Games marked as In-Game when not running, or after waking up PC

[The Grumbleskull]

For the last week or so I've had a consistent issue with steam in both beta and normal branches of the client. A couple of games have been misbehaving nonstop, and essentially force a restart to get rid of the in-game status.
The two games in question are Summoner and Morrowind. Both tend to have the same issue. First launch fails/loads nothing. I kill the process which steam reflects, then I launch the game again and they work just fine. You can turn them off after the play session and go about business as usual but only until you hibernate/sleep. Once the computer wakes up, it wakes up with the client in-game for the titles mentioned, depending on which I played last.
I've gone into processes and checked out everything, even looked what's being stored in memory. When steam displays these games as running, there isn't a single instance of them I can find to back the claim up. You can kill or restart steam, but when it loads up it's in the game again. If you try to launch the game it says it's in, it claims the app is already running.
The only way I've found to wipe this in game status is to either log off the session and start a new one, or reboot the entire computer.

[RevReese]

I have this exact same issue lately.
For me it is currently Oblivion, though i did have it with EVE Online for a few weeks.
I will keep an eye on this thread in the hopes you find a fix.
I have searched and found that deleting the appcache folder under the steam installation directory works but on waking my computer up, Oblivion is running again even though it is not to be found under Task Manager.
Like you the only fix that seems to work reliably is to reboot or log off.

[The Grumbleskull]

Still an issue.

[The Giving One]

Originally posted by Judge Dan:

The two games in question are Summoner and Morrowind. Both tend to have the same issue. First launch fails/loads nothing.

This is the first red flag I see. Something is preventing the games from launching, as you said here, upon first launch. So that is probably (or maybe) related to the issue you describe in the OP of them running strangely when not supposed to.

Fix one issue, and you might also correct the other in the process.

If games won't run at launch, start here :

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=6218-USFX-5568

Pay no attention to the title of the support page and just follow everything there.

Also, check for conflicting software, and this is often the cause of games not launching :

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9828-SFLZ-9289

[The Grumbleskull]

Originally posted by The Giving One:

Originally posted by Judge Dan:

The two games in question are Summoner and Morrowind. Both tend to have the same issue. First launch fails/loads nothing.

This is the first red flag I see. Something is preventing the games from launching, as you said here, upon first launch. So that is probably (or maybe) related to the issue you describe in the OP of them running strangely when not supposed to.

Fix one issue, and you might also correct the other in the process.

If games won't run at launch, start here :

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=6218-USFX-5568

Pay no attention to the title of the support page and just follow everything there.

Also, check for conflicting software, and this is often the cause of games not launching :

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9828-SFLZ-9289

It's not the game that fails to launch. The coinciding factor in both is that each game needs a launcher to load after being played from steam. It's the launcher exe, not the game exe that launches in the processes and needs to be ended and restarted. It's the launcher exes that work a second time.
The games themselves run from both posts details. Drivers/windows/programs. They won't change just from canceling and restarting the launcher so that doesn't really explain anything. Not to mention everything is up to date, and all three games mentioned so far are quite old and rely on VC packages and the other features mentioned in that support page in their basic installation from steam.

[The Giving One]

You should be able to click on your "Play" button in your Steam library, and the games launch fine from there, unless you maybe have them or one of them modded.

Do you have any mods for Morrowind ? I am not familiar with the other game and if it is moddable.

You still could have conflicting software causing issues with the game(s), possibly.

[The Grumbleskull]

Originally posted by The Giving One:

You should be able to click on your "Play" button in your Steam library, and the games launch fine from there, unless you maybe have them or one of them modded.

Do you have any mods for Morrowind ? I am not familiar with the other game and if it is moddable.

You still could have conflicting software causing issues with the game(s), possibly.

It's clear from the first two posts it's not a modding issue, it's not even just morrowind.
Three games have been reported to do the same thing so far, morrowind, summoner and oblivion.
None of these games in any of my experiences have launched the game game-first. Each one has it's own little launcher window that needs to load first. Summoner has one for the play button, settings/network configs, morrowind and oblivion have one for the play button mods and graphics settings. I've never seen any of the three launch from the steam's play button without using the game's launcher first.

You can rule out software as an issue, because from both posts nothing in the os is changed or turned off between restarting the game and getting it to WORK. The process is as follows:

You launch the game from steam, it fails to load the launcher window so you need to kill it in the process manager. Your name becomes blue again, and you can then launch the game which then CORRECTLY starts the launcher window that time. From there you can turn it off, play the game, behaves entirely normal. The game works, it functions. No software was toggled between disabling the first instance of a failed launcher and the second, so it's not another program. The games themselves, run fine when you play them from your launchers. This means it's not an issue with the cache, or the drivers or the OS. The games work.

The issue is that the first time you hit play, the launcher fails to load any kind of window outside of the processes tab in task manager. After killing that everything behaves absolutely as you'd expect until your computer sleeps. When it wakes up, steam thinks it's in the game and will not allow it to launch another process until you reboot. There is no trace of it in memory, there is no process to end.

[The Giving One]

Try this as a quick test :

Boot your PC into safe mode with networking. Log into your Steam account. Go to your library and click the "Play" button and see if the launcher appears this time, the first time you do it.

Don't try to continue and play any of the games if it does. Just test the launcher issue and see what happens.

[The Grumbleskull]

I can do better. I just tried them the old fashioned way of bypassing steam.
Going into the installation directories and launching the exe files, launcher or otherwise from there does so first try without any issues.

What's the difference here? launching from the install dir doesn't hook the game to steam or its overlay while it's running.

The issue is very clearly that of one with the client itself failing to actually load the launcher the first time it's asked to. It's also the client that has been mentioned, can be killed via process and restart falsely claiming the game is running".

[The Giving One]

There is a reason I am asking you to do it the way I suggested.

And since you bypassed Steam and ran them the way you did, that still does not rule out 100% any possible software conflicts with the games running from your Steam library. In fact, it strengthens that theory.

You are correct, as the launchers are supposed to run first, so when I said you should be able to play them from your "play" button and they launch, that is what I meant. I meant you should be able to use the launcher after hitting the "play" button, so my post was not worded very well on that point. Sorry, and thanks.

Unless I missed it, I don't see that you answered my question specifically as to if any of the games are modded.

So, are any of the games modded ?

Are these games installed on an external hard drive and if yes, are they the only games installed on that external hard drive ?

Originally posted by Judge Dan:

The issue is very clearly that of one with the client itself failing to actually load the launcher the first time it's asked to.

It would seem so, and this is one reason why I am trying to help you rule out any possible software conflicts as the issue, but you seem to not want to use any methods to do that.