no access to steam community or store [Solved... sorta]

[Chris Solomon]

since my client updated today, i can't access any of the steam community features via the steam client. I can access them via a web browser, but then there is no integration that the client provides. also i'm unable to access the steam store through the client. the client is able to tell i get new responses to my posts, i just can't get to them using the client. anyone else know what is going on?

[76561198153832170]

Same thing happened to me...... I cant access my store,market and profile .... I do not know why.....And most importan how to fix this ..... VALVE help please orr anyone who knows thow to fix this .............

[Black Blade]

Try Steam, Sittings, Web browser, Delete cash
if that fails try to do it manualy
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=265037866

[Chris Solomon]

well, I did what you suggested, and no dice. the window in the client just sits there trying to load the content. I even redownloaded the steam setup file, and did a reinstall. it went well, but it immediately re-downloaded the latest update and I ended back up where i began.

Is there a way to use an older steam client version and not have it get updated (for the time being)?

[Black Blade]

Originally posted by Chris Solomon:

well, I did what you suggested, and no dice. the window in the client just sits there trying to load the content. I even redownloaded the steam setup file, and did a reinstall. it went well, but it immediately re-downloaded the latest update and I ended back up where i began.

Is there a way to use an older steam client version and not have it get updated (for the time being)?

not really..
maybe try to move to beta?

[Chris Solomon]

had not thought of that.... i'l try it know

[Rando]

I'm having the exact same problem.

I can access the "Library" section, but any thing that tries to use the built-in Steam Browser fails to load. This happens in Big Picture Mode too. I can access the Store in Big Picture Mode, but if I try to use the browser or click on something that uses the built-in browser it just sits there with a blank screen with the "loading" graphic going round and round.

I've filed a support request, but so far no answer.

[Chris Solomon]

moving to beta did not solve issue. the night before the update everything was working fine. Also i have noticed that now when i try and view a webpage using the ingame webrowser (shift+tab) it also shows the black screen and just sits there trying to load the inital page (google). I suspect it's something having to do with the web page engine that steam uses to render web based content (store, steam community, profile, in-game web browser)

[Chris Solomon]

I don't normally use big picture mode, but i tried it out, and i was able to get the store and community and profile pages, but anything outside of the steam network (google for example) just sat there trying to load. unfortunately i was unable to find a way to access steam discussions from big picture mode, so for the time being i'm having to use my web browser to post stuff

[Chris Solomon]

i just came across the sticky about limited accounts. The symptoms that i'm experiencing seems to similar to what users with limited account have access to. but I had an account long before they had limited accounts, and i have spent more than enough money that my account would not be a limited one. I am going to have to try contacting steam support i guess. I wonder why this is occurring. most annoying. especially since i need to make some purchases from the steam store

[Franky]

I'm having the exact same problem.
VALVE help please!

[Chris Solomon]

after looking at the release notes of the latest steam client release, i began to suspect the problem lies with the changes to steamwebhelper.exe. i started poking around in 'C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\bin\cef\cef.win7' which is where the file now resides. there i found a debug.log that seems to be almost continuously updated. inside the file i found these entries

[1216/054406:ERROR:sandbox_policy_base.cc(379)] Failed to add sandbox rule. error = 2, subsystem = 0, semantics = 0, pattern = 'C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\bin\cef\cef.win7\debug.log'
[1216/054406:ERROR:child_process_launcher.cc(536)] Failed to launch child process
[1216/054407:ERROR:sandbox_policy_base.cc(379)] Failed to add sandbox rule. error = 2, subsystem = 0, semantics = 0, pattern = 'C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\bin\cef\cef.win7\debug.log'
[1216/054407:ERROR:child_process_launcher.cc(536)] Failed to launch child process
[1216/054408:ERROR:sandbox_policy_base.cc(379)] Failed to add sandbox rule. error = 2, subsystem = 0, semantics = 0, pattern = 'C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\bin\cef\cef.win7\debug.log'
[1216/054408:ERROR:child_process_launcher.cc(536)] Failed to launch child process
[1216/070050:ERROR:sandbox_policy_base.cc(379)] Failed to add sandbox rule. error = 2, subsystem = 0, semantics = 0, pattern = 'C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\bin\cef\cef.win7\debug.log'
[1216/070050:ERROR:child_process_launcher.cc(536)] Failed to launch child process
[1216/070101:ERROR:sandbox_policy_base.cc(379)] Failed to add sandbox rule. error = 2, subsystem = 0, semantics = 0, pattern = 'C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\bin\cef\cef.win7\debug.log'
[1216/070101:ERROR:child_process_launcher.cc(536)] Failed to launch child process
[1216/070118:ERROR:sandbox_policy_base.cc(379)] Failed to add sandbox rule. error = 2, subsystem = 0, semantics = 0, pattern = 'C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\bin\cef\cef.win7\debug.log'
[1216/070118:ERROR:child_process_launcher.cc(536)] Failed to launch child process
[1216/070128:ERROR:sandbox_policy_base.cc(379)] Failed to add sandbox rule. error = 2, subsystem = 0, semantics = 0, pattern = 'C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\bin\cef\cef.win7\debug.log'
[1216/070128:ERROR:child_process_launcher.cc(536)] Failed to launch child process
[1216/070131:ERROR:sandbox_policy_base.cc(379)] Failed to add sandbox rule. error = 2, subsystem = 0, semantics = 0, pattern = 'C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\bin\cef\cef.win7\debug.log'
[1216/070131:ERROR:child_process_launcher.cc(536)] Failed to launch child process
[1216/070132:ERROR:sandbox_policy_base.cc(379)] Failed to add sandbox rule. error = 2, subsystem = 0, semantics = 0, pattern = 'C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\bin\cef\cef.win7\debug.log'
[1216/070132:ERROR:child_process_launcher.cc(536)] Failed to launch child process
[1216/070152:ERROR:sandbox_policy_base.cc(379)] Failed to add sandbox rule. error = 2, subsystem = 0, semantics = 0, pattern = 'C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\bin\cef\cef.win7\debug.log'
[1216/070152:ERROR:child_process_launcher.cc(536)] Failed to launch child process
[1216/072908:ERROR:sandbox_policy_base.cc(379)] Failed to add sandbox rule. error = 2, subsystem = 0, semantics = 0, pattern = 'C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\bin\cef\cef.win7\debug.log'
[1216/072908:ERROR:child_process_launcher.cc(536)] Failed to launch child process
[1216/073121:ERROR:sandbox_policy_base.cc(379)] Failed to add sandbox rule. error = 2, subsystem = 0, semantics = 0, pattern = 'C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\bin\cef\cef.win7\debug.log'
[1216/073121:ERROR:child_process_launcher.cc(536)] Failed to launch child process
[1216/171833:ERROR:sandbox_policy_base.cc(379)] Failed to add sandbox rule. error = 2, subsystem = 0, semantics = 0, pattern = 'C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\bin\cef\cef.win7\debug.log'
[1216/171833:ERROR:child_process_launcher.cc(536)] Failed to launch child process
[1216/171837:ERROR:sandbox_policy_base.cc(379)] Failed to add sandbox rule. error = 2, subsystem = 0, semantics = 0, pattern = 'C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\bin\cef\cef.win7\debug.log'
[1216/171837:ERROR:child_process_launcher.cc(536)] Failed to launch child process
[1216/171838:ERROR:sandbox_policy_base.cc(379)] Failed to add sandbox rule. error = 2, subsystem = 0, semantics = 0, pattern = 'C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\bin\cef\cef.win7\debug.log'
[1216/171838:ERROR:child_process_launcher.cc(536)] Failed to launch child process
[1216/171954:ERROR:sandbox_policy_base.cc(379)] Failed to add sandbox rule. error = 2, subsystem = 0, semantics = 0, pattern = 'C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\bin\cef\cef.win7\debug.log'
[1216/171954:ERROR:child_process_launcher.cc(536)] Failed to launch child process
[1216/171955:ERROR:sandbox_policy_base.cc(379)] Failed to add sandbox rule. error = 2, subsystem = 0, semantics = 0, pattern = 'C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\bin\cef\cef.win7\debug.log'
[1216/171955:ERROR:child_process_launcher.cc(536)] Failed to launch child process
[1216/172143:ERROR:sandbox_policy_base.cc(379)] Failed to add sandbox rule. error = 2, subsystem = 0, semantics = 0, pattern = 'C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\bin\cef\cef.win7\debug.log'
[1216/172143:ERROR:child_process_launcher.cc(536)] Failed to launch child process
[1216/172144:ERROR:sandbox_policy_base.cc(379)] Failed to add sandbox rule. error = 2, subsystem = 0, semantics = 0, pattern = 'C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\bin\cef\cef.win7\debug.log'
[1216/172144:ERROR:child_process_launcher.cc(536)] Failed to launch child process
[1216/172145:ERROR:sandbox_policy_base.cc(379)] Failed to add sandbox rule. error = 2, subsystem = 0, semantics = 0, pattern = 'C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\bin\cef\cef.win7\debug.log'
[1216/172145:ERROR:child_process_launcher.cc(536)] Failed to launch child process


the log is filled up with these entries, all the same.
do any of you with this issue have this log, and are the entries the same?
C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\bin\cef\cef.win7\debug.log

[soldier from tf2]

Having a similar error, everything works fine, but as soon as I try to look on the community artwork or screenshots. It happens

[Chris Solomon]

Originally posted by Franky:

I'm having the exact same problem.
VALVE help please!

I think I have a solution. this problem is caused by the fact that for whatever reason Steam will only work properly if running from 'C:\' or possible 'C:\Program Files (x86)\. steam no longer trusts junctions/symbolic links. i found a couple of posts in the beta client discussion and the use of symbolic links/junctions was the cause of this issue. there was a patch that fixed this issue allowing the use of the junctions/symlinks, but for whatever reason, the devs made the decision to not include the fix in the release version of the client.

I shutdown steam and deleted the junction i had setup from c:\program files (x86) ,leaving the orignial files in E:\program files (x86)\steam intact. then i copied the steam folder from E:\program files (x86)\ to C:\Program Files (x86)\, except for the sub directory 'steamapps'. I next logged back into steam and found that the store and other functions had been restored.

Right now, im testing to see if I can create a junction for only the steamapps directory and still have everything work like it should.

discussion links:
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta/discussions/0/282992499676412584/?ctp=2
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta/discussions/0/154642447922459362/?ctp=2#c154643785753961816

update:

looks like for now the only solution is to have the steam client installed to c:\program files (x86)\ and have you libraryr junctioned\symlink limited to only the steamapps subdirectory within the steam directory.

[fool on impact]

You can try, if you can solve this issue with an undocumented command line parameter for the steam.exe, it will disable the sandbox mode for the internal webbrowser.

Try starting Steam.exe with -no-cef-sandbox parameter.

There are a lot of users experiencing this problem and there is no common solution so far.
http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/38596748653328488/ (Thread started 2014)
http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/620713633862935562/ (same problem on Mac OS)
http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/1843493219430878858/

It doesn't matter where you have Steam installed or the libraries, the bug can reoccur on every update.

I already answered to two of those threads with a reference to a fix from a Linux wiki. This seems to be by now the only solution, if none of the things below won't help.

Things that won't help:

• Resetting the internal browsers cache/deleting cookies
  
• Reinstalling Steam
  
• Flushing Steams config
  
• Deleting chromiums cache directories
  
• Turning on/off combatibility mode
  
• Running Steam with administrator privileges
  
• Switching in/out of beta opt-in (they are working on it, on some system configurations it might have been fixed)
  
• Changing Steam's installation path

Also it seems like the operating system is of no interest, if this bug occurs that the browser is unable to create a sandboxed child. My debug.log looks similar to yours till i added the parameter.

Beta Client Update should've fixed it, but hasn't.
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta/discussions/0/154642447922459362/

[swordbios]

[SOLVED] Hi guys, i solved problem. I had steam installed on other disk with junction. Mobe your steamaaps folder to out from steam installation and remove them, restart PC. Install steam to standard path (C:\Program Files\...) and after install in settings add folder with previously installed games, and now working. :-)