Steam is used to distribute games online and is developed by Valve. Some of the popular games developed by Valve are Counter-Strike: Source, Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead 2 and many more… You can purchase all those games online using your credit card or Paypal and then use Steam to download the games which you’ve purchased. It is very convenient since many people have broadband connection and takes merely a few hours to download a game that is a few gigabytes. Recently many users has been having problems updating Steam, updating the game they purchased and some even to the extend of unable to download the game that they purchased at all! This is probably due to constant update releases on CS:S and TF2 which both uses the Orangebox engine forcing the players and servers to download the update.

Steam is temporarily unavailable, please try later

I bought CS:S last month when Valve briefly discounted the multiplayer shooter by 66%, making it only $6.80. When I tried downloading it a few days ago, at first it shows Updating Steam… and after a few minutes of waiting I kept on getting the error message “Steam is temporarily unavailable, please try later“. Without Steam, I could not download CS:S! Valve’s advice on how to fix this problem is to delete the ClientRegistry.blob file located in C:\Program Files\Steam\ folder and run Steam again. I tried that solution for a couple of days but it still didn’t work. I got tired of this error and decided to dig deeper to understand how Steam works so that I can manually fix this problem.

From what I read in Steam user’s forum, not everyone have this problem at the same time. Logically, Valve should have a lot of servers since they have millions of users so the probable problem is that I am routed to a server that is nearest to my location which is temporarily not working. From what I know, deleting the ClientRegistry.blob would cause the Steam to redownload it again and I also noticed that the file size increases which means there are data written into that file.

I ran Netlimiter, a very good internet traffic monitoring tool to monitor where Steam is connecting to and found that if I do not delete the ClientRegistry.blob file, Steam would always connect to the same server over and over again which obviously doesn’t work since that server is probably overloaded or down.
Change Steam Download Region
If I delete the ClientRegistry.blob file and run Steam, it would attempt to connect to a lot of servers (nearly 100) at port 27031 but weirdly it will end up with the same server that you wasn’t able to connect in the first place.

First I opened the ClientRegistry.blob with notepad and hex editor but I wasn’t able to find anything useful. Then I found a tool called ClientRegistry Toolkit which can be used to open and edit the ClientRegistry.blob file. After some trial and error I found a way to manually select which Valve servers to use.

1. Download ClientRegistry Toolkit
2. Extract and run SteamRegEdit.exe
3. Go to File > Open and open the ClientRegistry.blob file in C:\Program Files\Steam\
4. On the right pane, look for CellId, double click on it and changing the numerical value changes which region Steam connects to.
Edit clientregistry.blob
For your convenience, I have checked all of the Valve servers and listed them below. Do note that the Steam content servers below can change at any time.

1 – 209.197.20.99 (US)
2 – 69.28.153.106 (US)
3 – 69.28.153.106 (US)
4 – 87.248.209.138 (UK)
5 – 95.140.224.26 (UK)
6 – 213.8.254.150 (Israel)
7 – 194.124.229.17 (Germany)
8 – 118.107.173.24 (Korea)
9 – 203.66.135.28 (Taiwan)
10 – 69.28.151.27 (US)
11 – 208.111.140.3 (US)
12 – 68.142.100.77 (US)
13 – 87.248.209.139 (UK)
14 – 79.141.163.3 (France)
15 – 81.171.115.2 (Netherlands)
16 – 79.141.166.3 (Czech Republic)
17 – 69.28.151.170 (US)
18 – 69.28.151.170 (US)
19 – 180.87.30.226 (Australia)
20 – 208.111.182.250 (US)
21 – 202.173.128.178 (Australia)
22 – 202.173.128.178 (Australia)
23 – 69.28.151.27 (US)
24 – 193.34.49.2 (Germany)
25 – 68.142.100.77 (US)
26 – 196.38.180.3 (South Africa)
27 – 203.39.198.168 (Australia)
28 – 150.101.120.97 (Australia)
29 – 87.248.209.139 (UK)
30 – 213.8.254.150 (Israel)
31 – 67.135.39.188 (US)
32 – 203.77.185.181 (US)
33 – 203.77.190.251 (US)
34 – 180.87.30.226 (Australia)
35 – 180.87.30.227 (Australia)
36 – 180.87.30.227 (Australia)
37 – 193.34.49.6 (Germany)
38 – 79.141.160.3 (Poland)
39 – 194.124.229.17 (Germany)
40 – 193.34.51.2 (Germany)
41 – 79.141.165.3 (Denmark)
42 – 79.141.166.2 (Czech Republic)
43 – 84.2.39.194 (Hungary)
44 – 180.87.30.228 (Australia)
45 – 180.87.20.227 (Singapore)
46 – 119.167.242.111 (China)
47 – 114.80.71.113 (China)
48 – 60.19.64.122 (China)
49 – 63.150.161.165 (US)
50 – 209.197.26.242 (US)
51 – 202.173.128.187 (Australia)
52 – 180.92.199.88 (Australia)
53 – 202.173.128.178 (Australia)
54 – 202.173.128.178 (Australia)
55 – 202.173.128.178 (Australia)
56 – 202.173.128.178 (Australia)
57 – 202.173.128.178 (Australia)
58 – 202.173.128.178 (Australia)
59 – 150.101.120.97 (Australia)
60 – 202.173.128.178 (Australia)
61 – 202.173.128.178 (Australia)
62 – 95.140.224.26 (UK)
63 – 68.142.83.179 (US)
64 – 209.197.4.35 (US)
65 – 209.197.8.242 (US)
66 – 87.248.192.58 (UK)
67 – 79.141.165.3 (Denmark)
68 – 95.140.224.26 (UK)
69 – 79.141.162.3 (Ireland)
70 – 180.87.30.227 (Australia)
71 – 180.87.30.226 (Australia)
72 – 180.87.30.228 (Australia)
73 – 79.141.160.2 (Poland)
74 – 208.111.140.3 (US)
75 – 69.28.151.27 (US)
76 – 66.77.143.140 (US)
77 – 209.197.20.98 (US)
78 – Not Available
79 – 208.111.182.250 (US)
80 – 69.28.140.245 (US)
81 – 69.28.153.106 (US)
82 – 69.28.153.106 (US)
83 – 69.28.153.106 (US)
84 – 68.142.100.77 (US)
85 – 87.248.209.138 (UK)
86 – 193.34.51.2 (Germany)
87 – 81.171.115.2 (Netherlands)
88 – 79.141.167.5 (Switzerland)
89 – 194.124.229.17 (Germany)
90 – 79.141.166.2 (Czech Republic)
91 – 79.141.167.5 (Switzerland)
92 – 79.141.166.3 (Czech Republic)
93 – 79.141.166.3 (Czech Republic)
94 – 67.135.39.188 (US)

If you have the latest updated Steam and able to run it, you can easily change the download region in the Settings window. Click on Steam from the menu and select Settings. Go to DOWNLOADS + CLOUD tab and set the region. However if you’ve just installed Steam and cannot even run it because it needs to be updated first, then the only way for you to change your download region is by editing the ClientRegistry.blob file like how I’ve shown above.


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