Steam settings not saving :: Help and Tips

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goowose.mpreg Mar 18, 2013 @ 12:40pm

Steam settings not saving

I go to View > Settings and change settings to my preferences then close the dialogue. I reopen the dialogue and it's as if I haven't changed them at all.

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Showing 1-15 of 15 comments

goowose.mpreg Mar 19, 2013 @ 8:50am

Bump

Ash Darkfire Apr 2, 2013 @ 10:33pm

Another bump, same problem.

I had to force turn off my laptop after it became unresponsive with steam and many other programs open, when i rebooted i found all my steam preferences had reset to default [IE friend notifications and jumpmenu preferences] and whenever i try to change them to what they were, when i click ok and go back into the setting to check, they had reset to default again,

MrDaaku Apr 25, 2013 @ 7:40am

Same problem here. Exactly same thing happening. Might I add that I have installed steam on another partition and not on the usual C drive. The entire steam folder is in the another drive.

Zaulk~ Apr 26, 2013 @ 11:43pm

I did it! Just go into steam userdata and delete the config folder.

goowose.mpreg Apr 27, 2013 @ 12:12pm

Or rather the localconfig.vdf file in that directory, this fixed it for me

Tiger 區 Nov 16, 2013 @ 7:45pm

Tried everything here, did not work for me at all

FiftyFour Bravo Nov 16, 2013 @ 7:49pm

what os are you using?

-Pui Pui Jan 24, 2014 @ 3:35am

SOLUTION for "Could not connect to steam network" and “Offline mode not start and asking for connection” and “Automatically sign into Friends settings not working” Steam client errors.
I had been troubled by the title errors for about 3 days now. The below procedure fixed them all. This solution is not my credit. The ‘thumps up’ and my gratitude go to the community posts that mentioned about the ‘userdata’ folder. …Unfortunately, I can not track down again the particular posts to mention you people here… Nevertheless, it is better I create a new post so people with the same problem don’t have to read tens of pages to identify the solution.

Summary of problem:
I play X-com Long War mod, so I need to play in Offline mode to not mess the mod files. Tuesday night, all work well. Wednesday night, when I try to go on offline mode I get an error popup that steam cannot connect to internet (? Why should it? Its offline mode I try to use?!). This can be solved if at steam settings we deactivate the ‘Automatically sign into friends’ function (make sense, since even offline mode will try to sign into internet, regardless I had not modify the settings and everything was working correct the night before…)…
But, on the still working online mode, any change on the Steam->Settings->Friends tab is not saved. At that point, I tried something that had had served me in the past. I copy-pasted a backup of the ClientRegistry.blob file into the Steam main folder, and deleted the original file. Upon restarting steam, the file is created automatically fresh new from the internet and some login problems are fixed… NOT THIS TIME !... the .blob file indeed was recreated, but now trying to start steam in online mode brings up the error message "Could not connect to steam network"!! This time, deleting the .blob file allows only for one successful online mode start of steam. After closing steam, same "Could not connect to steam network" error took place and .blob had to be deleted again… Of course, offline mode was still broken…
(PS: the error that I had solved in the past by deleting the .blob file was the “Steam.exe (main exception): CmultiFieldBlob(pSerialized): Bad field - extends past end of blob” one)

SOLUTION SUMMARY:
1) Close Steam application
2) Backup (make a copy) the “…\STEAM\userdata” folder.
3) Make sure you made a backup of “…\STEAM\userdata” folder.
4) Ask yourself ‘Do I want to loose my games saves?’ If you like to have your saves available after solving the steam problem, triple check that you made a backup of the “…\STEAM\userdata” folder. If I am correct, the numbers in the subfolders correspond to some of your installed games.
5) Rename or delete the “…\STEAM\userdata” folder (it is into the main folder that steam creates when it is installed.)
6) Run again the Steam.exe or your preferred shortcut, to start Steam as you do normally. At my case, steam started normally, I could change-and-save the settings in Friends tab, and both Online and offline modes are now working correctly after numerous Exit-Start-Exit-Start tests of steam application. … But, many of my saved games were NOT listed on the relevant games Load-game screens. (!Close to Hart Attack! The saves ware still on my harddrive, but steam could not see them. Same problem with the ‘cloud’ steam application that I suggest you have deactivated, since if your saved games reach a MB volume, it could start deleting some of them)
7) Close Steam
8) Go to the “…\STEAM” folder. In my case, steam had created a new ‘userdata’ subfolder, with some things inside, including a ‘config’ folder. Copy-paste allowing to override, the subfolders from your ‘userdata’ backup into the new ‘userdata’ now inside your Steam folder, EXCEPT OF THE ‘config’ SUBFOLDER !!

After the above, steam worked correctly for me, and my saved games were again available… I have no idea if I am missing any setting I had made or any other important stuff, but for now I am really grateful to the people that lead me to the above solution… Saved me for starting to mess up with my router ports policy etc.

I hope this long post will help some of you ppl to find the solution fast, if you face the same problems in the future. Have a Good Game !