alot of the steam files, not folders, then update it and somehow i got back in before those emails krept in

[CharveL]

Although it is probably just some rare Steam weirdness, it sounds almost to me like someone hacked your account.

[RCAF_FB_Orville]

Originally Posted by CharveL

Although it is probably just some rare Steam weirdness, it sounds almost to me like someone hacked your account.

Thanks for the replies Ali and CharveL (I use your BoBII TrackIR profile as a template mate, very good ) Yes, that is a distinct possibility CharveL, but equally given that Ali says it took a whole day for them to sort it out and get in touch with the 'Steam Guard code' his side, it is also possible that steam support is simply rubbish.

I have taken all their recommended 'security precautions' etc, down to the letter, including email verification etc. So, we'll see. 'Hope for the best, expect the worst, and take what comes'. Words to live by.

[JG52Krupi]

Sure your just not checking the right email account!

[RCAF_FB_Orville]

lol....Aye Krupi, deffo the right one (I'm getting automated 'bot' responses from Steam and a link to my questions, which confirms they have been registered but no answers from staff yet......6hrs on.)

'One is not amused', lol.

[r0bc]

Originally Posted by RCAF_FB_Orville

Yes, that is a distinct possibility CharveL, but equally given that Ali says it took a whole day for them to sort it out and get in touch with the 'Steam Guard code' his side, it is also possible that steam support is simply rubbish.

Considering they have over 30 Million Users, I'd say there support is pretty good.

[Blackdog_kt]

Yup, reinstalling tends to call up the steam guard too.

Freetrack doesn't seem to like win7 x64 much, it crashed while steam was updating and it messed it all up (it would hang on the update bar and not load the client), so i went to their support section and followed the advice to delete some files.

Apparently that resets Steam to the base version i had initially downloaded, so when i launched it again it updated again from scratch. All fine up till now (except forgetting my login details and fumbling around a bit with that, but that was my fault).

Once i logged in i got the steam guard notification.

It seems that reinstalling or wiping certain configuration files gets rid of your unique ID for your PC and a new one is created, which results in steam thinking it's another PC.

Thankfully i didn't have to try a second time and all the automated emails took less than a couple of minutes to arrive: i didn't know there is a 24 hour limit between subsequent steam guard codes and if i had messed it up and i requested a new one i'd be in panic mode waiting for that email

On the bright side of things, it seems that steam guard doesn't just change the allowed PC ID for your account but adds all the IDs you verify to a pool (according to their on-screen messages), which means that once you verify them you can log-in from any single one without going through it all again.

Not useful for everyone, but i can see it being used for people with multiple PCs (work/laptop and home desktop) or those who would like to use PCs of friends (at lan parties or visits) with their own steam account without risking getting it hijacked.