Question What can Generic Failure mean?

[frej4189]

So after wrapping my mind around a problem I've had for a lot of time, I've come to ask here to maybe get some clearance.

I am currently working on a bot that requires me calling methods outside of steam, and it initially seemed to be working.

However, after some time, it has started to quite randomly return error 2 (GenericFailure), and sometimes it does not.

The only thing I can think off was Steam logging the account out and requiring a relogin (it buys from steam store, which I know to sometimes require a relogin).
However, making the account relogin did not seem to solve the problem, and I still occasionally get GenericFailure returned.

So my question is: What can be this error be caused by?

I have found that the wrong request method might be causing it, but I do have the correct method, so that will not be the case.

What else? I know this might be a gray area, but if anyone has any idea, that would be great.

Although this question is very general, I will supply the code which it fails on in case that could give you a clue about what is wrong:

 

request.post("https://store.steampowered.com/checkout/inittransaction/", {
								form: {
									gidShoppingCart: shoppingCart,
									gidReplayOfTransID: -1,
									PaymentMethod: "steamaccount",
									abortPendingTransactions: 0,
									bHasCardInfo: 0,
									CardNumber: "",
									CardExpirationYear: "",
									CardExpirationMonth: "",
									FirstName: "",
									LastName: "",
									Address: "",
									AddressTwo: "",
									Country: "",
									City: "",
									State: "",
									PostalCode: "",
									Phone: "",
									ShippingFirstName: "",
									ShippingLastName: "",
									ShippingAddress: "",
									ShippingAddressTwo: "",
									ShippingCountry: "",
									ShippingCity: "",
									ShippingState: "",
									ShippingPostalCode: "",
									ShippingPhone: "",
									bIsGift: 1,
									GifteeAccountID: accountid,
									GifteeEmail: "",
									GifteeName: "Client",
									GiftMessage: files.getConfig().message,
									Sentiment: "Best%20Wishes",
									Signature: files.getConfig().signee,
									ScheduledSendOnDate: 0,
									BankAccount: "",
									BankCode: "",
									BankIBAN: "",
									BankBIC: "",
									TPBankID: "",
								        bSaveBillingAddress: 0,
									gidPaymentID: "",
									bUseRemainingSteamAccount: 1,
								        bPreAuthOnly: 0,
								        sessionid: bots[bot].sessionid,
							                snr: snr
							        },
							        json: true
							}

The body which is returned looks like so:

 

{ success: 2, purchaseresultdetail: 0, paymentmethod: 0, palpaltoken: null, transid: null }

Edited August 7, 2018 by frej4189

[Dr. McKay]

If you make too many purchase attempts (i.e. when testing things) then Steam will lock you out of future purchase attempts for an unknown (but long) period of time.

[frej4189]

If you make too many purchase attempts (i.e. when testing things) then Steam will lock you out of future purchase attempts for an unknown (but long) period of time.

This happens very on/off though, 1 time it works, and then the next attempt 30 seconds after will work fine, there is no wait between things working and not working.

 

Additionally, this can also happen at the first try in a day, week or even in the month.

 

It happens very randomly, and it always works when attempting to buy normally (on https://store.steampowered.com/, manually).

[Dr. McKay]

You might just try retrying.