erkal - Yes. You locking the portafilter so hard caused some pretty nasty premature damage to the gasket, and you can also see where the shower screen and dispersion plate were tighten so hard against the gasket too. That’s really bad, specially when you consider that is only over a couple of months of ownership.
Anyway, hopefully everything will be fine now. Don’t throw that red o-ring in the bin, as it’s likely it’s absolutely fine (there’s no reason for it not to be).
So follow the advice given here and enjoy your machine. And remember, if you are over doing something, too much force, tightening etc… You are doing something wrong. And that also applies, SPECIALLY to the steam tap. You should not tighten it - it should only be closed very gently until steam stops. When the machine cools down a bit, it will drip and you then gently close until it stops. Very gently. If you overdo it, the tap will start leaking and your next replacement will be a steam tap - which is not hard to do, but it’s more costly and will require you opening the machine up.
And lastly… Make sure you are using good water, which does not scale (e.g.: not tap water from London, not tap water through a Brita filter). If you are not… Then I wish you best of luck.
PS: On your second picture… You can see it’s not completely flat. There’s a slight bevel to it.
