"steamwebhelper.exe, a critical Steam component, is not responding. The Steam UI will not be usable." Whenever I minimize or close Steam

[Everyone's #1 Fangirl]

Hey, ever since the new update whenever I close the steam application, I cannot right-click the icon in the system tray like I previously could to open Steam or my recently played games. Additionally, media that was playing in the store tab continues to play when I close the window.

An error that I saw in the top (I can only see it sometimes) was "error reference: shared steam ui_8129386_9daf4491b6a68bb3 cannot read property top of undefined"

[Everyone's #1 Fangirl]

I found a fix for this posted in this discussion thread: https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/0/6516193260168858474/

It's extremely irritating, but it does in fact work perfectly. Media that was still playing in the store tab still plays when it is closed however, and steam itself will create that display error if you right-click that system tray menu while it is open

[Archael]

Its a common issue with the newest steam client, you were able to use the older one with -vgui launch command but it seems like it also broke a few days ago...
At least it doesn't seem to happen on my desktop pc with better specs.

[Msooby]

yes the client has several issues including this one, also steamwebhelper in general uses too much memory

[Neo]

I had this happen to me yesterday at random, first time ever seeing it happen. I had to close and open the steam app a few times before it went back to normal. Wasn't it meant to be fixed?

[Fangi]

Getting the exact same issue, very often will the steamwebhelper just flat out refuse to let Steam load. I've had to reinstall Steam so many times, disable firewall, remove the bin file, set exceptions in firewalls for Steam and steamwebhelper, literally nothing works. Someone said it was actually Windows updates screwing with it, which it was.. kinda.

Now Steam loads sometimes, with that error popping up, but I'm still able to use Steam. Only problem is that it's permanently in offline mode, can't set myself to online, change status, nothing.

[Ocha]

Exact same thing happened to me this morning, had to reinstall and then put the whole app in Windows defender exceptions...

[🆉🅰🅸🅶]

happened randomly to me today ....

[Свёкла]

I have an extremely modern laptop and this issue still got to me. Damn

[Guapscotch]

Found a solution for "steamwebhelper not responding" popping up endlessly when launching steam on windows 10. Uninstall steam (change steamlibrary folders to different names and save your userdata folder that has your screenshots and steamapps folders by moving them somewhere else temporarily if you want to keep them and also not have to redownload games). I also recommend deleting the C:\Users\"yourusername"\AppData\Local\Steam folder as well just to make sure you are being thorough.

After uninstalling steam, do a clean reinstall to PROGRAM FILES, do NOT install into PROGRAM FILES (x86). For some reason the february 27th, 2024 update broke my steam folder functionality in program files (x86) [which is crazy considering my steam has been in program files (x86) for over 10 years just fine. Doing a clean install into program files instead was the only solution I found, or honestly any folder that isn't the program files (x86). Not really sure why x86 would break it unless the feb 27 update changes how the software is read.

Make sure you rename the folders and move the userdata and steamapps / steamlibrary folders back to where they were so you don't have to reinstall the games. Hopefully this solution helps, it was the only thing that helped me after being locked out of my steam for 3 weeks.

[bidulless]

Originally posted by Everyone's #1 Fangirl:

Hey, ever since the new update whenever I close the steam application, I cannot right-click the icon in the system tray like I previously could to open Steam or my recently played games. Additionally, media that was playing in the store tab continues to play when I close the window.

An error that I saw in the top (I can only see it sometimes) was "error reference: shared steam ui_8129386_9daf4491b6a68bb3 cannot read property top of undefined"

Originally posted by Rube:

I have an extremely modern laptop and this issue still got to me. Damn

hello
Are you running steam under linux ?

[bidulless]

Originally posted by Rube:

I have an extremely modern laptop and this issue still got to me. Damn

Originally posted by Guapscotch:

Found a solution for "steamwebhelper not responding" popping up endlessly when launching steam on windows 10. Uninstall steam (change steamlibrary folders to different names and save your userdata folder that has your screenshots and steamapps folders by moving them somewhere else temporarily if you want to keep them and also not have to redownload games). I also recommend deleting the C:\Users\"yourusername"\AppData\Local\Steam folder as well just to make sure you are being thorough.

After uninstalling steam, do a clean reinstall to PROGRAM FILES, do NOT install into PROGRAM FILES (x86). For some reason the february 27th, 2024 update broke my steam folder functionality in program files (x86) [which is crazy considering my steam has been in program files (x86) for over 10 years just fine. Doing a clean install into program files instead was the only solution I found, or honestly any folder that isn't the program files (x86). Not really sure why x86 would break it unless the feb 27 update changes how the software is read.

Make sure you rename the folders and move the userdata and steamapps / steamlibrary folders back to where they were so you don't have to reinstall the games. Hopefully this solution helps, it was the only thing that helped me after being locked out of my steam for 3 weeks.

hello

The main problem i can see about your workaround is that sometimes,files in userdata are the root of the problem and more especially all subfolders inside \steam\userdata\yournumber\config .Reinstalling steam in another folder name , is forcing the rebuild of files inside the subfolders.And more precisely, one file located in the config folder called achievement_progress.json that could contain garbage data .You can use https://mitec.cz/jsonv.html to verify if this file is not corrupted

There is another reason found on some threads, the use of "gpu accelerated feature at on" on steam parameters while using nvidia drivers 551.76+, using older or newer nvidia drivers seem fixed it despite no issues with that has been described on the drivers pdf file.
Additionnal symptomes are steam flickers while passing mouse pointer over icones, image,profiles etc and just crash.

And the last one was the use of too many shelves on profiles,that can have their setup files corrupted. Deleting some , can sometimes solve this issue because deleting config folder is not anought as it been (re)created , (re)downloaded from your online profile

[Phénomènes Mystiques]

I found that it was a bugged .json file for some cases.

Deleting it helps quite a few issues, such as high RAM usage by Steam, Steam Library Restart looping, and Webhelper no response/loss of compatibility mode.

[Fangi]

Originally posted by Cosa Nostra:

I found that it was a bugged .json file for some cases.

Deleting it helps quite a few issues, such as high RAM usage by Steam, Steam Library Restart looping, and Webhelper no response/loss of compatibility mode.

Yup I saw reports of it being bloated and basically being the fix to this issue but when I went to delete it, it was only 1KB. And even after deleting (and clearing all userdata as well) the issue is STILL present.

For the record it still gives the error, but otherwise boots Steam just fine, Great! I had issues where it was even worse where it basically infinite looped Steam loading. It would create tons of Steam Webhelper exes but it just does not show Steam at all, like I never launched it. I don't get it.

But now I have a completely different issue. I'm now permanently set to offline. And I still get that error of Steamwebhelper crashing. I can otherwise ignore it.. but again, it's like I launched Steam in offline mode when I clearly did not. It's not showing as offline mode, but it's treated me like I did. My profile picture on Steam also shows a question mark. I go to my Steam profile and it shows that I'm offline. I try to set myself to online, and yet nothing. It's flat out refusing to do it. I basically cannot play any games now that have DRM that rely on you to be online on Steam to work. Friends try to invite me to games, only for them to see that I'm """offline""" when I'm clearly not, I'm literally right there talking to them!

So ANY Rockstar game (which is where this is most prominent), notably LA Noire, will just act like I've never launched the game before in online mode when I know for a fact I have, and I'm near the end of the game. But for some reason thanks to this bug, LA Noire has been unplayable for at least a couple months.

So thanks to Valve (and Rockstar) I basically can't finish the game. I've tried everything at this point. I just don't know what to do anymore. I have NEVER gotten this issue until this year. Steam has been perfectly fine for all the years I've used it UNTIL now, so I know for a fact Valve did something recently that's causing this error, and there's literally no fix for it.

I've seen so many reports for this issue on Linux, on Mac. I'm using WINDOWS. I've added every single thing I can think of when it comes to Antivirus exceptions, and I'm still getting this.

I've even had to system restore several times to try and fix it. I've had to reinstall Steam over and over. I've had to delete SteamWebHelper, the bin folder, the userdata folder, the faulty json folder.. every single "solution" that people have come up with, have not fixed the issue of.. just allowing me to go online on Steam.

The way I see it, it's now permanently broken, thanks to Valve. I have done NOTHING to change Steam in the past 12+ years I've used it, and all of a sudden I'm getting this issue NOW when I never have before.

Please fix this Valve! I've had enough of this bug!

Edit: Apparently a restart of my PC is all it needed after I deleted that json file and after a clean reinstall of Steam. Huh. So, yeah, PLEASE don't forget to do that part. It's apparently really important because otherwise you still get spammed with that message for some reason. Now I'm no longer getting it. So either delete the .json and then restart, or just reinstall Steam and then restart your PC. Either way, you HAVE to restart your PC for it to actually work again. Now I just feel dumb.

And don't exit Steam from here on out. I briefly got the bug again since I exited Steam, and for some reason doing that will always crash the webhelper, so now every time I want to make a big change like updating driver folders, I have to restart my PC every time inatead of closing and launching Steam again. Had to do that several times to get my driver folders working properly again. Annoying, definitely, but not the end of the world.

[jonimarcha]

I know this is a late reply. But I resolved this issue by disabling my Internet Security suite. Then exiting and re-opening the Steam app.

[Kent318]

Fell asleep a couple nights ago with steam open, when I woke all my games had been deleted from my drives. reinstalled steam several times due to various weird errors, an glitches. Now it's this crap, I' been playing classic games from disk, and gog games since they actually work. After several days on these constant bugs thinking I wasted a lot of money at the summer sale for a bunch of junk I can't play. All I do is troubleshot ♥♥♥♥ every day all day steam, windows, Verizon, on an on. Screw digital media slavery, I'm old gonna start acting like it an stop playing games. Maybe when the markets more competitive I'll come back, maybe not. Sign O the times friends, steams clients getting as bad as epics anymore. If I can't buy it DRM free, well.