Steam error on OSX - Steam must be online

For the longest time, I have been getting an error when trying to run Steam on OSX.  As soon as I launched Steam, it would attempt to download patches and then fail miserably.

I have followed many guides and attempted many fixes and this problem just wouldn't go away.  So, being a "read the manual if all else fails", I decided to check the support site at www.steampowered.com

The solution to the problem was trivially easy.  Firstly, the error message was grossly inaccurate.  Steam complained that I needed to be online in order to update.  I clearly WAS online, but the actual problem was that the folder Steam was trying to update was write protected.

Turns out that I was executing the read only copy of the file in the mounted STEAM.DMG file. Aaaargh.  How could I be so stupid.  Well, i was launching steam using Spotlight.  So I would hit Command-Space and then type in S,T,E and and it was defaulting the installation folder instead of the Applications folder.  I just never noticed.   Arrrghh.

Anyway, problem is solved.  Yes, I was stupid.  Yes, I should read the screen properly.

Comments

Anonymous said…
can you explain more in detail how you did this?
November 20, 2011 at 5:02 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Are any of you interest in being part of a coding sub-community of GGG+ One of the things I enjoy most about G+ and the communities that formed around Elite Dangerous has been the gathering of personalities that seem to share a lot of hobbies and interests. Many walks of life and philosophies interested in overlapping topics like music, tv, movies, humour, food, wine, etc. One of my hobbies has always been coding. The past is littered with 100's of started projects and abandoned code. Clearly, I haven't been an 'completionist' or 'achievement unlocked' kind of person in this regard. I guess in my case, I was not able to sustain that level of drive and enthusiasm for most of those pet projects. With Unity, I've found a system that allows me to express my gameplay idle thoughts as something tangible and I've started watching tutorials and putting objects on the screen and animating them. The results have been quick and rewarding and I'm starting t
Read more

Unlocking Hera Tani

Unlocking Hera Tani This is just so pointless. 4 trips for no good reason other than waste time. It's probably going to take me 4 days. I can't imagine that the same people who brought my favourite game back to life could come up with such a useless system as the various engineering unlocks and crafting system that you HAVE to do to progress meaningfully. I'm just in a miserable mood. Sorry. God knows if I'm ever going to mine the necessary 250t of whotsits...
Read more