Wondering how you can fix ‘An unexpected error has occurred’ error from the Steam store?
Buying a new game is a feeling that never gets old. Whether you’re purchasing your first-ever Steam game or buying the second title of a franchise that you love, adding that game to your library is always exciting.
Unfortunately, if you’re reading this article, you must be trying to fix ‘an expected error has occurred’ error from the Steam Store. You’ll usually encounter this problem when Steam monitors your account for any fraudulent purchasing behavior, to protect your account and money.
In this article, we’ll go over multiple methods that you can use to try and alleviate this issue. Hopefully, either of these methods should fix your problem and get you back to purchasing your game!
Let’s get started.
- 1. Check The Status Of Steam’s Servers.
- 2. Contact Steam’s Customer Support.
- 3. Try Purchasing Again.
- 4. Disable Any Running VPNs.
- 5. Try A Different Payment Method.
- 6. Purchase A Steam Wallet.
1. Check The Status Of Steam’s Servers.
Before you begin changing and reconfiguring your settings, let’s make sure that your problem is not an isolated case. Checking for the status of Steam’s servers can save you a lot of time and unnecessary effort.
If Steam’s servers are currently experiencing problems, lag, is under maintenance, and so on, then chances are you won’t be able to fix the problem on your end. You’ll have to wait until the server becomes less congested or finally works normally.
You can check for Steam’s server status on unofficial Twitter pages or on Steamstat. Either of these sources is a great way to verify if Steam’s servers are taking a hit. Steamstat is also a good place to check for server issues for specific games that you’re playing.
Another favorite of ours is Downdetector which is a community-based website that monitors and tracks reports made by Steam users. The Downdetector community makes a report whenever the server has hiccups like this. With that, you’ll be able to see the number of reports per hour.
Judging by the number of reports or comments, you’ll be able to assess if other people are having the same problem you’re currently experiencing. If the problem is widespread, it’s safe to assume that it’s a server issue.
2. Contact Steam’s Customer Support.
We know that it’s kind of cliche to redirect you to the customer support of the company you’re having problems with. Unfortunately, it’s inevitable that some problems can only be fixed by a dedicated support team.
If your account has been acting suspiciously, it’s not an uncommon problem for Steam to halt or monitor your purchases with your safety in mind. Knowing this, you should make a customer support ticket as soon as you can since the support team does take a while to respond.
You can monitor or expect a response time by referring to their official response time datasheet. Contact Steam’s customer support by following the instructions here.
Finally, while waiting for a response, feel free to go ahead and try to fix your problem. Hopefully, you’ll be able to purchase your game before Steam’s support team even responds.
3. Try Purchasing Again.
Brute force methods sometimes work and now would be a good time to apply them. Just like the previous method, Steam’s servers can suffer from performance hits from time to time. This is especially common during sales.
Additionally, your internet connection could also be compromising your purchasing experience. Trying to purchase the game again is a good method to try. Doing so will eliminate the probability that the error is a result of a short-term connectivity issue.
Just to be safe, feel free to cancel all your pending transactions on the off-chance that the purchase was actually made despite the error. Here’s how you can check and cancel any pending transactions that were made by your account.
4. Disable Any Running VPNs.
Being safe and secure is a privilege that everyone should be able to afford. While keeping yourself secure in real life with surveillance cameras is a great investment, online security has also become a rising concern.
VPNs are now a commodity item that helps users browse and protect their information online. By masking your personal IP behind a VPN server, a good fraction of your personal information is protected from browsers and other applications.
Unfortunately, VPNs are considered a high-network configuration that was associated with hackers and online terrorists. Since VPNs hide your personal data and leave you virtually traceless, this was a popular network configuration that kept hackers hidden.
Due to this, VPNs are usually blocked by high-security servers just like Steam. This is a great way to keep your account safe from hackers, on the off-chance that your account gets hacked and logged through a VPN server.
All, if not most, VPN programs are coded uniquely and interfaced differently. As a result, we will be unable to provide a general list of steps to help you disable your VPN program. Do a quick Google search for your VPNs instructions or ask a family member to help you disable your VPN program.
5. Try A Different Payment Method.
Using a different payment method is a great way to troubleshoot and bypass this problem. More often than not, Steam will deliberately monitor or halt purchases made from your primary billing method if your account has been suspicious.
You can try to use a PayPal account, a different credit or debit card to make your purchase to see if that makes any difference. Here’s how you can attach a different payment method to your Steam account.
After adding a different payment method to your account, go ahead and purchase the game you were having trouble with. Hopefully, that helped you fix ‘an ‘unexpected error has occurred’ error from the Steam store.
6. Purchase A Steam Wallet.
Further expounding on the previous method, you can also try buying a Steam Wallet instead of directly paying from your credit card. While this might feel like a hassle, it can save you in pinch situations where a sale is about to end and your game still hasn’t been purchased.
A Steam Wallet is a digital wallet made exclusively for Steam’s Store. Think of it as a gift card but for yourself. With this, you should be able to buy your game since there is no longer a need for a complex transaction process.
Here’s how you can purchase a Steam Wallet:
- Start by opening up the Steam app on your computer and logging into your account.
- From there, click on your profile at the top-right corner of your screen and select Account details.
- Now, click on +Add funds to your Steam Wallet and select the amount that you’d like to deposit to your Steam Wallet.
- Choose the appropriate billing method that you want and proceed to check out. Just follow the prompts until you can confirm your purchase.
Once you’re done with that, your Steam Wallet should now have the necessary funds to purchase your game. Look for and buy the game that you were having problems with, then see if that solves the problem.
If you’ve exhausted all the methods above and have had no luck so far, you may be stuck with having to wait for Steam’s customer support. They should configure your account to allow the purchase to make it through their servers.
That about wraps up this article. We hope to have helped you fix ‘an unexpected error has occurred’ error from the Steam store. If you have any questions or clarifications, feel free to leave a comment down below.
If this guide helped you, please share it. 🙂
