Except I was in offline mode and offline mode gave up after a month and then broke my games when they were set to not update! I honestly don't see how you can say that feature works at all.

You're mixing stuff up. If anything broke it was the offline mode, which is known to have problems. Your games being set to not update, does not mean that you can just opt to not download the updates and play the older versions. It simply means it won't download the updates automatically, unless you try and play the game. Then it will require it.

And yes, that means that when you go online and it finds out there are updates, you'll have to download them if you want to play, whether it does that automatically or not.

Not being able to deny updates outright is probably my biggest issue with Steam. Word can spread quickly that a patch screws something up, like when the second Skyrim patch broke all resistances, but I can't deny a patch on Steam, so I end up downloading the stupid thing anyway knowing it is broken.

That said if you're in offline mode this does not happen, and again offline mode lasted 6 months for me once with no issues. So... yeah.

Offline mode still checks for updates. And as Pheace said, you can't play a game if it isn't fully updated. The only way to have a true offline mode is to disconnect your internet or use a firewall to block it.

You can right click a game and tell it not to update automatically, you'll get a notification saying an update exists but it will not go though...

as for offline mode you can get away with roughly 3 months, then your forced to re-auth to keep offline working from my experience.

That doesn't fit with the reports of people being offline for longer than 3 months.

This is why I'm interested in OldFatGuy's experiment, it should hopefully settle the argument.

It is after all possible that people are mistaken for all sorts of reasons. Steam might have changed the time it can be without internet. Also If your computer is connected to the internet for even a short time then it can re-authenticate.

I turned on my laptop and steam needed to auth had to drop in a password and all that. So now I just dont care i'll teather and offline it as i need... i still think is odd knowing all credentials and crypto stuff are saved locally why it needs to prep by doing something online to go offline.

Buying a game on super sale for like $3-10 is nothing so if i lose it. Its like buying a pizza, I can just buy it again cause I love me some pizza!

It'll only settle anything if he lasts a year without it requiring to go online. If it doesn't, it won't settle anything, it'll just prove that one person had trouble with offline mode.

The remark I quoted in this thread from a Valve employee saying it is supposed to be indefinite is too recent (a few weeks?) to assume they limited the time it can be without internet, most complaints were from before that, particularly the beta back then I think. So far, all we know is that at least they've very recently stated that Offline mode is supposed to run indefinitely, barring problems, problems we sadly know still exist with the offline mode.

I agree that "Offline Mode" will probably run fine indefinitely, baring problems and as long as you don't want to play a game that has an update. It's not truly offline though because it still re-authenticates and checks for client and game updates.

What Valve haven't commented on, to my knowledge, is how long you can use Steam without the internet.

Yes, that's precisely the issue. "Offline mode" and "Steam client being unable to connect to Valve" are two different things. I have used "offline mode" for months at a time but since my PC was always online and as it turns out was happily sending and receiving stuff during the entire time that doesn't really tell me anything.

By the way, has anyone figured out what exactly to block with the firewall to cut the connection to Steam? I have tried all kinds of things, steam.exe, steamservice, steamerrorreporter et al, it still sends data. Only blocking internet traffic entirely works. But that's a bit too much even for me.

It does not force game updates when you are in offline mode. Trust me, I know.

Yes but Offline mode clearly has a limited lifespan forcing you to go online and re-authenicate. And in this case it also broke two games I could happily play in offline mode. Now I need to download 2GB of data to get them working again. (I have in fact uninstalled them).

Well like I said, I used offline mode for 6 months straight last year. If it has changed since then I'll have to experience it for myself before I comment.

As of today I have been offline for about 3 weeks without issue, but I will have to go online tomorrow to get Shadowrun Returns.