Can't connect to valve servers

[Ahzafera]

last night, my friends wanted to play Gmod with me. I go to join them and everything seems fine. Then I got a message saying failed to connect after 4 retries. I clicked multiplayer to try another server, and nothing shows up. Today I did the same with TF2 and the results where also the same. I doubt I've done anything to get VAC banned. Never cheated or hacked at all. whats going on and what can I do to fix this? I have seen similar posts with no successful solutions.

[Satoru]

Check your router or firewall

[Ahzafera]

my router and firewall seem perfectly fine

[Legendary old man]

Originally posted by Ahzafera:

my router and firewall seem perfectly fine

Ya? How did you check them?

[Ahzafera]

I checked my firewalls inbound and outbound rules and even made a new one just to be safe. I also checked the ports on my router and made sure they where forwarded. but today It got worse. I can no longer connect to steam online unless through my web browser. It keeps saying that I must be online to log into steam. I am clearly online and again as I had said, There is nothing blocking steam from accessing the internet. I have had this problem before and can't remember how I fixed it. I remember very little about how I fixed it. I tried fixing corrupt files and I tried re installing. nothing works I think this may be connected to the server problem I was having. now that I've reinstalled I also cant even open up steam in offline now. I also made sure that steam had an exception in my firewall. it did (sorry if this is a bit mess. still working and updating this message) I have ports for multiplayer games on steam. not all the steam ports are active because they are in use for games like Gmod.

[Legendary old man]

Not sure what you have going on. Sounds like it might be a rogue security program. Also you do not need to forward any ports to play Steam games. The only time you would need to forward ports is if you wanted to host games or run a server.

[Ahzafera]

you where right about the security system. I remembered how I fixed it. I have Norton on my pc. also have Symantec but I'm too lazy to uninstal Norton and reboot my pc so much lol. I don't know if Vac secured servers work though. Gmod just freezes when I go to the multiplayer section after a second. I guess that means the list is trying to load. UPDATE: still doesnt show any servers for TF2

[Ahzafera]

Fixed it. don't know what I did to fix it but it's fixed. reinstalled and updated java. thats all I can think of. possibly just had to wait it out. thx for the help

[Legendary old man]

Originally posted by Ahzafera:

Fixed it. don't know what I did to fix it but it's fixed. reinstalled and updated java. thats all I can think of. possibly just had to wait it out. thx for the help

All is well that ends well. Awesome.

[Express]

| FIX |
My fix. I had this problem today.

I have back round knowledge with servers and stuff so i knew that this had to do with a port or firewall. After checking a couple forum post i decided to try some things. I do not know what caused this to happen but today when i got on my computer, I opened L4D2 which is a valve game. I could nor host or connect to anything so i tried a new game after waiting. Which was CS:S I then could not connect once again. I figured it was valve and that they were ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ up. But i then figured it was client side. I have Norton security suite installed. I opened it up and went into the firewall settings. There was this weird option in the firewall general settings by the name of " Stealth Blocked Ports" Somehow the setting was turned on. I searched up the meaning of stealth blocked ports and came to the conclusion that it was possibly my problem. I decided to turn this setting OFF. I then opened CS:S and i am connected to a server.
I hope this can fix anyone that is having this problem.

You're welcome in advance. :D

[Big E]

I have had this problem for a year now and nothing works :(

[YOLOL]

Discussions

[Unsavory Sam]

I cant find this Stealth Blocked Ports that you are talking about maybe you can provide a screen shot for it

[Express]

Originally posted by MARTY THE DINO:

I cant find this Stealth Blocked Ports that you are talking about maybe you can provide a screen shot for it

Sorry but i have deleted norton overall. I cannot help with this situtation anymore :/

[echotec]

I havent had any problems

[woag]

For people still struggling with this issue; uninstall Norton and get a real anti-virus, like Avast or Avira.

Norton is quite notorious (norton-ious?) for being crapware. It actually went rogue on my first laptop 10 years ago.