Steam knocked offline on Sunday by power failure

Steam was knocked offline for several hours on Sunday by a power failure at Valve's data center. The downtime forced some victims to resort to archaic forms of Sunday afternoon entertainment, such as strolling in the countryside and conversing with loved

Alice O'Connor

February 13, 2012 7:00 AM

Several hours of Steam downtime on Sunday left poor PC gamers unable to play their Steam games, caused by a power failure at Valve's data center. Initial reports suggest some of the desperate afflicted resorted to archaic and torturous forms of Sunday afternoon entertainment, including taking a stroll in the countryside, imbibing ale in a pub, and conversing with loved ones.

"Our data center's uninterruptible power supplies experienced a power failure," Valve's Al Farnsworth explained on the Steam forums. "We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused."

Over 5 million Steam users were online when the troubles began at around 10:30am Pacific on Sunday. Some members of our fine Shacknews community reported not being able to use any part of Steam, while others could apparently still play games. The servers were back up and running by about 2:20pm.

Alice O'Connor

Filed Under

From The Chatty

Refresh Go To Thread

Shacknews

 reply
February 13, 2012 7:00 AM

Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Steam knocked offline on Sunday by power failure.

Steam was knocked offline for several hours on Sunday by a power failure at Valve's data center. The downtime forced some victims to resort to archaic forms of Sunday afternoon entertainment, such as strolling in the countryside and conversing with loved
- one random winner
  
   reply
  February 13, 2012 7:03 AM
  
  I was wondering what the fuck was up. For what it's worth even though I never put Darksiders on Offline mode it started up anyways.
- [deleted] 92559685
  
   reply
  February 13, 2012 7:04 AM
  
  [deleted]
- jssap
  
   reply
  February 13, 2012 7:26 AM
  
  Its nice that you are reporting that, but why arent you reporting anything about disaster that is currently affecting D2D users (GameFly didnt move arge % of games to their clien, so players cannot download many games they paid for)???????????????
  - Alexrose
    
     reply
    February 13, 2012 7:46 AM
    
    There's a bit of a difference between "People have to wait a few hours to redownload games they've bought", and "People can't play any of their already installed games or access the Steam store or community".
    - jssap
      
       reply
      February 13, 2012 8:30 AM
      
      Steam problem lasted few hours and I was still able to play in Offline mode. GameFly is missing lots of games (for which cutomers paid money) for well over 1 month.
      
      btw.: I was not affected by D2D/GameFly problem, but I know quite a few people who were affected.
  - amrbean
    
     reply
    February 13, 2012 7:47 AM
    
    It isn't like they didn't warn you about it. And told you to back up you shit.
    - jssap
      
       reply
      February 13, 2012 8:30 AM
      
      I was not affected by D2D/GameFly problem, but I know quite a few people who were affected.
      - jonin
        
         reply
        February 13, 2012 9:21 AM
        
        The people that were affected that you know should have backed up their shit
  - Rehevkor
    
     reply
    February 13, 2012 7:49 AM
    
    This post needs more question marks.
  - Slowtreme
    
     reply
    February 13, 2012 7:51 AM
    
    what about the disaster where someone stole the characters from your post.
  - Clay
    
     reply
    February 13, 2012 7:53 AM
    
    Can somebody translate this post for me?
    - Rehevkor
      
       reply
      February 13, 2012 8:13 AM
      
      tl;dr: HERP DERP
    - squigiliwams
      
       reply
      February 13, 2012 8:16 AM
      
      http://e.images.memegenerator.net/instances/500x/14517268.jpg
  - spazzium
    
     reply
    February 13, 2012 8:35 AM
    
    I'm sure if Alice posted it, it would have same message anyway Mr. J.S.S.A.P.
  - Entity
    
     reply
    February 13, 2012 9:53 AM
    
    With a little effort, you could've got more stupid question marks into that post.
  - deathofrats
    
     reply
    February 13, 2012 10:01 AM
    
    Doesn't gamefly own shacknews?
    - Slowtreme
      
       reply
      February 13, 2012 10:05 AM
      
      LOL that's just silly. Why would a game rental company own a tranny chat forum?
      - spazzium
        
         reply
        February 13, 2012 10:12 AM
        
        tranny chat forum website of cock
- Zakko
  
   reply
  February 13, 2012 7:52 AM
  
  So Valve/Steam has a geographical single point of failure? I'm VERY surprised that they don't have two or even three redundant locations given that their business is so dependent on this one location having near 100% uptime.
  - Captain Loco
    
     reply
    February 13, 2012 8:12 AM
    
    But redundancy costs money and we've never had a problem before!
    - mobab
      
       reply
      February 13, 2012 9:29 AM
      
      so now that we have a problem, what are they going to do about it?
      
      Should they install a safety net before or after someone breaks their neck?
      - Captain Loco
        
         reply
        February 13, 2012 9:53 AM
        
        Safety nets are expensive! What are the odds that something that bad will ever happen again?
  - Begawkiness
    
     reply
    February 13, 2012 8:17 AM
    
    Yeah I'm pretty surprised by this too
    - code-e255
      
       reply
      February 13, 2012 9:58 AM
      
      I thought Steam already is fully distributed. :( I guess it's only partially distributed, with lots of slave nodes and one master (SPoF) node.
  - Lukiopimp
    
     reply
    February 13, 2012 10:35 AM
    
    Steam has several different servers around the world for content downloads, probably its mostly authentication and community features.
- rythex
  
   reply
  February 13, 2012 9:20 AM
  
  OMFG I HATE UBISOFT DRM
  
  BOO UBISOFT
  
  BOO ORIGIN
  
  omg I love steam :D
- Outrager
  
   reply
  February 13, 2012 9:43 AM
  
  So is it a requirement for every news story about downtime to include talking about how affected gamers have to go outside and socialize?
  - Alice O'Connor
    
     reply
    February 13, 2012 9:54 AM
    
    Yes, The Man revokes your license if you don't.
    
    I was honestly thinking about old-fashioned Sunday afternoon activities rather than LOL NERDS, though I suppose the outcome reads the same.
    - AgentPothead
      
       reply
      February 13, 2012 10:07 AM
      
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuYUoLM8BNA
      Next time just link that.
- Haxim
  
   reply
  February 13, 2012 10:07 AM
  
  And I thought Ubisoft's DRM was bad...
  - Lukiopimp
    
     reply
    February 13, 2012 10:38 AM
    
    Worse. Also offline mode worked for me. So there.
- Lukiopimp
  
   reply
  February 13, 2012 10:36 AM
  
  I didn't notice any downtime at all. Played JA BIA all weekend long.
- Rice-Rocketeer
  
   reply
  February 13, 2012 10:52 AM
  
  I was actually able to play Kingdoms of Amalur during the downtime, I just couldn't sync with the cloud.
- dlr(2)
  
   reply
  February 13, 2012 11:05 AM
  
  Maybe they need to look up the word 'uninterruptible'