Can't Chat to Friends on Steam (except on Phone)?

[Sally]

As of late, I've been having an odd glitch on Steam. When I pull up my friends list, and try to choose "Send Message" on a friend's avatar, the friends list suddenly disappears and the chat window is nowhere to be found. It doesn't come up no matter how much I try, and the only way I can chat to my friends on Steam is via the Steam app on my Cellphone.

There was a weird popup I was getting from Steam that said it was running in Compatibility Mode and that some things can be screwed up on there. I followed the guide to get it off of it, which involved unchecking every box that was in Compatibility box of the Properties thing, but the only thing I have ticked is "Run as Administrator". I tried unchecking that, but it still didn't undo the popup from appearing, so I don't think that it's an issue due to compatibility.

Does anyone have any tips on this?

[Forcen]

Does it work here? https://steamcommunity.com/chat/ might be easier than the phone while you fix this.

Try this solution if you can: https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/1743342647552358954/#c1743342647552914635

You can also try the basic troubleshooting as described here: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3352-RYON-4107

[Sally]

I've tried everything you posted, all of the links and whatnot. None of them worked. ><" I do notice one thing though, and it's that when I attempt to chat with someone, it refreshes the page.

[Sally]

Ok, new problem. For some reason I suddenly now CAN chat to anyone else. The only problem is that I can't chat to my best friend while I'm playing, which is kind of a bummer when we're playing a game together.

We do have discord as a stop gap measure, but it'd still be nice to be able to chat to him on steam.

[Forcen]

So is the problem limited to your friend only or ingame only or both?

What if you tab out and chat?

[Sally]

It's limited on both ends, and tabbing out doesn't work. :c

[Sally]

By "Both ends" I mean "I cannot chat to my friend both in and out of games in the Steam Client and the only method possible to chat with him is via Steam app on phone".

What also sucks is that I cannot recieve invites to multiplayer games from him, because those rely on the chat to function. ><"

[Forcen]

Not even on the website i linked?

And it's only him? Can he chat to everyone besides you?

Did your friend try all the solutions above?

Both of you try to delete the web cache in the settings.

See if this workaround works for any of you?

You can contact support here if nothing works: https://help.steampowered.com/en/wizard/HelpWithCommunityContactSupport

Maybe the one with the problem should do it, possibly your friend depending if he can chat with anyone or not.