Steam Auth Failure - an Insight and possible solution

[stanto]

I installed and tried to run Defcon on my home PC. I got the message 'key invalid' and that it was now running in 'demo mode'.

This's a mirror thread of one I posted on the steam forums just for coverage, I made a new thread just to draw attention to this new 'idea'/'observation'

I'm sorry if this has been mentioned before, but I created a new thread because most of the others appear to be mainly a drowning of "I have this problem too".

I have ran this game before in the past but since deleted it from my computer; in this time frame however I had also played it at work.

After sending a support ticket to Steam and also posting on the Introversion forums (and being passed between the two sites by both tech supports - the introversion site now links to a steam forum page that's dead) I have happened upon an observation.

I realised that at work I still had an authkey file from when I used to play it there. The debug.txt also listed it as working.

I re-installed Defcon at work and low, I got a 'key revoked' message. Steam then deleted the key and gave me a new one!

The key is now accepted. I backed up the file and deleted the authkey and all Defcon data, Steam now happily re-downloads/acquires the new key and verifies Defcon as working. I have yet to try the game at home to see if it accepts and automatically acquires this new key - but so far it seems happy.

So in light of this, it appears that the way Defcon and the Steam authorisation works is that if you have a 'redundant' key still associated with your account, it needs to invalidate or manually 'revoke' it before it'll issue you a new one (and it has to take this from an actual file/your client and not from what's stored remotely).

It's this 'catch' that is preventing people or at least me in this case, from playing the game and being issued demo keys as in part of the hand-shake process you're not giving the auth servers the old key so that it can revoke it and give you a new one (when the servers are expecting it).

As if to say 'oh, this isn't the key we're expecting from you (that we need to revoke), you're not legitimate' - have a demo key.

So if you've played elsewhere, try to get that authkey file, or at least, your old key.

I've yet to see whether or not this authkey , or in fact Defcon will work at home. I'm assuming it'll be transferrable automatically like it was to work.

[stanto]

An update;

So I returned home to my copy of Defcon.

Code: Select all

Defcon 1.43 steam built Jul  2 2007
Parsing archive main.dat...DONE
WinSock started
Client listening on port 5011
Parsing Coastline data (1776 islands) : 26ms
Parsing International data (2753 islands) : 11ms
Parsing City data (2745 cities) : 19ms
Parsing archive sounds.dat...DONE
Failed to load AuthKey : 'authkey'
Authentication key set : 'authkey not found'
WinSock started
Connection established to MetaServer, listening on Port 5009
Steam Authentication Initiated
Steam Authentication : Starting Steam
Requesting data from MetaServer : LatestVersion
Requesting data from MetaServer : MOTD
Steam Authentication : Starting Steam API
Received data from MetaServer : LatestVersion
Received data from MetaServer : MOTD
Steam Authentication : Logging On To Steam
Steam Authentication : Getting Steam Id
Steam Authentication : SteamID = 76561197963676960
Steam Authentication : Getting Encryption Details
Received Authentication : authkey not found : (keyID -1) : Key invalid
Key failed basic check : authkey not found (result=Key invalid)
Requesting data from MetaServer : UpdateURL
Received data from MetaServer : UpdateURL
Requesting data from MetaServer : sb
Received data from MetaServer : sb
Steam Authentication : Getting Steam2 Auth
Steam Authentication : Getting Steam3 Auth
Steam Authentication : Requesting Authentication
Steam Authentication FAILED
Authentication key set : 'DEMOMY-PRCYEZ-LOQRIR-HELYLG-ZBO'
Requesting data from MetaServer : DemoLimits
Received data from MetaServer : DemoLimits
CLIENT : Disconnected
Disconnected from MetaServer


So I then delete the Authkey - Steam sits on 'requesting authentication' for ages.

Code: Select all

Defcon 1.43 steam built Jul  2 2007
Parsing archive main.dat...DONE
WinSock started
Client listening on port 5011
Parsing Coastline data (1776 islands) : 26ms
Parsing International data (2753 islands) : 11ms
Parsing City data (2745 cities) : 27ms
Parsing archive sounds.dat...DONE
Failed to load AuthKey : 'authkey'
Authentication key set : 'authkey not found'
WinSock started
Connection established to MetaServer, listening on Port 5009
Steam Authentication Initiated
Steam Authentication : Starting Steam
Requesting data from MetaServer : LatestVersion
Requesting data from MetaServer : MOTD
Received data from MetaServer : LatestVersion
Received data from MetaServer : MOTD
Steam Authentication : Starting Steam API
Steam Authentication : Logging On To Steam
Steam Authentication : Getting Steam Id
Steam Authentication : SteamID = 76561197963676960
Steam Authentication : Getting Encryption Details
Received Authentication : authkey not found : (keyID -1) : Key invalid
Key failed basic check : authkey not found (result=Key invalid)
Requesting data from MetaServer : UpdateURL
Received data from MetaServer : UpdateURL
Requesting data from MetaServer : sb
Received data from MetaServer : sb
Steam Authentication : Getting Steam2 Auth
Steam Authentication : Getting Steam3 Auth
Steam Authentication : Requesting Authentication
Steam Authentication FAILED
Authentication key set : 'DEMOUB-SILINK-BQQZDV-QVDEFM-BMQ'
Requesting data from MetaServer : DemoLimits
Received data from MetaServer : DemoLimits
CLIENT : Disconnected
Disconnected from MetaServer


I copy over the Authkey with the one that successfully downloaded at work (this is all done today).

Authentication goes straight from 'unknown' to 'accepted'

Code: Select all

Defcon 1.43 steam built Jul  2 2007
Parsing archive main.dat...DONE
WinSock started
Client listening on port 5011
Parsing Coastline data (1776 islands) : 26ms
Parsing International data (2753 islands) : 11ms
Parsing City data (2745 cities) : 14ms
Parsing archive sounds.dat...DONE
Authentication key set : 'STEAMX-[b]FULL-CODE-OMMITTEDBYUSER[/b]'
WinSock started
Connection established to MetaServer, listening on Port 5009
Steam Authentication Initiated
Steam Authentication : Starting Steam
Requesting data from MetaServer : LatestVersion
Requesting data from MetaServer : MOTD
Steam Authentication : Starting Steam API
Received data from MetaServer : LatestVersion
Received data from MetaServer : MOTD
Steam Authentication : Logging On To Steam
Steam Authentication : Getting Steam Id
Steam Authentication : SteamID = 76561197963676960
Steam Authentication : Getting Encryption Details
Requesting authentication of key STEAMX-[b]FULL-CODE-OMMITTEDBYUSER[/b]
Received Authentication : STEAMX-[b]FULL-CODE-OMMITTEDBYUSER[/b] : (keyID [b]FULL-CODE-OMMITTEDBYUSER[/b]) : Accepted
Authentication HashToken set to [b]FULL-CODE-OMMITTEDBYUSER[/b]
Requesting data from MetaServer : UpdateURL
Received data from MetaServer : UpdateURL
Requesting data from MetaServer : sb
Received data from MetaServer : sb
Steam Authentication : Getting Steam2 Auth
Steam Authentication : Getting Steam3 Auth
Steam Authentication : Requesting Authentication
CLIENT : Disconnected
Disconnected from MetaServer


So while at work; I had my old key which was revoked. I was then given a valid new one at work. At home I can't retrieve my new key nor can I get out of demo mode, but it accepts the Authkey file that I used at work.

Details of debug.txt from work just before key was revoked

Code: Select all

Defcon 1.43 steam built Jul  2 2007
Parsing archive main.dat...DONE
WinSock started
Client listening on port 5011
Parsing Coastline data (1864 islands) : 13ms
Parsing International data (2753 islands) : 14ms
Parsing City data (2745 cities) : 19ms
Parsing archive sounds.dat...DONE
Authentication key set : 'STEAMW-[b]FULL-CODE-OMMITTEDBYUSER[/b]'
WinSock started
Connection established to MetaServer, listening on Port 5009
Steam Authentication Initiated
Steam Authentication : Starting Steam
Requesting data from MetaServer : LatestVersion
Requesting data from MetaServer : MOTD
Steam Authentication : Starting Steam API
Received data from MetaServer : LatestVersion
Received data from MetaServer : MOTD
Steam Authentication : Logging On To Steam
Steam Authentication : Getting Steam Id
Steam Authentication : SteamID = 76561197963676960
Steam Authentication : Getting Encryption Details
Requesting authentication of key STEAMW-[b]FULL-CODE-OMMITTEDBYUSER[/b]
Received Authentication : STEAMW-[b]FULL-CODE-OMMITTEDBYUSER[/b] : (keyID [b]FULL-CODE-OMMITTEDBYUSER[/b]) : Accepted
Authentication HashToken set to -[b]FULL-CODE-OMMITTEDBYUSER[/b]
Requesting data from MetaServer : UpdateURL
Received data from MetaServer : UpdateURL
Requesting data from MetaServer : sb
Received data from MetaServer : sb
Steam Authentication : Getting Steam2 Auth
Steam Authentication : Getting Steam3 Auth
Steam Authentication : Requesting Authentication
Steam Authentication Accepted : FULL GAME USER
Authentication key set : 'STEAMW-[b]FULL-CODE-OMMITTEDBYUSER[/b]'
Steam Authentication FAILED
Client dropped by server
CLIENT : Disconnected
Disconnected from MetaServer


So there's evidently a problem in key retrieval; key revokation's working though. Auth server connectivity has issues.