Steam won't launch games or start itself up until after I restart my PC

[Clear Crossroads]

This has become a constant problem to the point that I have mild anxiety about even trying to launch anything in Steam at all at this point. Every time I go to launch anything, there's this apprehension of "will it boot.... will it boot.... am I going to have to shut down my entire workstation for the umteenth time?"

If Windows has been running for maybe about a half a day, then Steam will not launch any games. The "Preparing to launch" window will show up, and then the library in Steam's UI will say "Running" next to the game I've tried to launch, but the game never actually launches. The game won't even show up in the Task Manager. It doesn't matter what game I try to launch.

Additionally, if I try to exit Steam and restart the program once this has taken effect, Steam won't even open. The Steam update process will go through just fine, but then the log in window never actually appears, and nothing shows up in the System Tray. However, unlike the games which fail to launch, Steam does at least still show up in the Task Manager as though it's at least *trying* to launch.

The closest thing to a solution that I've been able to find on Google is lots of people saying that if you close the Steam Client and/or the Steam Client Bootstrapper in the Task Manager and then relaunch Steam, then it'll boot, but this doesn't seem to do anything. I can close down everything that has anything to do with Steam in the Task Manager, and the program will still fail to launch.

I found one person who suggested that you should de-activate fast startup, and I'm going to try that, but this is a band-aid, not a cure/fix proper. Since I'm having the problem right now and have to restart anyway, I've just de-activated fast startup. So hopefully, I won't have to do this tomorrow. But I should not need to sacrifice fast startup for Steam. I see this as an unacceptable one-sided compromise, whether it works or not.

If it makes any difference, I'm running Windows 10 Home on an AMD FX-4100 processor with an nVidia GeForce GTX 645 graphics card, and a Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2P motherboard.

I've spent a lot of time searching google for a solution to this problem and have so far found nothing.

EDIT: De-activating fast startup did not help at all. The same problem still persists.

EDIT (October 15, 2020): In order to save you the time of reading through this entire thread, I am going to explicitly mention here in the OP that THE ROOT OF THIS PROBLEM IS THE GENERIC XBOX360 CONTROLLER DRIVER! Also, if you're using SCP Toolkit for your PS3 controller (and maybe your PS4 controller?) on your PC, then this will cause the same problem because SCP TOOLKIT MAKES USE OF THIS BROKEN DRIVER! Additionally, some controllers like the Logitech F310 can be configured to make use of this driver. If you are experiencing this issue on a controller other than the XBOX360 or PS3/PS4 controllers, then your controller is probably configured to use this driver, and you will want to look into changing that setting. DO NOT USE THIS DRIVER! I know it REALLY sucks, but you're just gonna have to learn to let go of your XBOX 360 controller and/or your PS3 controller. The creator of SCP Toolkit no longer updates anymore either, so it's just dead now. I'm really sorry—I hate it too—but this is something we're all just going to have to learn to live with.

[StephanFS]

I had this problem once months ago, but it was solved after I uninstalled Avira from my PC. And now it happened again minutes ago. Not only that, but I was also forced to forcefully restart my PC since Windows couldn't even restart by itself.

It also doesn't affect only Steam. Some programs do not open for some reason. The fact that anyone at Valve hasn't solved a problem that affects the entire PC to this day is straight up ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

[Clear Crossroads]

Yeah, that's another detail that I didn't mention. I didn't assume that it was related, but maybe it actually is. My system will never restart or shut down on its own. I always have to do a forced shut down by holding down the power button for several seconds. If I try to do a regular restart or shut down, it will just hang forever and ever on the restart/shut down screen. And while I can't be completely certain, I want to say that these issues started around the same time. And other programs like RPG Maker or Photoshop will also fail to launch. But not all other programs. Wordpad or Chrome, for instance, will still start just fine.

Also, it would seem that de-activating fast startup did not do anything to help. I'm having the same problem again now today.

[StephanFS]

Tor Heyerdal の投稿を引用：

Yeah, that's another detail that I didn't mention. I didn't assume that it was related, but maybe it actually is. My system will never restart or shut down on its own. I always have to do a forced shut down by holding down the power button for several seconds. If I try to do a regular restart or shut down, it will just hang forever and ever on the restart/shut down screen. And while I can't be completely certain, I want to say that these issues started around the same time. And other programs like RPG Maker or Photoshop will also fail to launch. But not all other programs. Wordpad or Chrome, for instance, will still start just fine.

Also, it would seem that de-activating fast startup did not do anything to help. I'm having the same problem again now today.

I don't know if this is going to help, but if you're using another antivirus instead of Windows Defender, you better uninstall it. This solved it for me months ago.

[Clear Crossroads]

Thanks a lot for the suggestion. I appreciate the effort. But no, I'm only using Windows Defender; I'm not using any other antivirus software.

[ltron]

I have a very similar issue since October, but mine is that games and the Steam client take a long time to launch after leaving the computer on for a random length of time. Only restarting the PC fixes it although not always. However, I have noticed in my case the problem is not limited to Steam and certain games on GOG and Origin will display the same behaviour although the clients will launch normally.

For example, Pillars of Eternity 2 will launch normally while Helium Rain on GOG will not. BF1 on Origin will launch with a slight delay whereas Unravel 2 will be stuck on a black screen for 5 minutes. On Steam, Life is Strange 2 launches normally whereas Ace Combat 7 will take 5 minutes to get to the main menu. Do you notice problems with games on these other platforms?

Initially I thought it was the faulty crashing graphics card I bought in October and then refunded, but I did a fresh install of Windows 1809 Home a few days ago on two separate drives and the issue remains, I too use Windows Defender although I tried a 3rd party antivirus and it didn't help.

My old computer with a Core I7 940 and AMD HD6970 doesn't suffer from the problem but my main PC with an I7 5820K and Nvidia GTX 1080 does.

The only solution I've found is installing Linux Ubuntu 18.10, Steam launches normally on there so maybe it's a Windows bug with certain hardware combinations and Nvidia.

[AmsterdamHeavy]

I have had this happen twice in the last few months. Games wont launch, most applications become unresponsive, and cannot shut down or restart from menu.

I will add that this happened about a week ago too, but it was possible to wait it out. A few minutes and everything went back to normal.

Seems to be something with Steam causing a hard and long hang for resources.. or something.

[ltron]

AmsterdamHeavy の投稿を引用：

I have had this happen twice in the last few months. Games wont launch, most applications become unresponsive, and cannot shut down or restart from menu.

I will add that this happened about a week ago too, but it was possible to wait it out. A few minutes and everything went back to normal.

Seems to be something with Steam causing a hard and long hang for resources.. or something.

GOG and Origin launch fine but some games on them have problems too in my case. Does this happen to you and are you using Gsync like me?

[Clear Crossroads]

Hmm. I do have Epic Games, but I never actually use it. I don't have any other platforms. I have Axiom Verge on EG, and I plan to get around to that eventually, so I guess I will eventually find out whether or not this problem persists there, but for now, I'm pretty dedicated to playing through I am Setsuna on Steam, so I won't be getting to it for a while yet. But nevertheless, if this is happening on other platforms too, this has got me wondering if maybe this actually isn't even a Steam problem at all, but rather a Windows problem? Perhaps a Windows problem that's brought about with certain nVidia hardware, as you suggest. Maybe I should try posting this issue on some Microsoft board somewhere...

[ltron]

Tor Heyerdal の投稿を引用：

Hmm. I do have Epic Games, but I never actually use it. I don't have any other platforms. I have Axiom Verge on EG, and I plan to get around to that eventually, so I guess I will eventually find out whether or not this problem persists there, but for now, I'm pretty dedicated to playing through I am Setsuna on Steam, so I won't be getting to it for a while yet. But nevertheless, if this is happening on other platforms too, this has got me wondering if maybe this actually isn't even a Steam problem at all, but rather a Windows problem? Perhaps a Windows problem that's brought about with certain nVidia hardware, as you suggest. Maybe I should try posting this issue on some Microsoft board somewhere...

I have found the issue, my Corsair K55 keyboard's latest firmware is buggy. Disconnecting the keyboard allows Steam to load normally, see this thread: http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=171318

I never would have guessed this was the issue and my old keyboard works without issue. Do you have a Corsair keyboard too?

[Clear Crossroads]

That's very clever, but no, I have a very standard, regular, average, every-day Dell keyboard. That said, I uninstalled Skype 7.41 almost a week ago now because it was trying to force me to update to Skype 8, so I've downgraded to a portable version of 7.36, and since uninstalling 7.41, this problem has not arisen once. I don't want to speak too soon, however, and if it does happen again, I'll report it here, but for the time being at least, it would appear that my problem was Skype 7.41.

[ltron]

Tor Heyerdal の投稿を引用：

That's very clever, but no, I have a very standard, regular, average, every-day Dell keyboard. That said, I uninstalled Skype 7.41 almost a week ago now because it was trying to force me to update to Skype 8, so I've downgraded to a portable version of 7.36, and since uninstalling 7.41, this problem has not arisen once. I don't want to speak too soon, however, and if it does happen again, I'll report it here, but for the time being at least, it would appear that my problem was Skype 7.41.

Glad you found a solution too, hopefully, Microsoft really are having problems with bugs.

[Clear Crossroads]

Nope. I fμскin' knew it. I knew if I said anything, it would stop working. Not even half an hour later after making that post, and it's happening again literally right now. Fμскing ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥...

[ltron]

Tor Heyerdal の投稿を引用：

Nope. I fμскin' knew it. I knew if I said anything, it would stop working. Not even half an hour later after making that post, and it's happening again literally right now. Fμскing ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥...

Damn it, sorry to hear that. I assume you've tried reinstalling Steam already. You can try performing a clean boot to rule out background processes: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/929135/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows.

Other than that I can only suggest doing a fresh install of Windows or installing Linux Mint or Ubuntu Linux if you're feeling brave.

[Clear Crossroads]

I'm actually planning to buy a new hard drive soon, and I'm just going to fresh install everything when I do. My hard drives are pretty old, and my current program installations are almost all from several OSes back that are just still working. I haven't tried reinstalling Steam, because the problem isn't just affecting Steam (just now, before the restart, I couldn't open Antimicro, and it affects other programs like RPG Maker 2009 and Photoshop 7.1, as mentioned above), so I can't imagine that the lack of freshness pertaining to the Steam install really has anything to do with it. More than once now, and this morning included, I've woken up to blue screens that say "driver power failure", so I'm wondering if maybe there's something wrong with my drivers. If so, the fresh Windows install when I get the new hard drive might just do the trick. My case is over 20 years old too, so I'm thinking about maybe getting a new power supply as well...

EDIT: Also, in regards to a clean boot, the only things I have enabled in startup are Adobe Gamma Loader, SCPToolkit Tray Notifications, and Windows Security Notification Icon. That's literally it. lol. So I'm already a stone's throw way from clean boot as it is. But maybe I could try disabling that Adobe Gamma Loader... It's worth a shot.

[Sir Spider]

Oh dang, I finally found a thread on this issue and it's months old. That figures.

It's -not- just an Nvidia issue. I'm running an i5 4690 with an RX 570 I bought a few months ago and the amount of times I've had to reboot my computer the hard way because programs wouldn't load is staggering.

It's not just Steam, either. This affects games I try to run via Origin and GOG as well as my standalone FFXIV client.

I did a clean Windows install about a month ago and the problem still persists. I've had the hardest time trying to troubleshoot it because seemingly nobody else had the same issue but here we go. I'm guessing it's some sort of conflict with Windows itself but honestly I just have no idea.