To fix this problem, head to your steam folder and delete the folder called "userdata". In my personal case, that can be found at: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata Delete the "userdata" folder, restart steam, and you should no longer have problems joining servers. You'll be required to re-enter the account protection code which they'll send to your email address. Thanks go to complete_lamer and Ducky for searching around and finding this solution. EDIT: It seems an easier solution is to delete the file in Steam\config\config.vdf You may have to re-enter the steam verification on restart but other than that, it should work fine. EDIT2: Siro also reported that deleting userdata/[number related to account]/config/localconfig.vdf will also work, but won't force you to re-enter the verification code on restart. Use whichever method you want. EDIT3 01/01/2013: Seems the problem might be back, but in a different capacity. The old "delete clientregistry.blob and restart steam" trick seems to work for this one.
I just tried this and it made me download over 1.4 gig skyrim data that I already had before. (and european steam servers all suck today ) SO, the method may be working but still is a DIRTY WORK AROUND.
okay, I understand what was the reason for all the redownloading, steam had links to language files in the userdata folder. Now I download another 1.6 gig of german Skyrim data. Should have noticed that earlier..
No guarantees against any side effects The more precise cause for the problem seems to be with in userdata/[number related to account]/config/localconfig.vdf which has a section containing app tickets, but also a section with the language settings for the installed apps. Editing/removing just the tickets section could (maybe) avoid those problems, but I'd guess it's a bit more complicated to do for most people... Still makes me wonder why it redownloads your content, in my case the userdata folder was recreated on next steam login, without any downloads - aren't there different .gcf files for the languages anyway ?
atleast skyrim uses NCFs (No Cache File ) and somehow seems to throw the other language away when I change it. Even though there are some txt files for localisation, the "Skyrim - Voices.bsa" gets simply overwritten when you change laguage. Pretty stupid, since that file is 1.3 gig in size.
Thank you Complete_Lamer and Ducky for finding solution for this issue. It solved the problem for me too.
1.3gb might be the very reason they do it ... because to be honest, it's damn much on your pc for something you shouldn't need ever again after changing your language once.
Urethra, I had the same problem (again) today, and the above fixes didn't work. There's another thing you can try that worked for me, and that is delete ClientRegistry.blob (found in your Steam folder) and restart Steam.
ffs why does this problem keep coming back? I changed the message sever to say about the client registry blob file instead.
Hello, Can't connect to a server today... Invalid Steam User ID... I tried everything: deleted the "userdata" folder, Steam\config\config.vdf and Steam\clientregistry.blob, but nothing works, problem still here... I never had that issue before.
Seems to have just come back today. Every time we find one solution, it pops up again and the old one doesn't work.
Try clicking on 'change user' in steam to log out and then log back in with user name and password again. That used to fix it for me ages ago.
This mod has too many errors and it never finishes closing when I exit and try to play another game, Im just going to delete it
I'm having too much trouble with the game, So I just uninstalled it, Sadly, Its a fun game and I thought it looked cool but I was having too much trouble with the steam ID and my steam folder is in a different folder