steam server too busy

[verninac]

When ever I try to turn on justcause2 it says that the steam servers are too busy, it's been doing it for days too. Has anyone else got this problem?

[♂Three♂hundred♂bucks♂]

I have this problem

[Nguzunguzzla]

Also have this problem, it won't let me start up the game

[verninac]

it's really annoying

[Tomoko]

i can't start up the game (just) cause it says "blocked by group policy"

[AncientBert]

Steam service has been having some problems for a number of days. This has caused chaos for many ppl. You are not alone. Hang tight and things should be fixed. Fill out a Support ticket if you are still having errors.

[BoneCracker]

3 years later and it still happens

[Raybo58]

I bought this game months ago and I've never been able to play it. I always get the "servers are too busy" "Error code 2". I've searched the web for days looking for fixes and none I've found have worked.

[Raybo58]

[SOLVED] Steam Servers Are Too Busy. Error Code: 2

Okay, I've been working on this full-time for nearly a week and finally had a breakthrough. The Problem:

Many of my Steam games began failing to load. I.E.:
Bioshock Infinite
Just Cause 2
Deadpool
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel
Saints Row IV
and probably more I haven't tried yet.

Most of them were giving me the error in the title.

I tried all of the following to cure the problem...

I verified that my edge firewall wasn't blocking traffic.
Verified that PC is plugged into the wall.
Disabled windows firewall & windows defender and my Malwarebytes Premium virus protection.
Turned off Steam Overlay.
Disabled Steam Cloud Sync.
Killed any programs that may produce OSD stuff, like FPS counters in Afterburner or EVGA Precision XOC.
Verified cache files.
Uninstalled and re-installed problematic games
First, tried executing steam://flushconfig, reboot, run steam from the steam folder.
Exited steam and deleted clientregistry.blob and restarted steam.
Manually installed the vcredist, dotnet, and DirectX installers from game sub-directories.
Ran msconfig and rebooted in diagnostic startup and tried game.
Moved steam to C:\Program Files (x86)\, and other folders on other drives.
Installed latest geforce drivers
Installed all latest windows updates
re-ran directx 11 install
Uninstalled game and restarted windows into safemode w/networking and tried re-installing it in safemode.
Completely uninstalled steam, along with every steam game.
Manually removing all valve/steam related registry entries.
Re-installed steam & re-installed games
Run steam with admin privileges.
Create the proper steam_appid.txt files for each game.
Creating softlinks to the Steam folder in each game's executable folder.
And much, much more.

Nothing had any effect. Then I stumbled onto a page where a user named Wildstar had surmised that the error was being thrown because of some failures in the Steam CEG copy protection system that all of the failing games happen to use. It uses some algorithm to create encrypted executables that will only run under the user's account. So I played around with deleting all of the .exe and .dll files from a game and then letting a validation run to restore the missing files in the hopes that it would produce correctly encrypted binaries. Didn't work.

Finally, I decided to do everything I could to restore my Steam setup to as default a state as possible. Once I performed the following procedure, every single one of my problematic games returned to normal operation, and in some cases, I had missing saved games suddenly reappear.

In its most recent arrangement, I had my Steam folder on my E: drive because there's not enough room on my boot SSD for the 600GB of games I own. I also had an app directory on my C: drive that I tried moving some games into to see if running from the boot drive would help. So I had an E:\Steam installation dir and a C:\Steam Library dir, both paths being registered in my Steam Library Folders list.


These are the steps for fixing the CEG issues...

1. Exit Steam.
   
   
2. Move the SteamApps and UserData folders from your current installation to some safe directory on the same drive you currently have them stored on. Moving these folders will be WAY faster than copying them, because all it really does is update each file's directory chain info without touching the acutal contents of the files.
   
   
3. Uninstall steam using Geek Uninstaller. https://geekuninstaller.com/ It will yank out any extra reg entries or junk files after the standard uninstall script ends.
   
   
4. Reinstall Steam into your "C:\Program Files (x86)" and launch it. You will see all of your games greyed out and waiting to be installed.
   
   
5. Pick any game you like at random and begin the install process. It will ask you where you want to install it.
   
   
6. If you plan to have all of your Steam games on your C: Drive, then choose your default install D/L location. If you plan to install some or all of your Steam games on another drive, then choose that drive. In my case, I created a new folder on my E: drive named it SteamLibrary, within which the new SteamApps folder resides.
   
   
7. Once Steam is done allocating space and begins the actual download process, pause the download.
   
   
8. Right click on the game you just began downloading and choose Uninstall. The only reason we did this is to have Steam setup the default folder structure for our apps.
   
   
9. Exit Steam.
   
   
10. Go to the SteamApps/Common folder Steam just created for your download and delete any files or folders that the uninstall you just performed may have missed.
    
    
11. Move the UserData folder we preserved before into the "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam" folder, overwriting any existing files.
    
    
12. Move the contents of the SteamApps folder we preserved before into the SteamApps folder Steam just created when we began that first game download.
    
    
13. Launch Steam.
    
    
14. Every one of your games now needs to be re-installed, but the way we've set it up Steam will skip downloading any files that already exist. With games that were working fine before, you should be able to click the Install button, let it verify the existing files, run all of it's pre-install scripts, and then run the game.

With the games that were throwing errors, I recommend finding the starting binaries in each game directory and then deleting them. Delete the main game .exe and any Launcher type .exe's as well, and then click Install. It will download the correctly customized/encrypted main executables you need to play the game, once it sees the old ones are missing.

Every game that was giving me problems came back from the dead after following these steps.

If you should happen to click install on a game that doesn't already have its files positioned in the place you specify, it will begin downloading them. After that point, it will do you no good to copy the game directory into your intended destination. Steam will not recognize the appearance of the new files. It will keep downloading into a temp folder until it's done and then copy over the files you just moved into place.

To correct this if it happens, you must pause the download and uninstall the game, copy the complete game directory into the desired SteamApps/Common folder, and then click Install again. If you see the "Discovering Existing Files" message, rather than the downloading progress bar, you have succeeded.

If this ends up working for anyone, let us know.