I troubleshot for hours and could not find anyone citing this specifically. Let me explain.

If you have NordVPN installed (even if the app isn't running) you may periodically get stuck in NO CONNECTION. Everything else on your computer may work fine internet-wise, but you can't go online in steam unless you restart (or go offline then online again within steam).

I don't know what is going on behind the scenes to make this happen, but I was able to reproduce this on my laptop. Uninstalling nordvpn on my desktop immediately resolved the issue. My guess is the Nordlinx ethernet adapter is doign something screwy (it is uninstalled when you uninstall NordVPN).

So if you have been dealing with the aggravation of randomly getting disconnected and not being able to reconnect, AND you use NordVPN... this may be what is happening. I'm basically sending out a message in a bottle here, but I hope someone out there on the internet can be helped by this knowledge.