I just had something terrifying happen and thankfully that moment, which lasted a lot longer than it should have but felt like it lasted longer than it really did, is no longer present. I fixed it.
So here is what happened.
I noticed that Loadout, an MOFPS (is that a thing like MMORPG?) akin to in look and style to Team Fortress 2, except that that I have never played Loadout, was in the process of auto downloading a patch. Not a large patch by todays standards either as it was only around 34-40 MBs. I noticed it this last night (5/20/2014) and thought nothing of it until a few hours later when I noticed that the Steam client was no longer open. Again, I did not think anything of it as sometimes Steam will download its own firmware update and restart or simply close down after an update. Nothing too out of the ordinary.
This afternoon however (Wednesday 5/21/2014), I became somewhat afraid. I tried to open Steam only to have the little icon down there at the bottom of the screen become slightly highlighted for a few seconds, then it closed down immediately after. A second try left Steam open and I noticed that something was in the process of downloading. I was a little surprised to see that Loadout was either downloading a new update or the first one did not take. I saw that it was again the 34-40 MB update and that it would not take too long so I let it be and went to do something else. A few minutes later I noticed that Steam was again closed down. Again I opened the program only to be presented with a window a few seconds later telling me that "Steam Client Bootstrapper has stopped working."
After an pseudo-intensive search online, I discovered that "Steam Client Bootstrapper" is the way that games are updated and installed using the Steam Client. Various fixes I had read for this problem ranged anywhere from closing down Steam and simply restarting to "deleting everything in your Steam folder except Steam.exe and the Steamapps folder then reinstalling Steam." This last option seemed like a terrifying decision that I was not ready to make. For starters, I restarted my computer incase there was some sort of miscommunication after either Steam or Windows downloaded an update.
Then, Steam refused to open. At all. Nothing.
But then it did open and I quickly went to Loadout knowing that something to do with the games update was causing this problem; I did not "know" know, but I just knew. I clicked on Loadout and went down to "Delete Local Content" as fast as I could before Steam decided to close again. That was when the program froze. After I was able to Ctrl-Alt-Dlt the program closed, I went to my control panel, opened the Uninstall tab, found Loadout and proceeded to uninstall the program. After a few seconds, Steam opened up with their own uninstalling window then promptly closed down.
I sat in silence for a few seconds/minutes wondering if I had done the right thing. Maybe what I did would cause Steam to somehow not realize that the program was uninstalled and when opened would try again to download the update for the game that no longer existed, be confused and close itself down due to some kind of error that I do not understand. I do not know if computers actually work/think this way, but this is what my brain was telling me could happen. Thankfully, it did not happen.
In the end, I am not entirely sure what was going on with the Loadout update/patch/download and not having played the game before I had no qualms about uninstalling it and I probably will not reinstall it either, even if this was a one time fluke. I even checked the forums for Loadout through Steam's webpage and did not see anything regarding what happened to me.
I am not sure if this story has a moral, so I guess let this be a tale of caution?
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Instrumental
P.S. In end-of-the-week news, Krillbite Studios will be releasing their Kickstarted game Among The Sleep next week on the 29th. If you have recently joined us, there is an article I wrote last year regarding the pre-alpha release of Among the Sleep. Happy weekend.
After an pseudo-intensive search online, I discovered that "Steam Client Bootstrapper" is the way that games are updated and installed using the Steam Client. Various fixes I had read for this problem ranged anywhere from closing down Steam and simply restarting to "deleting everything in your Steam folder except Steam.exe and the Steamapps folder then reinstalling Steam." This last option seemed like a terrifying decision that I was not ready to make. For starters, I restarted my computer incase there was some sort of miscommunication after either Steam or Windows downloaded an update.
Then, Steam refused to open. At all. Nothing.
But then it did open and I quickly went to Loadout knowing that something to do with the games update was causing this problem; I did not "know" know, but I just knew. I clicked on Loadout and went down to "Delete Local Content" as fast as I could before Steam decided to close again. That was when the program froze. After I was able to Ctrl-Alt-Dlt the program closed, I went to my control panel, opened the Uninstall tab, found Loadout and proceeded to uninstall the program. After a few seconds, Steam opened up with their own uninstalling window then promptly closed down.
I sat in silence for a few seconds/minutes wondering if I had done the right thing. Maybe what I did would cause Steam to somehow not realize that the program was uninstalled and when opened would try again to download the update for the game that no longer existed, be confused and close itself down due to some kind of error that I do not understand. I do not know if computers actually work/think this way, but this is what my brain was telling me could happen. Thankfully, it did not happen.
In the end, I am not entirely sure what was going on with the Loadout update/patch/download and not having played the game before I had no qualms about uninstalling it and I probably will not reinstall it either, even if this was a one time fluke. I even checked the forums for Loadout through Steam's webpage and did not see anything regarding what happened to me.
I am not sure if this story has a moral, so I guess let this be a tale of caution?
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Instrumental
P.S. In end-of-the-week news, Krillbite Studios will be releasing their Kickstarted game Among The Sleep next week on the 29th. If you have recently joined us, there is an article I wrote last year regarding the pre-alpha release of Among the Sleep. Happy weekend.
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