My only comment here is that the trail in the article and the conclusion don't quite make sense (well, they do, but you've kind of glossed over it slightly):
> The way Counter-Strike is started: the blame factor is 90%
But also:
> We could confirm that players world wide are facing the issue outside of Esportal and thought it indeed is caused by some maintenance in the middle of the night in Washington.
Those can't both be true.
If the blame is 90% about the way counter strike is started, then the issue wouldn't be distributed over the maint window.
Rather, it seems like this is the key part that should be highlighted in the summary:
> So the last thing that happens before the game loop is started is that the Steam ID validation is initiated.
> When the initialization of levelload is incomplete (speak: CS2 has not been fully loaded/initialized), the Steam3 validation is never initiated because it is the last thing that loop wants to do.
Which is to say, that when the `steam3` server is as slow as balls during a maint window, it makes this take longer, which means you're more likely to interrupt the loop by starting a game.
So when you say:
> The way Counter-Strike is started: the blame factor is 90%
It's true.... but maybe it's also true to say:
> State of the moon: blame factor is 3% Maybe the advice should also be: 'and give is an extra couple of minutes during 13-17 PM CET, because Value does maint in that window'
...if I understood that correctly. :)
Either way, this has happened to me, but this 'just wait a while and let it finish loading' solution is by far the most useful sensible advice about it I've ever heard. Fantastic stuff.