FAQ and troubleshooting
Questions are grouped by topic. If you do not find an answer, also check the Glossary and How trading works.
The Market tab item status (Ready / Skipped) and the Diagnostics block on the System tab answer most “why is this not trading?” questions. See How to read a rejection reason.
Product and risk
Is SteamMarketRunner a Steam Market bot?
People often search for a “Steam Market bot”; SteamMarketRunner should be understood as a configurable automation runner for your own Steam accounts, not a stealth tool or a way to remove account risk. No automation can promise protection from account restrictions, market losses, or changes by Valve. SteamMarketRunner is independent and not affiliated with Valve or Steam.
Does SteamMarketRunner promise returns or Steam account safety?
No. SteamMarketRunner automates workflows you configure, but it does not provide financial, legal, or platform-policy advice. Use conservative settings, max exposure limits, and delays between actions before scaling live trading.
Connecting a Steam account
The account does not become Ready
Check that all secrets are present: Steam login, password, maFile, and a valid proxy. Local/private proxy addresses are rejected by SSRF protection. Also make sure the first synchronization has completed.
The account became Blocked
Most often, the Steam session expired and auto-reconnect failed (session_expired or auth_failed).
What to do:
- Open the account System tab.
- Verify that the maFile, password, and proxy are current and reachable.
- If you changed the password or Steam Guard, export a fresh maFile.
- After fixing the issue, click Start trading again.
The session expired — do I need to do anything?
Usually no. The system tries to reconnect automatically using the maFile. Manual action is needed only when reconnect fails, typically because the maFile or password is outdated.
Steam cooldown / microban — what should I do?
Nothing. A microban is a temporary Steam rate limit. The dashboard shows a Steam cooldown chip with a timer. The runner pauses this account and resumes automatically when the cooldown expires. Avoid bulk actions during the cooldown.
Buying
A buy order is not placed
Possible reasons, visible in the item status tooltip:
- exposure limit was reached (
maxOrderExposureor balance gate); - the depth gate rejected the queue at your price;
- the price cannot satisfy the profit floor;
- wallet balance is unknown, so buying fails closed for safety.
See Trading settings for the related fields.
Buying is paused
Steam reported full inventory or insufficient funds. Buying pauses temporarily, while selling continues to free inventory and funds. The pause expires automatically.
Selling
An item is not listed
The most common reason is a market hold: recently received items cannot be listed yet. Held copies are marked with 🔒 in the Own column. Wait until the hold expires; the item can then sell automatically. See Inventory and holds.
If there is no hold, inspect the Market status tooltip.
Own shows 0, but the item exists in Steam
The item is not tracked yet. Click Import inventory on the Market tab to scan Steam inventory and add missing catalog items. Imported items start with BUY/SELL disabled.
I want to list everything now
Use List all. It schedules one throttled sell pass for all suitable items, bypassing the normal small-per-tick limit while still placing real Steam listings safely.
The sell price looks too low
You are looking at net: the amount the seller receives after Steam fees. The buyer pays gross, which is higher. This is expected.
What is repricing and “remove from sale after N days”?
These are hourly maintenance operations:
- Repricing removes a listing whose price drifted from market price by more than
repriceDeviationPercent; the next sell cycle relists it at a fresh price.0disables repricing. - Remove from sale after N days removes live Steam listings older than the configured threshold. It is off until set.
Money and notifications
Which currency is used?
Trading calculations use each Steam account’s wallet currency. Cross-account totals in the cabinet use your selected display currency and market conversion; this does not affect real orders.
Inventory value on the dashboard is 0
Usually this is temporary: price snapshots or currency synchronization have not caught up yet. If it persists, check that the account wallet currency is known; unknown currency intentionally skips analysis to avoid writing prices in the wrong currency.
How do I configure notifications?
Account alerts can be delivered to Telegram and/or a webhook. Configure them on the Notifications tab:
- Fill Telegram chat ID and/or Webhook URL.
- Choose minimum severity: Info, Warning, or Error.
- Save and enable alerts.
At least one delivery channel is required before alerts can be enabled. Critical events such as runner blocks are delivered regardless of the severity threshold. Webhook URLs are stored encrypted and are not shown again in plaintext.
What does a paid plan add?
The Free plan lets you connect up to 100 Steam accounts for setup, read-only portfolio visibility, and strategy configuration, but it includes 0 live runner accounts. Free does not place new market exposure or run live buy, sell, reprice, cancel, or list-all automation. Upgrade to a paid plan such as Pro/Business before enabling live runner actions; paid plans also raise limits for decision-job volume, market-data sync frequency, and deeper catalog analytics. The active plan and limits are shown in the cabinet; the platform administrator manages plan definitions.
Diagnostics
How to read a rejection reason
Look in two places:
- Status column on the Market tab. Hover Ready or Skipped to see the item-level verdict and reason.
- Diagnostics on the System tab. Shows account-level blocks such as session problems or live-mode safety gates.
Typical item reasons:
| Reason | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Sell price is not calculated yet | price snapshots are still warming up |
| All copies are under market hold | wait for Steam hold release |
| No marketable asset for listing | no free non-held copy can be listed |
| Already listed | an active listing already exists |
| Exposure limit reached | maxOrderExposure or balance gate blocked buying |
| Buy-order queue too deep | ordersPlace depth gate fired |
| Insufficient wallet balance | not enough funds |
| Current filters reject the item | not eligible due to profit, liquidity, trend, or other filters |
| Sticker/float guard blocked it | CS2 protection fired |
I changed settings — why did nothing happen immediately?
The runner works in cycles: trading tick is about 5 minutes; maintenance is about 1 hour. New settings apply at the next analysis and depend on available price snapshots. Steam connection, wallet sync, inventory sync, and analysis are automatic background jobs.