There is an Official Steam FAQ available at this link.
O.K. it seems a small but incredibly vocal number of users are having various problems with steam. Use this thread to report any problems you have and the community will hopefully answer and help to solve your problem.
Just some points:
Millions of people around the world use steam without a problem. Almost every member of staff on this website has used steam before the release of FM12 without problem. I myself have used it since FM10 and i have never experienced anything but sheer satisfaction. In the vast majority of cases, the user or the users computer system is the problem, not Steam or the game.
Closing your computer down with the game still running is likely to cause serious problems, as will closing it down before you close steam as steam needs to do some syncing operations before it closes. The correct way to exit the game and shut down your computer is:
Save and close FM
Close and exit steam
Wait for steam to sync and dissapear from your taskbar/notification area bottom right
Shut down your computer
Please note, crash dumps are not a steam specific problem, and steam updating the game does not cause crash dumps, not matter what rumours you may have heard or read. A common crash dump problem is using graphics from previous editions of the game without the correct format. Ensure all add-on graphic files are .png and not .PNG - Use this thread for crash dump issues.
If the game is currently unavailable it is for one of two reasons.
Because steam is updating it for you. You must be in online mode with the internet connected to allow steam to do this. So anyone who is getting this message for more than a few minutes either has an incredibly slow internet connection (update took 2 minutes for me on a 5 meg connection) or they are not connected to the internet, or steam is in offline mode.
You have opened steam in online mode without an internet connection. Steam must register and sync with the servers before you enter offline mode and play the game without the internet connected. To prevent this problem in future, open steam with your internet connection on, switch to offline mode and then never close steam again.
As i just mentioned, at certain times the game will be unavailable to play. This is because steam is in the process of automatically patching it for you. It saves you the trouble of having to find, download and install the patch yourself. If you would prefer not to allow steam to update the game for you, please do the following:
Open steam library - right click FM12 - click properties - click updates - then change the option to always keep the game up to date
Before spitting the dummy totally, try the following:
1. Restart steam and/or your computer to see if the problem can be rectified.
2. Verfy integrity of game files on steam:
Open steam library - right click on FM12 - click properties - click local files - click verfy integry of game cache
3. Defragment your game files on steam:
Open steam library - right click on FM12 - click properties - click local files - click defragement game files
4. Try renaming your client registry blob:
Windows XP/Vista/7
It is not recommended to delete the Old.blob as it may be used later to determine recurring issues.
5. Delete and reinstall the game from your computer. Use steam to do this, not control panel:
Open steam library - right click on FM12 - click delete local content
Redownload the game
6. Reinstall steam.
7. In an extreme case you may want to try a full manual uninstall. Details can be found at the bottom of the opening post of this thread.
If none of the above prove to be any help then please post your problem in this thread. I will be closing any other steam problem threads, whether thats new threads or ones that have been made previously, mainly because a tiny minority of incredibly vocal people who have an issue (which is usually something THEY themselves have done, not a problem with steam) are spamming the forum and contributing to a slow down.
If you have a problem please post as many details about the problem as you can. Posting:
''Waaaaahhh steam is ****, blah blah blah why can't i play the game?!?!??????????????!?!?!?!?!?!?!''
Is highly unlikely to get a response that will help you.
-----------
If you're worried about Steam using up your precious RAM on your old computer then do the following..
1. Right Click FM12
2. Properties
3. Untick Enable Steam Community in Game
4. Congratulations, you have now freed up almost 1MB of RAM!
O.K. it seems a small but incredibly vocal number of users are having various problems with steam. Use this thread to report any problems you have and the community will hopefully answer and help to solve your problem.
Just some points:
Millions of people around the world use steam without a problem. Almost every member of staff on this website has used steam before the release of FM12 without problem. I myself have used it since FM10 and i have never experienced anything but sheer satisfaction. In the vast majority of cases, the user or the users computer system is the problem, not Steam or the game.
Closing your computer down with the game still running is likely to cause serious problems, as will closing it down before you close steam as steam needs to do some syncing operations before it closes. The correct way to exit the game and shut down your computer is:
Save and close FM
Close and exit steam
Wait for steam to sync and dissapear from your taskbar/notification area bottom right
Shut down your computer
Please note, crash dumps are not a steam specific problem, and steam updating the game does not cause crash dumps, not matter what rumours you may have heard or read. A common crash dump problem is using graphics from previous editions of the game without the correct format. Ensure all add-on graphic files are .png and not .PNG - Use this thread for crash dump issues.
cant play fm12!
steam error - this game if currently unavailable at the moment, please try again another time
can any 1 help with this???
If the game is currently unavailable it is for one of two reasons.
Because steam is updating it for you. You must be in online mode with the internet connected to allow steam to do this. So anyone who is getting this message for more than a few minutes either has an incredibly slow internet connection (update took 2 minutes for me on a 5 meg connection) or they are not connected to the internet, or steam is in offline mode.
You have opened steam in online mode without an internet connection. Steam must register and sync with the servers before you enter offline mode and play the game without the internet connected. To prevent this problem in future, open steam with your internet connection on, switch to offline mode and then never close steam again.
As i just mentioned, at certain times the game will be unavailable to play. This is because steam is in the process of automatically patching it for you. It saves you the trouble of having to find, download and install the patch yourself. If you would prefer not to allow steam to update the game for you, please do the following:
Open steam library - right click FM12 - click properties - click updates - then change the option to always keep the game up to date
Before spitting the dummy totally, try the following:
1. Restart steam and/or your computer to see if the problem can be rectified.
2. Verfy integrity of game files on steam:
Open steam library - right click on FM12 - click properties - click local files - click verfy integry of game cache
3. Defragment your game files on steam:
Open steam library - right click on FM12 - click properties - click local files - click defragement game files
4. Try renaming your client registry blob:
Windows XP/Vista/7
- Completely exit from the Steam client.
- Go to C:\Program Files\Steam (or the Steam directory that was specified during installation).
- Locate ClientRegistry.blob and rename this file to ClientRegistryOld.blob.
- Restart Steam to allow the file to be recreated.
- Test the issue once more.
- Completely exit from the Steam client.
- Go to /Users/[Username]/Library/Application Support/Steam
- Locate ClientRegistry.blob and rename this file to ClientRegistryOld.blob.
- Restart Steam to allow the file to be recreated.
- Test the issue once more
It is not recommended to delete the Old.blob as it may be used later to determine recurring issues.
5. Delete and reinstall the game from your computer. Use steam to do this, not control panel:
Open steam library - right click on FM12 - click delete local content
Redownload the game
6. Reinstall steam.
7. In an extreme case you may want to try a full manual uninstall. Details can be found at the bottom of the opening post of this thread.
If none of the above prove to be any help then please post your problem in this thread. I will be closing any other steam problem threads, whether thats new threads or ones that have been made previously, mainly because a tiny minority of incredibly vocal people who have an issue (which is usually something THEY themselves have done, not a problem with steam) are spamming the forum and contributing to a slow down.
If you have a problem please post as many details about the problem as you can. Posting:
''Waaaaahhh steam is ****, blah blah blah why can't i play the game?!?!??????????????!?!?!?!?!?!?!''
Is highly unlikely to get a response that will help you.
-----------
If you're worried about Steam using up your precious RAM on your old computer then do the following..
1. Right Click FM12
2. Properties
3. Untick Enable Steam Community in Game
4. Congratulations, you have now freed up almost 1MB of RAM!
Last edited by a moderator: