Are links to Discussion etc from games in the Library page broken only for me?

[Hackomatique]

Did all the links to game Discussions, Store Page, etc, stop doing anything for everyone else, or only for me?

[ShelLuser]

What's the exact error you got?

[Hackomatique]

I'm running the Steam program on Windows 7. I go to Library, select a game, and see a line of links:

Store Page Community Hub Discussions ...

Those link highlight when I hover my pointer over them, but clicking them has no result whatsoever.

That's the error. They should bring me to appropriate pages like this one.

[ShelLuser]

First issue: Windows 7. That OS hasn't been updated for months if not whole years by now. Considering the constant updating of Steam that could be your overal cause.

[Hackomatique]

That seems almost certainly not the issue, to me, but thanks for suggesting something.

[Tharon]

Originally posted by ShelLuser:

First issue: Windows 7. That OS hasn't been updated for months if not whole years by now. Considering the constant updating of Steam that could be your overal cause.

No.
OSes should be stable and only updated for security reasons.
Not updating Windows 7 with new features makes it a stable operative system, unlike 10 that break things almost every time it get an update.
So no, Windows 7 works great. Stop spreading FUD and blame Windows 7 for everything happens.

@Hackomatique
I had your problem once. It was caused by Steam trying to load a big list of games of an user, locking down all Steam shortcuts for more than 10 minutes.
Did this issue occour every time you launch Steam or only in specific occasions ?

[KillahInstinct]

Originally posted by Tharon:

Originally posted by ShelLuser:

First issue: Windows 7. That OS hasn't been updated for months if not whole years by now. Considering the constant updating of Steam that could be your overal cause.

No.
OSes should be stable and only updated for security reasons.
Not updating Windows 7 with new features makes it a stable operative system, unlike 10 that break things almost every time it get an update.
So no, Windows 7 works great. Stop spreading FUD and blame Windows 7 for everything happens.

Windows 7 support ended january 14th. That makes it an unstable and unsecure OS by definition.

I doubt it caused this issue, but it is possible. Not upgrading an OS every now and then is even worse.

[Tharon]

Originally posted by KillahInstinct:

Originally posted by Tharon:

No.
OSes should be stable and only updated for security reasons.
Not updating Windows 7 with new features makes it a stable operative system, unlike 10 that break things almost every time it get an update.
So no, Windows 7 works great. Stop spreading FUD and blame Windows 7 for everything happens.

Windows 7 support ended january 14th. That makes it an unstable and unsecure OS by definition.

I doubt it caused this issue, but it is possible. Not upgrading an OS every now and then is even worse.

You drive a car ? Your car doesn't became unstable only because isn't updated.

Updates are used to fix bugs and patches security holes, or add new features. A not updated OS is simply "frozen" in its state, and can't become more unstable or stable that that.
Windows 7 is stable now as it was one year ago. Nothing changed, so nothing can went wrong.

It can happen that new software can have compatibility issues caused by missing libraries (Microsoft aren't providing some new libs in order to force W7 to be obsolete) but if a software was working ok in windows 7, then that software will continue to work ok in windows 7.

Blaming Windows 7 for every thing caused by software is only spreading FUD.

[KillahInstinct]

I wouldn't compare a car to an OS.

If you think a not updated OS is in a frozen state and new exploits aren't found (and unfixed) I don't think a career in cyber security is on the table for you ;)

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by KillahInstinct:

I wouldn't compare a car to an OS.

If you think a not updated OS is in a frozen state and new exploits aren't found (and unfixed) I don't think a career in cyber security is on the table for you ;)

In fact, an OS with an unpatched flaw is even more so at danger. Microsoft doesn't rebuild Windows from scratch for every release so when Windows 7 goes out of support and MS releases a patch for Windows 8/10, chances are, there's a similar code path in 7. Bad actors reverse-engineering patches using them as target guidance for exploits ain't news. That of course applies to still-supported OS' as well, running a supported but unpatched OS is more dangerous for that reason.

[Tharon]

Originally posted by KillahInstinct:

I wouldn't compare a car to an OS.

If you think a not updated OS is in a frozen state and new exploits aren't found (and unfixed) I don't think a career in cyber security is on the table for you ;)

Yup, but if you think that not updated OS became magically unstable don't think to a career in software development ;)

Jokes apart, i didn't say that exploits can't be found, but that is a security issue and should not to be confused with a stability issue.
Picture this : Windows XP went out of support in 2009, but Steam supported it until a couple of years ago, and no one blamed XP for issues found in Steam.
Now Windows 7 went out of support only six months ago, but every time a Windows 7 user report an issue, there is always someone (who usual don't know how OS works) putting the blame on Windows 7. I saw someone doing this only a week after W7 went out of support.
Think about it.

[Tharon]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Originally posted by KillahInstinct:

I wouldn't compare a car to an OS.

If you think a not updated OS is in a frozen state and new exploits aren't found (and unfixed) I don't think a career in cyber security is on the table for you ;)

In fact, an OS with an unpatched flaw is even more so at danger. Microsoft doesn't rebuild Windows from scratch for every release so when Windows 7 goes out of support and MS releases a patch for Windows 8/10, chances are, there's a similar code path in 7. Bad actors reverse-engineering patches using them as target guidance for exploits ain't news. That of course applies to still-supported OS' as well, running a supported but unpatched OS is more dangerous for that reason.

Still talking about security ? A recap : The OP is reporting a strange behaviour of Steam, another user blamed Window 7 for this. Taking about security is a straw man argument.

[KillahInstinct]

Originally posted by Tharon:

Originally posted by KillahInstinct:

I wouldn't compare a car to an OS.

If you think a not updated OS is in a frozen state and new exploits aren't found (and unfixed) I don't think a career in cyber security is on the table for you ;)

Yup, but if you think that not updated OS became magically unstable don't think to a career in software development ;)

Jokes apart, i didn't say that exploits can't be found, but that is a security issue and should not to be confused with a stability issue.
Picture this : Windows XP went out of support in 2009, but Steam supported it until a couple of years ago, and no one blamed XP for issues found in Steam.
Now Windows 7 went out of support only six months ago, but every time a Windows 7 user report an issue, there is always someone (who usual don't know how OS works) putting the blame on Windows 7. I saw someone doing this only a week after W7 went out of support.
Think about it.

Neither did I say that. While an unpatched OS brings both security and stability issues, it -can- break stuff because for example it uses a technique that isn't supported anymore or has evolved.

As I said, I don't think that's the case here but just excluding the option because an OS that isn't updated is magically not broken, perfect and in stasis/limbo forever, is not really understanding how different (software and hardware) parts are intertwined.

Afaik Steam still supports Win7, but that doesn't mean something is more likely to break over time with a dwindling userbase.

Anyway, I don't know (or care) for people that blamed <something> in the past that you disagree with, and I don't think we're helping this user fix his issue at all - your personal issues with Win10 and believe in a perfect Win7 aside - so feel free to come up with an alternative theory that might fix his problems.

Personally I'm thinking restarting the Steam client / refreshing cache might do the trick.

[Tharon]

I've already found myself in the user situation, both on 7, 10 and Android. It can be caused by Steamwebhelper trying to build an huge page and doing so froze itself until finishing to do the work,(and consuming a great amount of CPU/GPU and Ram.

It can be replicated by visiting a Steam user's game page with a large amount of games, like this one :

https://steamcommunity.com/id/FunkeymonkeyTTR/games/?tab=all

[ShelLuser]

Originally posted by Hackomatique:

That seems almost certainly not the issue, to me, but thanks for suggesting something.

First... the reason I came up with this is because there have been quite a few changes in the so called 'web engine' of Windows and the Steam client is using that engine. You can see an example of this if you check the properties of a game icon (place one on your desktop using the library if you don't have one). You'll notice that the start command is "steam://rungameid/" which is a URL which simply uses a different protocol ('steam' vs. 'http' or 'https').

I'm not 100% how this works internally (if you click on a link in your library you're taken to the page in the same window) but I doubt that Steam would use different mechanics 'just because'. Therefor I think there's a good chance that this stopped working because of changes in the web engine.

My suggestion would therefor definitely be to consider an upgrade to Windows 10 in order to rule out these issues. Although it's true that 10 performs regular updates (and even OS updates which can change things every 6 months or so) it's plain out nonsense that this results in a less stable OS. Been running Windows 10 for quite 1,5 years now (finally upgraded from 7 in January last year) and never had any crashes or other icky things happening. Definitely nothing weird caused by updates.



Alas, some people suggested caches. I doubt this to be the cause simply because a cache isn't used when clicking URL's, that process would only start once the page is being loaded and that begins when you're moved to a blank window, soon to be filled with the store page.

Even so, you don't know until you tried. There are 2 ways you can handle this.

• Open your Steam client settings (right click on the system tray icon and select "Settings").
  
• Select the 'web browser' tab and delete the web browser cache.
  
• Try again.

For reasons shared above I seriously doubt that this will work (but can't be sure), but if this doesn't work then I'd suggest to clear out all caches...

• Stop the Steam client (right click on the system tray icon and select 'Exit').
  
• Open your file manager and go to: "%APPDATA%\..\local\steam\htmlcache" (no "").
  
• It should be safe to empty the folders "cache", "code cache" and "gpucache".
  
• Start the Steam client again and give it another try.

It's a cruder method but this will clear every kind of caching, including ones done by the software itself. Although this shouldn't cause any problems (in theory) you might want to move these folders out of the way just to make sure (move them to a temp folder or your user folder and remove them once Steam normally started).


But before you go there... open the "Interface" tab in that same settings overview I mentioned earlier, check for options such as "Enable DirectWrite..." and "Enable GPU accelerated rendering in web views". I'd especially suspect that last option to be a possible cause of issues on an outdated OS.

Hope this can help.

[Tharon]

Originally posted by ShelLuser:

Originally posted by Hackomatique:

That seems almost certainly not the issue, to me, but thanks for suggesting something.

First... the reason I came up with this is because there have been quite a few changes in the so called 'web engine' of Windows and the Steam client is using that engine. You can see an example of this if you check the properties of a game icon (place one on your desktop using the library if you don't have one). You'll notice that the start command is "steam://rungameid/" which is a URL which simply uses a different protocol ('steam' vs. 'http' or 'https').

Your assumptions are wrong; Windows doesn't have a "so called" web engine. It came with a web browser application, Internet Explorer on 7 and Internet explorer (now retired) and Edge on 10.
Steam has his own embedded browser (based on CEF) and doesn't use the browser that came with Windows.

You can install Steam in a slipstreamed version of Windows (using nLite) with the internal browser removed, and it will work as the same.

The OP probably only need to clear the web cache, as you said.