Steam for Mac — A total bitch for anyone else? (nevermind)

[heatwave]

Here's my experience with Steam so far: (Background info: I am not an administrator on the computer I use)

After downloading Steam and opening the disk image (.dmg), I dragged the app to a folder within my home folder. I launched it from there, and a "downloading update" dialog box appears. The update finishes downloading, it says "extracting package" for a split second, the dialog box disappears, and then Steam becomes unresponsive. After repeating this chain of events a few times, I decide to launch Steam from the disk image for the heck of it. I immediately get a different dialog box that says something along the lines of "Steam needs administrator access to update itself," prompting me for an Admin name and password.

So my mom enters her name and password, after which, the "downloading update" dialog box appears again (as expected). Unfortunately, this is all pointless. As you may or may not know, you can not save files to an existing .dmg file. Immediately after the download finishes, Steam does not freeze, but rather, it gives me this error message that says something along the lines of "Please make sure you aren't running Steam from it's disk image."

So, I dragged Steam to the Applications folder (my mom had to "authenticate" the transfer with a admin name/password, of course. -.-) and I convinced my mom to let me try and run steam from her (admin) account. Sure enough, after opening Steam from the applications folder on my mom's account, I get the same message that I got when trying to run Steam from the disk image. This is excellent news, because I'm not running Steam from a .dmg anymore, so I won't get any "you can't do that here" problems. Sure enough, Steam gives me a create account/login box!

To summarize, on my account, I don't get that special dialog box unless I'm running Steam through the .dmg (which is completely useless). It does appear in an admin account. Steam will only brings me to an actual login window if that special dialog box appears and is approved by an admin.

I figure that since my mom has allowed Steam to update itself by providing her name and password, the dialog box will never appear again, and Steam won't hang while I'm in my account. Just to make sure, I quit out of Steam and launch it again within my mom's account. The same stupid dialog box appears. I try again, and the same thing happens. Steam won't let me login at all until this dialog box is approved by an admin, and since the dialog box keeps coming back, I'll never be able to use Steam in my account because the dialog box never showed up in the first place.

I'd really like to log in and claim my free version of Portal. Maybe tomorrow I'll login on my mom's account and download it, then wait until Valve releases a new version of Steam. I'm really hoping I'm not the only one having these kind of problems.

[a happy song]

I reckon posting on the steam forums or contacting support directly would be of more use to you.

[smartalco]

I recommend not running Steam on your mom's laptop.

[heatwave]

Aha. Those are both very valid points, I must say. It's not my mom's laptop, she hardly uses it. It's more of what you would call a "family laptop". I will make a post on the Steam forums eventually. I'm going to hold off for now, as I might be getting my own laptop in the near future. I'm just really frustrated because I was really looking forward to running Portal natively. For free, even.

[heatwave]

I take back everything I said. Today, after restarting, no problems at all.

[Vyacheslav]

I take back everything I said. Today, after restarting, no problems at all.

The first thing I do if something is acting awry, I restart since it usually fixes your problems.

[a happy song]

The most useful line in an IT technician's repertoire: "Have you tried turning it off and turning it on again?".

[otters~1]

The most useful line in an IT technician's repertoire: "Have you tried turning it off and turning it on again?".

I dunno man, most old people can't really handle that over the phone (see: my grandparents) -- it's a great suggestion, but it doesn't help much if the techie has to be on-site to follow through with it.


Btw, Steam for Mac is fucking amazing. :3

[Luminaflare]

Btw, Steam is fucking amazing. :3

Fixed it for ya

[Zephyr]

Free earbuds hat for any person who plays tf2 on Mac, I want that hat so bad, but I don't have a mac D:

I'm going to send a complaint demanding a Windows logo tattoo for any class in TF2 for all PC owners.
Yes, it is a total bitch for me.