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
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