Attempting to download newer trailers causes infinite loop of pop-up messages

[stevethepocket]

When I click the Download button for some videos, a small message box pops up that says "Scanning for Steam games updates... with a ghosted Cancel button. About once a second it momentarily changes to "Checking for updates" and back, stealing focus from any other windows as it does so. The box is permanently on top of all other windows, and clicking any other Steam client window produces the error chimes. The only way to make it stop is to right-click the system tray icon and click Exit Steam.

So far, it seems to happen only to newer videos, with the cutoff date being somewhere between "Meet the Demoman" and "Meet the Scout".

System Info:

Processor Information:
    Vendor:  GenuineIntel
    Speed: 2400 Mhz
    4 logical processors
    4 physical processors
    HyperThreading:  Unsupported
    FCMOV:  Supported
    SSE2:  Supported
    SSE3:  Supported
    SSSE3:  Supported
    SSE4a:  Unsupported
    SSE41:  Unsupported
    SSE42:  Unsupported

Operating System Version:
    Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS (64 bit)
    Kernel Name:  Linux
    Kernel Version:  3.2.0-29-generic
    X Server Vendor:  The X.Org Foundation
    X Server Release:  11103000
    X Window Manager:  KWin
    Steam Runtime Version:  steam-runtime-release-i386_2013-04-16

Video Card:
    Driver:  ATI Technologies Inc. ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series

    Driver Version:  3.3.11672 Compatibility Profile Context
    Desktop Color Depth: 24 bits per pixel
    Monitor Refresh Rate: 60 Hz
    VendorID:  0x1002
    DeviceID:  0x944a
    Number of Monitors:  1
    Number of Logical Video Cards:  1
    Primary Display Resolution:  1920 x 1080
    Desktop Resolution: 1920 x 1080
    Primary Display Size: 20.91" x 11.77"  (23.98" diag)
                                            53.1cm x 29.9cm  (60.9cm diag)
Primary VRAM Not Detected

Sound card:
    Audio device: Realtek ALC1200

Memory:
    RAM:  3954 Mb

Miscellaneous:
    UI Language:  English
    LANG:  en_US.UTF-8
    Microphone:  Not set
    Total Hard Disk Space Available:  487728 Mb
    Largest Free Hard Disk Block:  385470 Mb

[stevethepocket]

Whoa. Turns out Windows has this issue too, or something related. When I try to play videos that are in my media library, the same pop-up appears. It doesn't steal focus from non-Steam windows (probably for the same reason that Steam's tooltips don't cover them), but it does lock up the entire app, including the system tray menu. I have to kill the process from the Task Manager. This is happening on two separate machines. Here's the one that has the dual-boot:

Processor Information: Vendor: GenuineIntel Speed: 2394 Mhz 4 logical processors 4 physical processors HyperThreading: Unsupported FCMOV: Supported SSE2: Supported SSE3: Supported SSSE3: Supported SSE4a: Unsupported SSE41: Unsupported SSE42: Unsupported

Network Information:
    Network Speed:  

Operating System Version:
    Windows 7 (64 bit)
    NTFS:  Supported
    Crypto Provider Codes:  Supported 311 0x0 0x0 0x0

Video Card:
    Driver:  ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series

    DirectX Driver Name:  aticfx32.dll
    Driver Version:  8.961.0.0
    DirectX Driver Version:  8.17.10.1124
    Driver Date: 5 Apr 2012
    Desktop Color Depth: 32 bits per pixel
    Monitor Refresh Rate: 60 Hz
    DirectX Card: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series
    VendorID:  0x1002
    DeviceID:  0x944a
    Number of Monitors:  1
    Number of Logical Video Cards:  1
    No SLI or Crossfire Detected
    Primary Display Resolution:  1920 x 1080
    Desktop Resolution: 1920 x 1080
    Primary Display Size: 26.65" x 15.00"  (30.55" diag)
                                            67.7cm x 38.1cm  (77.6cm diag)
    Primary Bus Type Not Detected
    Primary VRAM: 1024 MB
    Supported MSAA Modes:  2x 4x 8x 

Sound card:
    Audio device: Speakers (High Definition Audio

Memory:
    RAM:  4095 Mb

Miscellaneous:
    UI Language:  English
    Microphone:  Not set
    Media Type:  DVD
    Total Hard Disk Space Available:  988836 Mb
    Largest Free Hard Disk Block:  328196 Mb
    OS Install Date: Dec 31 1969
    Game Controller: None detected

And here's the second computer. (I don't know why LogMeIn overrides the video driver information.)

Processor Information:
    Vendor:  GenuineIntel
    Speed: 3192 Mhz
    4 logical processors
    2 physical processors
    HyperThreading:  Supported
    FCMOV:  Supported
    SSE2:  Supported
    SSE3:  Supported
    SSSE3:  Supported
    SSE4a:  Unsupported
    SSE41:  Supported
    SSE42:  Supported

Network Information:
    Network Speed:  

Operating System Version:
    Windows 7 (64 bit)
    NTFS:  Supported
    Crypto Provider Codes:  Supported 311 0x0 0x0 0x0

Video Card:
    Driver:  LogMeIn Mirror Driver

    DirectX Driver Name:  aticfx32.dll
    Driver Version:  7.1.542.0
    DirectX Driver Version:  8.17.10.29
    Driver Date: 22 May 2006
    Desktop Color Depth: 32 bits per pixel
    Monitor Refresh Rate: 60 Hz
    DirectX Card: ATI Radeon HD 5670
    VendorID:  0x1002
    DeviceID:  0x68d8
    Number of Monitors:  2
    Number of Logical Video Cards:  2
    No SLI or Crossfire Detected
    Primary Display Resolution:  1280 x 1024
    Desktop Resolution: 2560 x 1024
    Primary Display Size: 17.80" x 14.21"  (22.76" diag)
                                            45.2cm x 36.1cm  (57.8cm diag)
    Primary Bus Type Not Detected
    Primary VRAM: 3 MB
    Supported MSAA Modes:  2x 4x 8x 

Sound card:
    Audio device: Speakers (Realtek High Definiti

Memory:
    RAM:  8119 Mb

Miscellaneous:
    UI Language:  English
    Microphone:  Not set
    Media Type:  DVD
    Total Hard Disk Space Available:  942685 Mb
    Largest Free Hard Disk Block:  567761 Mb
    OS Install Date: Dec 31 1969
    Game Controller: None detected

Again, the cutoff for which videos will play and which will crash Steam is somewhere between when "Meet the Demoman" and "Meet the Scout" came out.

[dizietsma]

i get this on all my steam installations at the mo, the offending videos are tagged as 'preload complete' and highlighting them gives me a 'purchase' option which when i select gives me the pop-up described above, i also have to kill using task-manager, i tried removing an offending video and re-selecting from the store, i can view the video on the page for it, but clicking on the 'download' button for it (to add to my media library) results in the pop-up appearing, in this case the offending video (amongst others) was 'meet the medic'

[stevethepocket]

I got an email that someone at Valve asked:

Can you post a link to the trailer download button ? Downloading hires video trailers is not supported anymore.

But I guess it was deleted. Just in case, here is one page that has such a link (right under the trailer pane, to the right). It's the first trailer that caused the issue, in fact.

If you're serious about the media download feature being unsupported, you should remove the Media library listing from the client in the next update, as well as removing the download button from the store template, so this won't happen to people anymore.

[dizietsma]

the download button is in the steam client, how do i post a link for that? also, how sad that i can't collect hi res versions of the trailers for my fave games, i liked that :( plus also, the link posted by stevethepocket above also launched steam in linux, i didn't know that woked! :) it then attempted to produce the loop of pop-ups, something was flashing on screen, the steam client never materialised, but the systray icon appeared and the only thing i could do was 'killall -9 steam' in krunner

diziet

[stevethepocket]

Hate to be That Guy, but is there any action on this? The download links are gone from the website, but the Media tab still exists in the client, and attempting to watch existing videos through it still causes this crash. The Media tab and the video player ought to be removed since it is no longer a functional feature.

[stevethepocket]

I'm gonna close this because the July 2 patch finally removed the Media tab and the link I posted above no longer has a download button that I can see.