re: The Steam Library is unstable and crashes often while leaving the rest of Steam working

[gino costa]

Hello,
Ever since the new library was added to Steam last year, the Steam library crashes once in a while, leaving the library tab totally blank and the rest of Steam unaffected. With the new downloaded update a few months ago, this was made part of the new library, meaning if the library crashes, the new downloaded also crashes. Often when it crashes, it auto recovers and comes back after a few seconds. But sometimes it just crashes and never recovers. Why is this still a problem and has not been fixed? The only way forward is to exit and restart Steam.
If there is not going to be a fix, then why is there not a button somewhere to force-restart the library yourself? I have clean install of Steam, and this is across multiple machines, all running Windows 10, all updated. This is not on my end, it's a design problem in the client. Sometimes in the middle of playing a game, I come back to the library, only to find it blank, meaning it crashed and didn't self-recover. Why is this always happening? Why can't the library be made to not crash at the first sign of a timeout or getting something online is slow? This new library is great, but it's slow and and very crash prone. Also, the downloads section where it lists games that have been updated, that should survive a client restart as welll

[Crystal Sharrd]

I've never had this happen.

[AustrAlien2010]

For testing purposes:

Go to View > Settings > Interface, and uncheck 'enable GPU accelerated rendering in web views (requires restart)'. Then press OK.

It will go slower, but see if that improves anything.

[JaredX7]

Well, it probably doesn't help either that Valve still hasn't updated Chromium since last year. The Library is using this outdated version as well. Everything in Steam uses Chromium.

Steam's Browser -
Chrome/84.0.4147.105

Maybe, just maybe, if Valve finally decides to update this, your issue with the Library might actually be magically fixed (and a security threat for everyone using Steam if Valve don't update it).

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by gino costa:

Why is this still a problem and has not been fixed?

Because it's not a common issue.

Have you tried repairing Steam? Delete everything in your steam folder except steamapps and Steam.exe. Run steam.exe and it should redownload and reinstall Steam. The Steamapps folder is where your game files are stored and so if you don't delete it you won't have to redownload your games. Try it and see whether the behaviour is still the same.

[gino costa]

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

Originally posted by gino costa:

Why is this still a problem and has not been fixed?

Because it's not a common issue.

I've done this more than once, and this issue is, as I said above, across Steam reinstallations and across machines. Also, do NOT delete the folder "userdata" as well, since this contains many saved games, and not all games have steam cloud support or would auto-redownload from the cloud.
And, yes, my machine is fast. I use an amd pc, does anyone who hasn't seen this also use amd machines? My cpu is now an amd 3900, plenty fast for any game.

As for running off an old version of chrome, why does the library, as well as the file downloader or updater use chrome, or ANY browser? The old library, which never had this issue whatsoever for me, looked like it never used any version of any browser. And before the downloader was updated to use the outdated version of chrome, even if the library crashed, I could still go into the download section and run updated games from there, before restarting Steam.
In short, this problem only started, at least for me, when Steam started using the old version of Chrome to run the library.

As for using an outdated version of chrome, even if you never see this issue, this is a security hazard, which should be fixed, and if anything, Steam should use a modified version of chrome, which is intended for clean, safe and fast operation without all the things that could allow security risks.

Also, the library, as a whole, is slow for me

[gino costa]

Originally posted by AustrAlien2010:

For testing purposes:

Go to View > Settings > Interface, and uncheck 'enable GPU accelerated rendering in web views (requires restart)'. Then press OK.

Also, I use an amd graphics card. Could Steam be having issues with an amd gpu with this old version of Chrome and the library? Could explain why the library is so damn slow for me, even without crashing

I have an update. I took AustrAlien2010's advice above and I noticed right away that I can now type the names of games and have this be faster than before. I have to see, over time, if the library still crashes or not. So far, the evidence I see points to Steam being inefficient in their code, assuming the older version of chrome is not the cause. I still fail to see why the library and especially the download section, runs off an old browser, or any browser. You would think the downloader and updater, if nothing else, would be super-efficient code, meant to be rock-solid stable and fast. Guess not. If I had written those parts of the client, I would never run them off old browsers

[AustrAlien2010]

If it no longer crashes with the option off, it could very well be a GPU driver issue. Yes. Sometimes that can be solved by updating the driver.

It is slower, because it no longer uses the GPU to render the image, instead it now uses your CPU, if you turned off that setting.

[gino costa]

Originally posted by AustrAlien2010:

If it no longer crashes with the option off, it could very well be a GPU driver issue. Yes. Sometimes that can be solved by updating the driver.

I have the latest drivers. Methinks it's a Steam issue with the old browser or something else, effect amd cards. We'll see if this continues. It's looking more and more like steam using outdated code and refusing to update this old code, which is causing this issue

[AustrAlien2010]

Updating a driver can be a solution, but you also jeopardize system stability by updating a driver.
https://www.amd.com/en/support

[grody_antagonic]

no, that is an issue I have aswell every now and then. Library page just turns totally black and inoperatable. Might have something to do with our game-count here, too much games crash the library. Yea, well, I always have to restart Steam in those cases...
It's not a driver issue, it has likely nothing to do with anything on your (or my) end, except our game-count, which is too big.^^

[JaredX7]

Normally I'd just wait until it "magically fixes itself".

I've had this exact same issue myself before, I didn't do anything and one day it just fixed itself. What's confusing is that only a few people have the issue, making it hard to diagnose.

[AustrAlien2010]

Originally posted by grody_antagonic:

no, that is an issue I have aswell every now and then. Library page just turns totally black and inoperatable. Might have something to do with our game-count here, too much games crash the library. Yea, well, I always have to restart Steam in those cases...
It's not a driver issue, it has likely nothing to do with anything on your (or my) end, except our game-count, which is too big.^^

Yes. That happpens for everyone afaik, and can't be fixed with driver updates.

The issue, (is in regard to your profile page,) is that it loads your entire software list on one page, and that it seems as if it crashes, if you have many software titles. But if you wait very long, it will continue.

Sorry. But I can't help with that.

Me neither. I can't click on your software list without having to wait a several minutes for it to load.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Things you can look into.
- Clearing cache and cookies via Steam settings then relaunch client, if it works then catch had an issue, and had to clear it.

- Following post AustrAlien2010 made #2 about checking Steam settings for interface, if things works after disabling GPU usage it's very likely a GPU driver issue as changing the render type matters a lot and narrows it down what the problem.

- Following post CrazyTiger made #4, if redownloading client fixes the issue this point to either client files are having issues, or something was corrupted, or if you have 3rd party software that interferes with other apps, might have either mess with Steam files, or it permissions to function correctly.

Originally posted by grody_antagonic:

no, that is an issue I have aswell every now and then. Library page just turns totally black and inoperatable. Might have something to do with our game-count here, too much games crash the library. Yea, well, I always have to restart Steam in those cases...
It's not a driver issue, it has likely nothing to do with anything on your (or my) end, except our game-count, which is too big.^^

Was going to say something but notice you have 3x more games than me lol, so it's a possibility what you're saying might be true if there too much games being an issue. I currently have 4k in my library, but can't compare to you in same matter since you have much more than me.

[Léon Scarlet]

It happen to me aswell sometime

[Green_Rage]

Originally posted by Crystal Sharrd:

I've never had this happen.

It always happens to me steam sucks cuz they never fix anything when they do it gets worse lazy bastards