Ray Marden wrote on Apr 15, 2012, 15:57:
Was Steam running before or after you lost internet access? I don't know if they ever bothered to fix this, but the program previously could only go either offline or online mode at startup and could not switch after being launched.
The offline mode is there, but not handled well.
Otherwise, contrary to what it claims, some actions (typically authentication, certain points of updating, some patching) do require online status before they can go any further.

Glad that it at least pre-fills my age on restricted materials now,
Ray