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.

[Sir Spider]

I'm on Win10 update 2004 and if anything the problem seems worse lol.

[Perpetual Pilgrim]

I've been dealing with this for a few months now. I have no 'fix' as it were, but I do have a theory and I figured I'd share it so that perhaps a few of us can try it and see if we end up with similar results.
First, let me break down what I've been dealing with as well as some 'fixes' I've tried, etc.

I was offline for about two years, during that time, I had zero issues with anything on my computer. However, once online, I started experiencing weird issues such as hangups with my interface(start menu wouldn't open, taskbar icons acted inert, and, of course, launching steam games, particularly PD2, would result in no processes in the task manager UNTIL I closed the steam window, leaving it in tray, and only then could I stop the program to try and restart it).
I, of course, attributed this to 2 years worth of hardware, OS, and software updates being needed.
For the last few months, I have intermittently had this issue. Particularly with steam. And have since changed my thinking from an issue with updates to an issue specific to steam and/or perhaps some conflict of resource management.
Other factors have tossed in variables that make me uncertain of what precisely could be the issue.
These include old HDD's that I suspect need replaced and my recent replacement of my CPU which has corresponded with some less than amusing issues that may or may not also be related to old HDD's.

Up until recently, as I said, my primary issue has been PD2 hanging up on start. To be clear what I am talking about, I would press the play button in my library, it would turn blue indicating the program is/has launched, but nothing would happen. I would then check task manager and it wouldn't be in the processes. Close the steam window(still in tray) and it would appear in processes but would only be using a portion of RAM indicating to me a hang up upon launch.

I have yet to find a consistent solution or consistent factor in resolution other than time. At first I thought maybe my AV and firewall were preventing the startup(I have it set pretty highsec) and so I would temp disable both and SOMETIMES this worked. Sometimes restarting Steam entirely seemed to work. Sometimes restarting my computer seems to work(but I am loathe to do that, BIOS startup has been iffy requiring multiple hard restarts to either get signal or get past bios, and I suspect it is the HDD having trouble spooling, but I don't think it is my PSU since all calculators say I have ample power). I've tried keeping my friends connection on Steam on offline as suggested by a friend who said it was buggy. I've done many things to try and come up with a consistent or lasting solution. I digress, as I'm sure can be imagined, no one thing guarantees resolution and sometimes nothing seems to until it does, returning me to the only common factor being time. Given time, it seems to resolve itself.

This, however, is not a satisfactory solution. While I'm not one to be impertinent and entitled, there is a reasonable expectation of established software working consistently and in a timely fashion based upon common technological capability. Waiting five or ten minutes for whatever conflicts to resolve themselves so I can launch a game, especially older games like PD2 or Arcania, is not reasonable.

ALL THAT SAID, here is my theory. Windows. While I don't usually have issues with hangups with others programs and apps, I have had occasional problems. Particularly icons on the taskbar, in the tray, or in the start menu seeming to be 'dead', meaning not registering any strokes/clicks and not resulting in launching of interface(including drop menus) or the programs themselves. Sometimes this is 'at all' sometimes it is 'delayed'. But in the end, it is irritating.

The theory is that Windows may be causing this when you don't keep up on updates. My issue is intermittent but, in retrospect, I am beginning to wonder if it doesn't primarily coincide with updates to the system. I am HORRIBLE about keeping system updates up to date. Particularly hardware and OS as most other programs are set to auto-update(I was long ago in the habit of never auto-update your OS).
As I write this I have two overdue updates, one for Windows and one for my GPU. Minutes before writing this I had the issue of launching a game only to have it hang and not appear in TM until I closed the steam window with Arcania and, before that, with Risen. As I said, this particular issue has primarily afffected PD2 for me.

We all know Windows has a nasty habit of getting sloppy if you don't keep it up to date and has been that way since at least Vista, arguably since DOS went the way of the Dodo and Windows became an OS(for you youngsters, yes, at one time, Windows was just an interface program and not the actual OS, and it was a glorious time).

Here's the suggestion, keep everything up to date. The second there's an update, grab it. More importantly, if you have this issue, check for uninstalled updates and see if perhaps you have some pending. If so, install and try again. I'm sure many of you keep up to date, but I also imagine many of you are like me and are almost pathologically defiant about Windows updates. But, gun to my head, I'd say there's a small, significant chance that this problem is either only or most manifest when I've put off updating for more than a day or so(it's been about a week since I've paused the Windows updates I have pending and this is the first instance of the hang up in some time, perhaps a few weeks).

It may be that some of us are having a more severe issue of some sort of conflict resulting from Windows not being updated and so even waiting a day to update may be resulting in this issue for some while others can go days or weeks without running into it. That's why I am saying if you have this issue, see if you have any updates to OS or hardware pending. If so, update, see if it resolves. Rinse, repeat, until either the issue resolves each time you update or until it fails to resolve despite being absolutely up to date on all drivers and OS updates.

I could be wrong, I likely am, I'm no certified tech, but I wouldn't doubt if this isn't part of the problem and, worst case, it removes one more false path to a solution. It's a simple thing and even the most advanced end user, or tech, can and does easily overlook the simple things, and the more advanced, the more competent, the more likely you are like me and prefer to avoid updating until you absolutely must because Windows is getting so stupid(in case you have any doubts about Windows essentially forcing you to update, as I said, 2 years offline, Windows had no idea it had pending updates, it ran fine, the moment it hooked up to the servers, it got weird, it is absolutely designed to passively force you to update when you have access to the servers).

For reference, my build:

MB: Asus P8H61-IR 2.0
CPU: i7-3770
GPU: NV 660ti
RAM: 8gb
PSU: 550w
HDD: 2 5400rpm
OS: W10 Pro 64 unactivated

Mouse: UTech Venus
KB: Steel Series Merc Stealth(they need to bring this back, srsly, 10 year old kb still works and is just now starting to get sticky keys, best ergnonomic gaming design ever, why the hell wouldn't they have just made a modern version instead of trying to compete with Razor and their stock KB with some programmability? They had the BEST gaming kb design in this line)

[Perpetual Pilgrim]

Just for fun, I launched Arcania as soon as I posted the above, I launched it from the tray after closing steam's window, ending Arcania's process(that didn't show until I closed the window). It launched just fine. I'm going to try again from the window and see what happens. As I said, it seems time is the only consistent 'solution' to these issues. Still haven't updated either GPU or OS.

[Perpetual Pilgrim]

Surprise, surprise, launched from window, nothing happened, nothing in TM. Literally a minute after I had just launched and closed it from tray.

[Perpetual Pilgrim]

Waited a few minutes, closed window, ended arcania process that appeared, opened window, tried launching Arcania, success.

[CanadaBud-Goldy]

I've had this problem since early 2018. Pretty much ever since I built this new system and went to windows 10. Just today I found for me it WAS those "SCP D3x" drivers for my PS3 controller. A simple service stop and start fixes everything. I'm curious on what causes it to hang in the first place. There's got to be some bug with the USB peripherals in windows 10 that stops responding and hangs everything.

Maybe other people have some other weird/odd devices (I mean in this day in age lol) that may have a quirky driver system that slaps Win10 around and hangs it.

[justJC]

Opprinnelig skrevet av CanadaBud-Goldy:

There's got to be some bug with the USB peripherals in windows 10 that stops responding and hangs everything.

I'm 99.9% sure that is the problem. Since I removed my generic Xbox 360 controller (and right now I'm using a Ps4 controller, another USB device since I'm using it with a cable) I haven't encountered a single issue like before.

[Rōnin]

So glad I found this thread (after months of searching). I had the same problem as many in this thread - Games stop launching after several game sessions, Steam won't relaunch after close, windows 10 hang on restart/shutdown. Had this problem for over a year and seriously thought about getting a whole new pc because I thought my hardware was failing.

Just got the games won't launch problem and unplugged my F310 controller, games started launching again but controller not detected after plugging in again and windows still hang on restart/shutdown.

I saw in device manager my logitech F310 controller was using the generic xbox 360 controller driver. So I switched to direct input instead. Hopefully this fixes the issue, will update whether it does or not.

[Clear Crossroads]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Principles of Gaming:

I have yet to find a consistent solution or consistent factor in resolution other than time. At first I thought maybe my AV and firewall were preventing the startup(I have it set pretty highsec) and so I would temp disable both and SOMETIMES this worked. Sometimes restarting Steam entirely seemed to work. Sometimes restarting my computer seems to work(but I am loathe to do that, BIOS startup has been iffy requiring multiple hard restarts to either get signal or get past bios, and I suspect it is the HDD having trouble spooling, but I don't think it is my PSU since all calculators say I have ample power). I've tried keeping my friends connection on Steam on offline as suggested by a friend who said it was buggy. I've done many things to try and come up with a consistent or lasting solution. I digress, as I'm sure can be imagined, no one thing guarantees resolution and sometimes nothing seems to until it does, returning me to the only common factor being time. Given time, it seems to resolve itself.

This sounds to me like your problem is actually something different, if perhaps similar. The problem we're discussing in this thread is NOT resolved by time. I can leave it for 30 or even 60 minutes, and it never resolves. Also, with the issue described in this thread, things like tinkering with AV/FW or restarting Steam do not "sometimes" work. They never work. More on this further down in this post.

Opprinnelig skrevet av Principles of Gaming:

ALL THAT SAID, here is my theory. Windows.

Yes.

Opprinnelig skrevet av Principles of Gaming:

The theory is that Windows may be causing this when you don't keep up on updates.

No. lol. You can be hyper-religious about keeping everything up to date, and it will do nothing to alleviate this issue. More on this further down in this post.

Opprinnelig skrevet av Principles of Gaming:

We all know Windows has a nasty habit of getting sloppy if you don't keep it up to date and has been that way since at least Vista, arguably since DOS went the way of the Dodo and Windows became an OS(for you youngsters, yes, at one time, Windows was just an interface program and not the actual OS, and it was a glorious time).

True, but not actually relevant to this issue. Though I can certainly understand why one might look in a thiswardly direction in trying to isolate the issue. It's a logical conclusion but, I promise you, it's a red herring. Also, you totally just took me way back. This was a very nostalgic paragraph. lol. Good times, eh?

Opprinnelig skrevet av Principles of Gaming:

Here's the suggestion, keep everything up to date.

This is good advice in and of itself, but it's not likely to help this issue. I mean, there is a CHANCE that some update one day might actually fix this issue. But, if they haven't fixed it by now, I don't think they're likely to ever fix it. More on this further down in this post.

Opprinnelig skrevet av Principles of Gaming:

I could be wrong, I likely am, I'm no certified tech, but I wouldn't doubt if this isn't part of the problem and, worst case, it removes one more false path to a solution.

I appreciate the time, energy, and detail that you put into composing your post, Prince, but you are, in fact, wrong. Though, as you say, there is still value in being wrong for the removal of one more false path. So I thank you for your effort.

Opprinnelig skrevet av CanadaBud-Goldy:

I've had this problem since early 2018. Pretty much ever since I built this new system and went to windows 10. Just today I found for me it WAS those "SCP D3x" drivers for my PS3 controller. A simple service stop and start fixes everything. I'm curious on what causes it to hang in the first place. There's got to be some bug with the USB peripherals in windows 10 that stops responding and hangs everything.

Yes. This. This is where the issue lies. Though it doesn't actually fix "everything". After you restart the service, you'll get the use of your programs back, and you'll be able to restart Windows again, but now your controller will be frozen, and it will remain frozen until you restart Windows. I'll understand if y'all hadn't read through the entire thread here (it IS a long thread, after all.... I should put an edit in the OP), but this has been discussed previously. The SCP D3x drivers are not the root of the problem, but they are POINTING TO the root of the problem: The root of the problem is the generic XBOX 360 controller driver, which SCP D3x makes use of!

I CAN ABSOLUTELY 100% GUARANTEE TO YOU ALL THAT THE ROOT OF THIS PROBLEM IS THE GENERIC XBOX 360 CONTROLLER DRIVER!

This is why time is not a factor in fixing this issue. The driver borks in some way (the manner in which it borks remains a mystery to me), and it tries to make a communication with the controller, but it can't. It gets caught in an endless loop trying to "talk" to the controller, and this loop will hang for all time.

This is also why you can't restart Windows. When you try to restart Windows, it's waiting for this process to complete before proceeding with the shut down, but this process will never complete, so Windows will never shut down.

This is also why updates will do nothing to fix the issue, because the inherent flaw in the controller driver is still everpresent. This flaw with the driver (whatever it is) was even present back in the Windows 7/8/Vista days. It's just that, with the way those OSes were coded, the flaw never actually manifested itself in any noticeable way on those platforms.

It is hypothetically possible that a future update for Windows 10 could bring with it an updated/fixed version of this controller driver. However, due to the fact that the XBOX 360 is discontinued and obsolete, I would not hold my breath. There's very little chance that Microsoft gives a damn. If anything, they would see it as discouraging people from purchasing their modern hardware and see it as a bad business decision therefore to fix this problem.

Opprinnelig skrevet av WeekEndRonin:

Just got the games won't launch problem and unplugged my F310 controller, games started launching again but controller not detected after plugging in again and windows still hang on restart/shutdown.

I saw in device manager my logitech F310 controller was using the generic xbox 360 controller driver. So I switched to direct input instead. Hopefully this fixes the issue, will update whether it does or not.

It will work. I use the Logitech F310 now myself, and I've never once had this problem happen ever again since I switched. As long as you're not using that generic XBOX 360 controller driver, you're gonna be golden.

[Sir Spider]

Avoiding the broken 360 controller driver basically is the best solution for this. I bought an Amazon Basics Xbox One controller for $15 for my Steamlink a while ago but now it's the main controller for my PC and it's been such a relief.

[GeneralJ]

Hey guys, thanks for this topic, is great to see that there are some people on the internet puting their heads together to try to solve one of the many windows 10 bugs.

I had to install Windows 10 a little more than a year ago because of a new motherboard and there is always a little bug or another but this one with the Xbox 360 controller is pretty annoying.

I had a did bug sometimes ago because I was using a Program called "Xbox 360 controller maneger" (just a app that lets you turn off a wireless Xbox controller without having to pull the battery case off), I was using this since the windows 7 without problems, but when I stalled windows 10 sometimes the controller didn't turn off right (the sound when you turn off a USB or something on windows didn't happen) and the part in the start menu that you turn off, restart or put the computer on the sleep mode had this strange affect as if I was passing my mouse really fast on one of the options, and if I tried to restart or shot down the PC it would get stocked on the screen forever and I had to manually turn off using the power button.

Anyways, I got really annoyed a couple of months ago and uninstalled this app and started turning off controller pulling the battery case, but when I was playing yesterday he same thing as the OP described happened to me, I closed a game and 3 minutes later I couldn't open any game and shooting off steam made it so I couldn't open it anymore so I had to forcefully shot down my computer because it couldn't even restart. If it happens anytime in the future I'll try unplugging the wireless adapter and see if the things go back to "normal".

PS: sorry for my broken English, is not my first language

[Wincowski]

Hi everyone I have some problem about launching games. Here is what happened. Im trying to record my gameplays to youtube. And I had Arkham origins and the hunter on my laptop. I already have 120 hours for arkham origins and last night I think to dont count my play hour I can click the game icon on desktop and after that it blow up. I had wifi connection after I click icon it opened steam pop up to lunch steam and it didint open also game. Then I tried other steam game (the Hunter) it was same. I search everything I update my Nvidia drive, my windows updates and I delete games (its very ***** hard cause for download I spend nearly 2 or 3 hours I have very bad internet) I also delete steam. I am only using windows own antivurus which is security wall or what is the name of it you understand. I re install steam and I download theHunter again. It was 8GB game and after it downloaded I try to run from steam but IT WAS SAME. ♥♥♥♥ dude. I dont know that to do. I try on a new game from my library which they dont on my desktop before. I try to download short games and it run perfectly!!!! WHAT IS THE PROBLEM ! HERE IS THE SUMMARY WHEN I CLICK START GAME FROM STEAM LIBRARY (THE POP UP NORMALLY OPEN TO LUCH GAME OR ASK OPTIONS) ITS QUICKLY PASS POP UP AND SAY STARTING AFTER FEW SECONDS BUTTON TURNS AGAIN "START" IT DOESNT LAUNCH !!!! HELP ME PLEASE

[Wincowski]

If it is not place to ask my question please tell me where can I ask

[Iceira]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Wincowski:

If it is not place to ask my question please tell me where can I ask

ask own game forum or devs or publisher for that game.

[Wincowski]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Iceira:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Wincowski:

If it is not place to ask my question please tell me where can I ask

ask own game forum or devs or publisher for that game.

I think about but the problem not on game I guess because both of the Arkham Origins and theHunter dont launch. After that I download another game that ı never download before they run perfectly no problem on that !!! Help me pls guys