Steam prevents launching Blender by double clicking Blender files.

[JCUDOS]

Anyone else getting this issue?

The solution I found is to open Blender through Steam then manually open the file from Blender.

Is there a better work around?

If not I'll install Blender the regular way.

[◢ k r i s ◤]

Steam doesn't control Blender in anyway. Opening Blender from Steam is done with the Steam URI, which isn't designed to handle loading files and is basically the equivalent of a website shortcut. Use the Blender binary for file associations on your system, not the website shortcuts.

[JCUDOS]

Thanks for the input but it did not resolve the issue @◢ k r i s ◤
Would have been kind of a derpy default to associate those file types to a shortcut that can't launch from files.

Steps attempted to resolve the issue:
1. Right clicked on a Blender 2.8 file.
2. Selected "Open with..."
3. Navigated to the blender.exe file in "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Blender\blender.exe"
4. Double clicked blender.exe

Result: The app launches for half a second and immediately closes.

[◢ k r i s ◤]

Well, you'll have to find out more information then. If it's opening then closing, something is happening. Can you load it from shell with --debug to find why Blender might be failing to open with the file loaded at start? It doesn't sound like it has anything to do with Steam, either way.

[JCUDOS]

The issue is not present when I install Blender normally. It happens only when I install it through Steam... kinda seems like it has something to do with Steam to me.

Anyway, it would seem the issue is likely more complicated to fix than I had hoped and I've already spent too much time on this.
For now, the simplest and seemingly most time efficient solution is still to cut Steam out of the equation.
I'll re-install through Steam when I'm less in a rush and take time to debug if the issue is still present.

Thanks for trying to help.

[Mika]

I can open the files with double click, with or without having Steam open, blender opens normally.

Verify the integrity of the files, try cleaning temporary, registry entries and stuff, as a last delete completely blender including the configuration folder (if you have configured your way, plugins and other things will be lost).

I don't know if you use Windows or Linux. Sometimes it can be simply Windows, because it's Windows. Yesterday my Windows was stupid saying that he didn't know how to open HTML files. I've been working with HTML all week and now it tells me that it doesn't know what HTML is?

[JCUDOS]

Too true, Windows can be a pain.

Thanks for the info @Mika

I'll give your solutions a try when I have a bit more time on my hands.

[JCUDOS]

Yes! Found the issue.

Apparently my computer didn't like having both 2.79 and 2.8 installed. Not sure why installing through Steam had an effect, maybe because of the install target drive. Anyway, problem solved

[Mika]

It's weird, I have Blender 2.79b installed outside of Steam and 2.81 installed in Steam and when open blend with double click, the most current version is preferred (2.8x).

Well, if you've already solved, great :D, that's fine in case someone has similar problems to try your solution, although most likely they make a new post, people have a bad habit of NOT using the search engine.

[Sanctuary]

it is better to open blend files from blender directly, for me it helps to avoid ui layout issues and has more options

[JCUDOS]

@Mika
Yup, weird. Even after uninstalling 2.79 and telling Windows to use 2.8, the issue persisted (until I rebooted) and .blend files didn't even have the Blender logo as thumbnail, as if Windows couldn't see it was installed.

@Consequence of Eternity
In most cases there's no difference between both methods of opening but it's good to know there are additional options that can be toggled: "Load UI" and "Trusted source"
I'll try to remember it in case I have layout issues in the future. (Click the cog in the upper right corner of the Blender file browser to see the options if someone comes across this and wonders.)