Need Help with Steam, cant open the program

[frozentundra123456]

Hi, hope some one can help me.

I have used steam for several years with only minor and occasional glitches. However, recently I have been unable to open up the steam client at all. When I try to open the program (Steam), it starts to load, then an error box pops up that says "fatal error, cannot load platform" or something like that. This happend first yesterday night after updates to steam were automatically downloaded. I have a desktop with an E4500, 3gb ram, 9800GT, Vista Home Premium 32 bit.

Is anyone else having this kind of problem after the new interface/updates were installed?
It is very frustrating because I cannot play any steam games at all, since perversely, in order to start offline mode, you have to be connected to steam. I e-mailed Steam customer support but have not recieved a reply. I have tried running the program as administrator, turning off my antivirus, and restarting the computer. Nothing helps.

So, can anyone on the forums help me? If so I will really appreciate it. We are having this problem on another comp running windows 7 too. Could it be related to our router somehow?(Both comps use the same router).

(An aside on a lighter note: does anyone else hate the "fatal error" message as much as I do?? We get it on our equipment at work, but it gives no indication at all of what went wrong. Yes, my machine running stat clinical samples just crashed, "fatal error" duh?? you think??. Just tell me what is not working dammit.)

 

[KeithTalent]

Did you try this: http://supportwiki.steampowered.com/wiki/Fatal_Error:_Failed_to_load_platform_modules

KT

 

[TreyRandom]

Happened to me as well. I simply moved my apps folder to somewhere safe, uninstalled/reinstalled Steam, and copied that apps folder back. I can't remember what the folder is named, but you should be able to find it relatively easily.

 

[Boobs McGee]

Just had the same problem. First time I have actually had my laptop connected to the internet in almost 3 months. Steam started updating. I get the new login screen and then it wouldn't login. So i killed it in task manager. After that I started getting the modules error. I saw the same page KT linked to above. That didn't help me because the registry key was already there. I tried clearing it and still no luck.

I ended up just pulling out the steamapps folder, uninstalling steam and then reinstalling steam. Once you are done installing and updating steam, run steam once. Then exit and check task manager to make sure its not running anymore. Now replace all your games from the steamapps folder. There is also a subfolder with your steam username. You will want to put that over also. The only file I did not copy back was the winui.gcf. Steam can create a new one for you.

It looks like it is working now. Its downloading updates for a few games. I haven't tried playing any yet though. It better still work in offline mode after this because I won't have my laptop on the internet for another month and a half.

 

[Larries]

I deleted steam.dll and let it repatch itself and it worked.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I got it to work finally also. I backed up my steam folder just in case. Then I reinstalled steam, but when it installed the new program, I checked "repair" instead of replace. I didnt even have to restore any saved game files.

I could not find a language option in the registry at all, and I followed the path stated in the link. Anyway, reinstalling solved the problem.

 

[Boobs McGee]

The new steam decided that I can't play any of the Company of Heroes in offline mode now. It says it can not contact the key server or something along those lines. Apparently the new Steam decided it needed to make sure all my games were real again. It also won't let me play Defense Grid because it was downloading the dlc but didnt finish before I lost my connection. So now that I don't have an internet connection till the middle of next month, four of my games can't be played.

 

[KeithP]

Go into your "Steam" folder (with Steam not running) and move/delete "ClientRegistry.blob", then start Steam. That should solve the problem.

-KeithP

 

[Infohawk]

I had this problem with company of heroes. I just checked the game cache and it solved the problem. (I did have an internet connection.)