"Steam is having trouble connecting to the Steam servers"

My worst nightmare has come, yesterday I was playing Trackmania: Stadium and the game crashed on me, causing me to force quit the game back to desktop, then Steam does the cloud sync as normal, but this time it stays at 0% for around 5 minutes, I'm unable to launch any game at all, so I decide to log out and log in again, only now I get the dreaded message written above.

Here are the solutions I've tried thus far:

Deleted the .blob. file.

Reinstalled Steam.

Deleted all folders accept for Steamapps and the launcher.

Deleted every single file and folder, reinstalled.

Tried offline mode, doesn't work.

Tried running as Admin.

Restored to previous version.

Turned off windows firewall.

Turned off anti-virus.

Used Norton removal tool to get rid of unnecessary Norton files.

Troubleshoot several times.

Restarted Modem.

Disabled and enabled router.

None of those have worked, I submitted two tickets to Steam support but I haven't received a reply yet, the only two things I think I can do now is reinstall the router or connecting to the modem without the router, I ideally don't want to do this as I don't have an Ethernet cable so I'd have to buy one, this is really strange it's never happened before and my router's never given me trouble before so I'm stumped.

I'm using Windows 7 by the way.

Any ideas? Thanks.

If you can surf the web, as in submit tickets to Steam, then it is not your Internet Connection that is causing the issue. Besides, the last thing you ever want to do is connect directly to a cable modem bypassing the router. A public IP on your laptop or PC is just an open door to every bit of malware and spyware on the web.

I've looked all over for more solutions to this, and one solution that a few people have tried and successfully worked is connecting to their modem via cable, there's pretty much nothing more I can do as far as I'm aware

Looking at server logs, Steam servers were down (or the db couldn't update properly) between 10:00PM and 12:00AM on Sunday into Monday (GMT), so 5:00PM to 7:00PM Eastern.

http://steamdb.info/graph/0/

Ask your self these two questions:

1. Was it working before connected through the router?

2. Did you change anything on the router before it quite working?

If you answer Yes, then No, then leave your router alone. Routers can have firewalls on them, and those firewalls can blocks services like Steam. But, they do not work one minute, then start blocking the next, unless you changed something. You can certainly try to bypass the router, but you need to turn on your Windows Firewall to be safe. Then you have something else that can be blocking the service, so a false positive.

In other words, there is no need to tear something apart that was working just because something else no longer works. Look for the easy answer first, in this case, Steam was down for maintainence. BTW, this is one reason I never use the Steam Cloud or Synch, because if I have to, I can play Off Line and Steam server issues do not affect me.

Yes it was working fine through the router and I haven't changed anything.

It must be a problem on Steams end, when it's fixed (assuming it ever is) I will definitely turn off the cloud sync crap, it always seems to freeze Steam now and then.

Why does it have to be a problem on Steam's end? I can think of a million problems not on steam's end (and also not exactly on your end) that could be the problem.

Maybe the default route your router/ISP likes for Steam's game servers is having issues

Maybe your ISP's DNS is failing to resolve the Steam Game Server (Being able to connect to their website and support site doesn't mean you can resolve every Steam domain).

You can start off by changing your DNS records to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4, flush your DNS cache, and see if it works then.

Please do not exaggerate an instruction for network troubleshooting such as bypassing the router. This is actually stated as part of the steps by Steam Support.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1456-EUDN-2493

Be aware that it is not necessary for users to do anything for something to change that causes network issues. For example, antivirus updates can knock out Steam connection. I have had this happen more than once. Internet connection still works but not Steam. Problems can also occur for other reasons (see suggestions on Steam Support for possible causes, including things such as drops in wireless signal strength and ISPs doing maintenance without informing anyone including their support staff).

Steam Cloud works like any other cloud service, so there's no reason to avoid using it. Like any cloud service, you should also have local copies in addition to the cloud copies.

Would you say I need to change the DNS records for both TCP/IPv4 and TCP/IPv6?

IPv4 alone should be fine.

Most likely Steam doesn't have IPv6 addresses yet, and even if it does, it's unlikely you can resolve them.

No good I'll wait for a reply to my submitted ticket.