Steam Down?

[bob48]

I'm back in again now, so maybe it was just a temporary blip.

[Blucher]

I also had a problem with steam tonight. The European servers were down for about 30 minutes.

[JasonPratt]

Fortunately, I haven't been using Steam at all the past few weeks! (For reasons currently mentioned in my sig.) But I noticed last night, somewhere between 8 and 8:30 central US time, when I turned on the computer it logged into Steam immediately and started dl-ing the latest patch-or-whatever for Space Hulk.

Once that finished I turned Steam off (as much as I could). Just in case.  ::) I'm not overly brimming with confidence in their ability to guard a backdoor into my computer right this moment...

[Nefaro]

BTW... what the hell is up with the big Space Hulk patches lately?  I know they released a DLC but I've had 1.4GB and 850MB patches within a few days of each other.  Looks like they've been busy replacing many of the game files with new ones.  ???  Did it need that much patching?

[Tpek]

Steam's Login servers are down again   :-[

[sandman2575]

Is there a skinny on why Steam's servers have been so unreliable lately? 

I don't have a sense of whether this is just a bumpy patch or the way things are going to be, henceforward...   :-\

[Nefaro]

Is there a skinny on why Steam's servers have been so unreliable lately? 

I don't have a sense of whether this is just a bumpy patch or the way things are going to be, henceforward...   :-\

My first guess is that their primetime server load has surpassed their hardware and/or bandwidth limits, and they're slow to spend on increasing them. 

There have been times in the past when they weren't doing so hot and it took awhile before they got ahead of it.  However, it wasn't such a regularity back then, only when popular stuff was on sale or a big seasonal sale was on.  Lately it's been happening regularly when US primetime starts up at the beginning of the evening.  ???

[W8taminute]

I've been noticing that sometimes the page for recent friend activities does not load at all during the evenings but loads fine during the morning hours.  Other than that thank goodness Steam has been ok during primetime for me.

[Nefaro]

I think part of Steam's capacity problems are of their own creation. 

Let me explain...

Developers love to use Steam because they can just upload their updated files to the server without having to spend extra time packaging and sending them to various vendors.  Some don't even bother making changelogs.  What this promotes is quick & dirty patches with some, and they tend to update constantly as they go.

That may sound nice but it has resulted in a couple notable problems. 

One is having your save games getting jacked up regularly because Steam updates your game to a new version and breaks them. 

Another is the increased use of Steam's bandwidth for all these games that get constantly updated.  For example.. I've had Space Hulk update three times in under a week and each time it was nearly 1GB or more in size.  I guarantee many of the files patched this way were duplicated in each successive one - only updated.  So the past practice of holding onto and properly testing patches for awhile has declined in favor of quick patching via Steam and letting the customers test it.  Since they can just fix and re-upload the files whenever they want, it's become an ongoing beta patch process with many games.  This constant re-patching through Steam must be placing a lot more strain on their bandwidth and resources, causing issues and slowdowns like these recent ones.

Every day I log in to Steam there is at least two games that are updating, and often more than that.  That's on just one of my computers, and I have it installed on three.  Gotta be clogging their shiz up.  :P

[mikeck]

Two days ago I set steam to "offline" mode and have been happily playing ever since. Can't do that forever but it's a solution when the site is down and you want to play.

They better get their heads out of their rear ends and deal with whatever problem they are having...these shutdowns/slow downs are too frequent lately

[sandman2575]

My first guess is that their primetime server load has surpassed their hardware and/or bandwidth limits, and they're slow to spend on increasing them. 

Seems a reasonable guess to me.  Can't imagine Steam wouldn't pony up the due to expand their server capacity, if that's the problem -- it's their lifeblood, after all. 

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

I'm getting hit with the inability to login now.  I wonder if they're busy fiddling with their console roll-out.  Seem like they've got almost a rolling blackout in practice these days.

[steve58]

Same here.  Something definitely going on with Steam lately like a DDOS or some major hardware/software issues...

[Asid]

seems to be back up now.

[Nefaro]

I'm getting hit with the inability to login now.  I wonder if they're busy fiddling with their console roll-out.  Seem like they've got almost a rolling blackout in practice these days.

Judging by the post times when this happens nearly every day, it's right at the start of US primetime.  Like clockwork.

Everyone getting home and logging in Steam at the same time .. then downloading the plethora of patches.