Is anyone else's Steam client haunted since the sale began?

[Poobah Gorg]

A few hours into the Steam Summer Sale, I noticed some odd sound in the background on my PC. Sometimes the sound of a river flowing, sometimes waves crashing on a shore, other times a groaning ghost sound.

Initially I blamed my browser, I figured I had the promo video for a Steam game running in one of my Chrome tabs. I had no remaining tabs of Steam games, and none of the tabs seemed to have much in the way of obnoxious ads that play sound.

Then I thought there might be JUST ENOUGH of a Steam game I'd bought in the sale still running after I shut it down. I checked Task Manager, didn't find anything that looked like that.

Finally I came to my senses and did the one thing that could PROVE what was making the spooky noises. I ran Windows 10's Mixer app and muted every app that was making sounds one by one. Once I muted Steam via the Mixer, the noises went away. The second I unmuted it again, they started back up.

Is anyone else hearing this? Will it go away completely if I shut down and restart Steam or reboot my PC? I would've already tried this, but I've sorta taken an odd liking to the sounds. They aren't TOO loud, plus I can mute them when I want to hear my games/videos better.

But it's freaking weird, and I'm hella-curious about it. Did the devs accidentally drop in a feature that was in beta for a future Halloween sale? Or did my client just get an audio bit from a video stuck in memory and looping somehow? That'd be a very unlikely bug, IMO as a former CS major.

[Crazy Tiger]

No spooky noises here from Steam. And I live across a cemetery, so I know spooky noises.

[cinedine]

Check whether the in-built music player is running. I had it activated a few times on accident. Still don't really know how I managed it. But once the player frame is closed, you have no way of knowing it's still playing.

[R]

I haven't heard any of those sounds.

[wuddih]

Steam has a music player integrated - for whatever reason some people actually are using this -
by default it is autoscanning the music folder on your system and also Steam folders for soundtracks.

for settings:
steam settings -> music

and view -> music player
for the player

[Poobah Gorg]

Messaggio originale di cinedine:

Check whether the in-built music player is running. I had it activated a few times on accident. Still don't really know how I managed it. But once the player frame is closed, you have no way of knowing it's still playing.

Thanks, that was exactly what it was. Yeah, I don't recall ever having touched that thing by choice. I don't have any idea how that could've started itself up. Odder still that instead of actual MUSIC it was a handful of eerie sound effects that kept on looping for the past few days.

NOW I think I know why the interweb tubes seem to have been a bit clogged over the past few days. When I went to the music player it said it was streaming it. Oof!

[Coffee]

Its ghosts.

[Poobah Gorg]

Actually it's various sound effects from one of my Warhammer games, pretending to be "music." I had forgotten about the forest and desert sounds, though once I played those tracks by choice it was very familiar!

If the player isn't bugged somehow to come on at random from time to time, I probably accidentally triggered it via an undocumented keyboard shortcut to the player that Valve forgot to document? That last one is currently the theory I'm favoring.

[Cellmember]

Hear that Scoob. GHOSTS!!!!!!

[wuddih]

Messaggio originale di Poobah Gorg:

I probably accidentally triggered it via an undocumented keyboard shortcut to the player that Valve forgot to document? That last one is currently the theory I'm favoring.

Steam will react to media keys on your keyboard.

[Poobah Gorg]

That's probably what did it. I think I hit the the Play/Pause button while trying to adjust the volume.