Steam issues Discussion - Dec 2015

[mrspongeworthy]

Anyone have a good bead on what's going on at Steam? News sites are reporting that all steam services are back up and running, but that is certainly not the case for either myself or my father. On Dec 24 both of us were receiving emails from Steam properly. Starting Christmas day we have received no emails from Steam, and have thus been unable to activate any products due to Steam Guard (I gifted him Assetto Corsa as a Christmas gift.) Neither of us had previously registered for Steam Support forums, which turn out to require a separate registration that one's regular Steam account (why????).

 

Unfortunately, since neither of us are receiving any emails from steam, we are unable to join support forums (which requires you to respond to an email that they send... Thus if they are no longer sending emails or you are no longer receiving them, you will be unable to contact Steam support to report that you are no longer receiving their emails. NICE system Steam. Very well thought-out there... Good grief.

 

Does anyone have links or information to DIRECTLY contact steam support via. direct email link (or even phone...)??

 

Anyone else having these issues?

[obobski]

Haven't heard of any issues, but admittedly haven't logged into Steam in a day or two. AFAIK there is no such thing as "direct contact" - its pretty much the absolutely fantastic circular system you described, and even then, good luck getting a response (or a response that makes sense or is appropriate to your circumstance) at times. Best of luck.

[LeddBate]

Unfortunately, I can confirm that I am locked out of my steam account. It says "You have entered your password or account name incorrectly." When I click the "I can't sign in..." button I get: "Error. There was an error communicating with the Steam servers. Please try again later."

 

Here are some news reports:

http://steamed.kotaku.com/steam-problems-linger-after-christmas-fiasco-1749990652

http://www.cnet.com/news/christmas-glitch-allowed-steam-users-to-see-others-personal-info/

The upshot of this is that, for awhile, account details of users were view-able by others. I'm very worried that someone has used that info to hijack my account. I'm hoping that I'm simply in an area where I cannot connect properly with the steam servers yet and that the default message is that my login is wrong. I'll try setting up a troubleshooting-reportiing account, but this doesn't look hopeful. If my account has been hijacked, then I've just lost over a thousand dollars worth of games. You better believe that I will NOT be giving that amount of money to Steam a 2nd time if this is so.

 

Edit: Here's a good YouTube video explaining the nuts-and-bolts of the issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkSslseq9Y8

Frankly, this video is the only thing giving me hope that my account might not be hijacked.

Edited December 29, 2015 by LeddBate

[LadyMilla]

People should really consider using authenticators whenever they are available for an Internet based service. For example, I use mobile phone based authenticators with my Star Wars - The Old Republic and World of Warcraft accounts. While I have no solid information on how much extra security they provide, they will most certainly deter any casual hijacking attempts, and it is likely that even more sophisticated hackers will go for easier 'pickings'.

[LeddBate]

Yes, I have two-step identification with steam via my cell-phone. Unfortunately, it may (may I say, I still haven't gotten a response from Valve yet) be that when I logged out of my steam account, due to the caching glitch, someone else was able to see everything, including my two-step authentication number, change it, the email and my password, thus locking me out of my account through no fault of my own. Two-step authentication/verification is no good if someone spills the info, which it looks like Valve may have very well done. They were quick to announce that no credit card info was disclosed, but they haven't yet (to the best of my knowledge) denied the possibility that people were able to hijack accounts via the info they could see during the glitch.

[LeddBate]

I'm posting this just in case anyone else has a similar problem to Mr_SpongeWorthy or myself. Hopefully this might help you.

 

First, good news. My account was not stolen. After asking lots of questions, I got a tip from the steam forums that anyone caught up in the caching glitch (which apparently I was) might have had their password altered, -or that the servers could no longer match up the account with the proper password. (What the difference between those two is escapes me...) Anyway, the solution was to open my steam service account (a separate steam account you set up for troubleshooting your main account) and then simply following the steps to change your password. First, you'll be asked to input a code from your mobile device (two-step does work well in this case), then you change your password and re-login on your steam client. Worked immediately for me.

 

So, if you're having issues logging in, or getting your steam guard messages, try opening (or creating, if you don't have one yet) your steam service account. You can do this from steampowered.com by clicking on Support and following the instructions on the topic that most closely matches your issue.

 

NOTE: If you do not have two-step authentication on your steam account, you're going to have to provide proof of ownership over the account. Records of your credit card transactions or steam wallet codes will help you with this.

Edited December 31, 2015 by LeddBate

[mrspongeworthy]

An update: After several days I have still not received any emails from steam. (Note; because of this it is impossible to setup a steam service account, which requires that you respond to an email they send you. Hence if your problem is that you are no longer receiving Steam emails you are stuck in an infinite loop). Eventually I had to setup a new account for my father and purchased AC again for him directly. I'll be requesting a refund from Steam but don't hold high-hopes of getting one. But we will see...

 

I believe, although I can't be sure, that something has gone horribly wrong with the steam email system during all of this. As I stated previously, both email address were receiving emails from steam as of Dec 24 with no issue. Problems started Christmas day, and since then no emails to either of those email address "sent" from Steam have arrived. And they have not gone to junk. Hence the most likely cause is Steam's email system not actually sending those emails out (you can tell they are trying to go to the correct address.) Another possibility is that, upon news of the breach, major mail providers (out accounts are on iCloud and Gmail) blacklisted emails from the steam domain/servers. If these servers are not relaying email messages from steam due to security concerns then they would in essence "go missing", never arriving in our accounts.

 

I should be able to change my email address in my own account to point to a new address, and see if that magically works (going to try that now!)

Edited December 31, 2015 by Mr_SpongeWorthy

[mrspongeworthy]

Because my systems were already Steam Guard activated I had no problems getting into my account and changing my email address. Steam properly sent to my new email address for verification and also sent a text to my phone (I have 2-step verification setup).

 

So, it would appear as if the major issue with Steam in this case is a very poorly-thought-out procedure for obtaining help, in which it is impossible to do so if the root problem is "not receiving steam emails".

[LeddBate]

Many years ago, when I changed from my original email provider to gmail (due to my original email getting hacked) I ran into a similar problem in that I could not change my account info over to my new email because steam kept sending the instructions on how to do so to my OLD email. I ended up having to set up another steam service account, then got in an email conversation with a Valve employee that took place over several days. (The average wait was about 15 hours between emails. -But I was just as guilty on that count. RL, ya know...)

 

Anyway, once I explained the loop I was stuck in, the employee asked me to email him details on my last several purchases on steam (games bought, when and what price, and my payment type.) This was sufficient enough proof for them to manually change my email on my account to stop the looping and get me going again.

 

Might be too late to be of assistance for you now, but hopefully helpful sometime in the future.