Steam is stuck in Offline Mode

[amoe_1st]

Hello everyone. I am having a lot of trouble right here.

I used to play lots of Steam games before, but then, 2 weeks ago, I moved out of my parents' place, finally. I've settled nicely, but on this side, Steam is causing me trouble.

Here's the thing; When I click the Steam icon, a small window update opens up. Doesn't move for a few seconds (10-15) then it disappears. After that, an error window appears. It says "Steam.exe (main exception): To run Steam, you must first connect to the Internet"

Now I've searched forums and found other people with that problem. All the help they got was "Try deleting everything and downloading steam again" or "This might be a firewall problem. Look at the troubleshooting section of Steam Support"

It might've worked for them, but it's a no go for me.

What I've done;
- Tried restarting, several times.
- Tried deleting everything and redownloading Steam entirely.
Worked one time. The next time I tried openning Steam, it wouldn't work. Plus I had lost local content of all the games so I had to redownload them. Problem is, I'm stuck in Offline Mode.
- Tried checking with my internet provider for the new router's firewall.
All ports are open and it still wouldn't go in Online Mode. He told me that they didn't support Steam (of course) so he suggested I try reinstalling it. So I just deleted it all and redownloaded it. Done now. Installed it. 'lo and behold, I must first be connected to open Steam.

I'm typing this as I still try to make it work. I've also been watching youtube and checking my email. What gives?

I'm using Windows 7, if that helps anyone. Not sure what other specs you may need. Just ask and I'll tell you.

I tried sending in a help ticket, but it's going to take a while. Can anyone here help me? Thanks in advance.

[SWAG]

ide bo mama wbija na komp

[E C L I P S E]

This problem is very irritable, only happens at my house. I use a laptop and i've tried connecting at my friends; instant success. Help would be seriously appreciated, itching to play something. WolfsND, unfortunately, your little trick did nothing.

[amoe_1st]

I tried it too, didn't work.
See, my girlfriend's laptop is also having steam stuck in offline mode, and after I tried some stuff on my desktop, now steam is messed up again and won't even load. It's back to the "need to connect to the internet" thing. Why is it saying that? I AM CONNECTED DX

[amoe_1st]

Okay. I've finally fixed it. I think I had a corrupt steam folder or something. Even though I redownloaded a fresh one.

What I've done is take the steam backup folder from my gf's external hard drive, copied it over, deleted everything except Steam.exe Steamapps and Userdata.

Then, I ran Steam.exe, as said in #1. Didn't work. Though I tried running it as administrator, and THEN it worked. Not quite sure if everything I did before had any impact, but holy f*ck, I can play Steam again! Woot! (and it stays in online mode now too!) Thank you again for your time. Hope this can help others.

If you have a friend who has a working steam, just get a usb key and copy his folder then bring it back to your PC to fix it. It worked for me. Try it out!