Cannot play Steam games offline - RESOLVED

Resolved. Thanks Topgunmv. Just had to start it connected, select file>offline mode, restart the client and it now works all the time (offline and online)

Turn on offline mode while you're connected to the internet, then disconnect from the internet.

It should work fine after that, even after rebooting.

topgunmv

-------- ORIGINAL POST --------

I know this is probably a naive query but I thought I'd post it anyway.

I've been playing a bit of Trine and Limbo recently. When at home I'm online, my game plays, I can save new games, load old games, etc.

When I travel I don't have an internet connection. When I try to start these games I get prompted to start Steam in Offline mode. After selecting this I get the error message

Could not connect to Steam network.
This could be due to a problem with your Internet connection, or with the
Steam network. Please visit www.steampowered.com for more info.Steam

My understanding was that I had local copies of my games/saves and that they simply synchronised with the Steam cloud when saving. as such I thought I should be able to continue playing my games offline and then resynch them when next connected.

Is this not the way it works? Do I have to be online to play the games I've bought?

Yep. 100% up to date. Just loaded them at home, shut down, turned off wireless, turned back on... bam. No joy.

I don't know if this works with every game but you can launch the games using the game application file, not the steam shortcut. You can locate the game .exe file by Steam/Steamapps/Gamename. This works with my small collections of games including Shogun 2, Bastion, Aquaria, ... I don't work with Portal so I guess you can only play Valve games by launching Steam only.

Edit: Did a test and it works with Machinarium, Bastion. Orcs must die and Shogun 2 require me to launch Steam first.

Turn on offline mode while you're connected to the internet, then disconnect from the internet.

It should work fine after that, even after rebooting.

Try disabling your network adapter before launching Steam. I heard Steam sometimes gets confused if you have a wireless adapter that is searching for connections nearby.

Control panel, network and sharing center, change adapter settings, right-click the adapter you typically use and disable (Windows 7 directions)

I don't know if this works with every game but you can launch the games using the game application file, not the steam shortcut. Seto_Akari

Not sure if this option is still there in offline mode, but if it is, disable cloud storage for the games that support it (game properties) or the entire Steam client (Steam settings), it might cause some problems if it still tries to look for cloud saves even if you're in offline mode.DanielDust

Tried this without success :( Thanks for the idea though.

Turn on offline mode while you're connected to the internet, then disconnect from the internet.

It should work fine after that, even after rebooting.

topgunmv

Thank you. That worked perfectly. What I did was

1. Connected to the internet and started the Steam client in Online mode
2. From the file menu set it to Offline mode and restarted the client
3. Started Limbo (success)
4. Closed Limbo
5. Closed the Steam Client
6. Disconnected my internet link
7. Started Limbo (success)
8. Rebooted the laptop
9. Started Limbo (success)
10. Connected to the internet
11. Started Steam client and changed it back to Online mode
12. Disconnected the Internet Link
13. Restarted the laptop
14. Started Limbo (success)

There must be some setup tasks performed the first time you manually switch it to offline mode. This was a brand new install of Windows and Steam however my previous build had the same issue (part of the reasons for the rebuild... a small part).So thanks everyone. I'm happy now. Hopefully people googling the problem will come across this thread and find topgunmv's solution useful :)

I have this issue, and I've had Steam on many different PCs, every one of them had this issue, sorry I'm of no help, just letting you know you aren't alone haha

Turn on offline mode ONCE when you are online, then every time I run a game in offline mode it works for me

If steam needs to update and you don't update it, then lose access to the internet you can't play any of your games, so always try and keep steam up to date.