There is a problem with Deserialization after the new steam client.

[calvan12]

Hello, i am trying to edit loginusers.vdf in steam files. But i found out that after the new steam client, they probably changed their vdf settings. (I am new at coding so i don't know the details but i make a lot tests and found out that something is changed.)

Before the new steam client, i was deserializing loginusers.vdf, change few settings and Serialize it. It was working nicely. But after the new steam client it was not working anymore. As example when i change something in the loginusers.vdf steam just hanging on connecting to account "account-name"...

After long days of testing, i found that before the Deserialization, loginusers.vdf looks like this;
"\"users\"\n{\n\t\"\"\n\t{\n\t\t\"AccountName\"\t\t\"\"\n\t\t\"PersonaName\"\t\t\"Dom\"\n\t\t\"RememberPassword\"\t\t\"0\"\n\t\t\"WantsOfflineMode\"\t\t\"0\"\n\t\t\"SkipOfflineModeWarning\"\t\t\"1\"\n\t\t\"AllowAutoLogin\"\t\t\"1\"\n\t\t\"MostRecent\"\t\t\"1\"\n\t\t\"Timestamp\"\t\t\"1670281542\"\n\t}\n}\n"

And after the Deserialization if you convert it to string, it looks like this;
"\"users\"\r\n{\r\n\t\"\"\r\n\t{\r\n\t\t\"AccountName\" \"\"\r\n\t\t\"PersonaName\" \"Dom\"\r\n\t\t\"RememberPassword\" \"0\"\r\n\t\t\"WantsOfflineMode\" \"0\"\r\n\t\t\"SkipOfflineModeWarning\" \"1\"\r\n\t\t\"AllowAutoLogin\" \"1\"\r\n\t\t\"MostRecent\" \"1\"\r\n\t\t\"Timestamp\" \"1670281542\"\r\n\t}\r\n}\r\n"

When you compare them, you see that steam only uses \n but after Deserialization they replaced to \r\n. I make a research and found out this.
\n is for Unix, \r is for Mac and \r\n is for Windows.

It seems like they using unix now. And deserialization doesnt work as usual. Is there any way to fix this problem ? I try to change vdfSerializerSettings but it didnt work.

[shravan2x]

After you modify loginusers.vdf, could you open the file in a text editor like Notepad++ and replace "\r\n" with "\n"? Does Steam open correctly?

[calvan12]

@shravan2x I try to open it with notepadd++ but it shows them as CR and LF, instead of "\r" and "\n" and they are not editable. Or i dont know maybe i am too noob for this things. 😭

[calvan12]

But when i change something in loginusers.vdf manually with notepad, steam opens correctly.

[shravan2x]

In Notepad++, you can use the "Find and Replace" tool to replace them.

[calvan12]

@shravan2x Ok, I try it but no its not fixing the problem. After deserialization and serialization there is something changing and this vdf file doesnt work anymore. Because as i said before, if i change the loginusers.vdf file manually by editing with notepad, Steam works fine. Otherwise it just hanging on this forever.