Steam is causing my screen to blink to a black screen

[chinmo]

Title says it, my screen keeps blinking black every 3-5 seconds, to the point where I can't get anything done. It's a solid black screen, not flickering, lasts about a full second before returning to my normal screen. After a while I narrowed the source of the issue to the Steam Client Bootstrapper, and when I force the task to end it immediately stops (but starts again as soon as I start Steam or any of its apps). It started happening after the last update to the client, and I thought I fixed it by reinstalling Steam. This fix lasted less than 2 days before it began happening again out of nowhere. Does anyone else have this same issue, know what's causing it, and/or know of a more permanent fix?

[Stix_09]

Turning off GPU hardware acceleration worked for me in settings.

To clarify when screen goes black for a few seconds

On store page (for example) it's when u scroll window up and down (ie from comments section below a video clip section to the part with the video clip, screen goes black for a few seconds, It does this anywhere there is a video clip on a page, not just the store page in the steam app.

Obviously the hardware acceleration is kicking in to display the video clip causing the screen blanking for a few seconds as it swaps HA on.

I've not seen any difference with HA on or off, videos play the same regardless.

[Vitalidex]

I have had this same problem with other apps outside of Steam. The culprit seems to be G-SYNC. My monitor isn't G-SYNC but it was enabled. Disabling G-SYNC fixed this issue for me with Steam and other programs. Now Hardware Acceleration in Steam is on, G-SYNC is off in nVidia Control Panel, and no more black screens.

[trygin]

Vitalidex eredeti hozzászólása:

I have had this same problem with other apps outside of Steam. The culprit seems to be G-SYNC. My monitor isn't G-SYNC but it was enabled. Disabling G-SYNC fixed this issue for me with Steam and other programs. Now Hardware Acceleration in Steam is on, G-SYNC is off in nVidia Control Panel, and no more black screens.

^ I turned off hardware acceleration but wasn't happy it fixed my flickering when I saw this, went to see if my gsync was enabled and it was not, so I thought this couldn't be my issue, but enabling it and never pressing apply and undoing it fixed it. Now hardware accel is on and gsync is off. weird af

[zaphodikus]

My understanding of it is that the UI engine valve use has bugs and the engine is not going to get updated. Causes being resource leaks, which are behind your graphics card being unhappy and faulting. They have the stats, so they do know if it's widespread, the impact might not be measurable.

[NeoGodOfDeath]

Shankstah eredeti hozzászólása:

Just want to chime in here, that going to Settings > Interface > Unticking "Enable GPU Accelerated rendering in web views" fixed this issue for me.

This fixed my issue. Thank you so much!

[aappoo12]

Had the same issue. For me disabling "GPU accelerated rendering in web views" fixed the problem.

Steam > Settings > Interface > Enable GPU accelerated rendering in web views

[sw1ftzzy]

Shankstah eredeti hozzászólása:

Just want to chime in here, that going to Settings > Interface > Unticking "Enable GPU Accelerated rendering in web views" fixed this issue for me.

Thank you so much, this worked perfectly!

[All My Lemons]

kissmyasthma32 eredeti hozzászólása:

Vitalidex eredeti hozzászólása:

I have had this same problem with other apps outside of Steam. The culprit seems to be G-SYNC. My monitor isn't G-SYNC but it was enabled. Disabling G-SYNC fixed this issue for me with Steam and other programs. Now Hardware Acceleration in Steam is on, G-SYNC is off in nVidia Control Panel, and no more black screens.

^ I turned off hardware acceleration but wasn't happy it fixed my flickering when I saw this, went to see if my gsync was enabled and it was not, so I thought this couldn't be my issue, but enabling it and never pressing apply and undoing it fixed it. Now hardware accel is on and gsync is off. weird af

This fixed it for me also!

[Fluidz]

This happened to me today. I was able to reproduce it this way :

- Gsync is disabled in nvidia control panel
- Steam is closed, process is not running
- Open steam and minimise to the tasktray
- Enable Gsync in the nvidia control panel (the screen will flash when enabled, this is normal).
- Click Steam in the tasktray so it is now open on the desktop
- In Steam, browse to a page that has video content (example - Wrc 2023 store page),
- Scroll up and down. The screen will flash. Restarting steam will stop the flashing.

The issue seems to arise after toggling gsync on whilst Steam is already running.

As mentioned in this thread disabling "gpu accelerated rendering" (hardware acceleration) stops the flashing completely. Something to bear in mind when doing this, pages may stutter as you scroll in Steam, so you may want to disable "smooth scrolling".

My pc specs : Nvidia rtx 4080, driver 537.58. Monitor : Acer xb271hu (built in gsync module) connected via displayport. Windows 10 22h2.

Steam Version: 1702079146 (not beta)
Steam Client Build Date: Fri, Dec 8 12:36 AM UTC -08:00
Steam Web Build Date: Fri, Dec 8 11:30 PM UTC -08:00
Steam API Version: SteamClient021

[K!]

Dr.Shadowds 🐉 eredeti hozzászólása:

dizmale eredeti hozzászólása:

This is from "Hardwear Acceleration" on by default in steam .. turn it off this should fix such issue.. do the same in you web browsers too

Just to explain for those that don't know what it does, it stop the app from using your GPU instead uses the CPU to process the app instead, this take more toll on CPU than the GPU.

If having visual effects problems such as black screen, or flickering, this means something wrong with GPU driver that requires clean install of it, or using older driver if the newest one causing the problem. For browsers like chrome, firefox, or etc this happens either GPU driver being the issue, or browser update is bad which they do update way more often than Steam ever does in last 2 years for their browser update.

Anyways for normal browsers such as chrome, firefox, or etc, some sites uses content protection that stop users from streaming their video feed such as discord, or etc which is handle by having the "Hardware Acceleration" enable. Another note if play web browser games, and wonder why got bad performance when turn off "Hardware Acceleration" that because not using the GPU to handle that workload, you pushed it onto your CPU instead.

hey man i know its being long since this topic
but my steam is completely dark as you said in the 2nd paragraphy of your answer is there any way to fix this? any way i can check again the hardware acceleration? caused i unchecked and now my steam is unusable its all black i even reinstalled and its still luike this

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

K! eredeti hozzászólása:

Dr.Shadowds 🐉 eredeti hozzászólása:

Just to explain for those that don't know what it does, it stop the app from using your GPU instead uses the CPU to process the app instead, this take more toll on CPU than the GPU.

If having visual effects problems such as black screen, or flickering, this means something wrong with GPU driver that requires clean install of it, or using older driver if the newest one causing the problem. For browsers like chrome, firefox, or etc this happens either GPU driver being the issue, or browser update is bad which they do update way more often than Steam ever does in last 2 years for their browser update.

Anyways for normal browsers such as chrome, firefox, or etc, some sites uses content protection that stop users from streaming their video feed such as discord, or etc which is handle by having the "Hardware Acceleration" enable. Another note if play web browser games, and wonder why got bad performance when turn off "Hardware Acceleration" that because not using the GPU to handle that workload, you pushed it onto your CPU instead.

hey man i know its being long since this topic
but my steam is completely dark as you said in the 2nd paragraphy of your answer is there any way to fix this? any way i can check again the hardware acceleration? caused i unchecked and now my steam is unusable its all black i even reinstalled and its still luike this

Try putting this at target field for steam shortcut.
-cef-force-gpu

If doesn't work try
-cef-enable-gpu

Hopefully that would tick the box for you to enable,

[K!]

Shankstah eredeti hozzászólása:

Just want to chime in here, that going to Settings > Interface > Unticking "Enable GPU Accelerated rendering in web views" fixed this issue for me.

Sorry to jump in a old thread but I did this and my steam is all black and I cant see anything already reinstalled and it didn't fix do you know what I can do?

[K!]

Dr.Shadowds 🐉 eredeti hozzászólása:

K! eredeti hozzászólása:

hey man i know its being long since this topic
but my steam is completely dark as you said in the 2nd paragraphy of your answer is there any way to fix this? any way i can check again the hardware acceleration? caused i unchecked and now my steam is unusable its all black i even reinstalled and its still luike this

Try putting this at target field for steam shortcut.
-cef-force-gpu

If doesn't work try
-cef-enable-gpu

Hopefully that would tick the box for you to enable,

Thx I will try it as soon as I get home and come back here to say if it worked
Thx a lot for the answer

[K!]

Dr.Shadowds 🐉 eredeti hozzászólása:

K! eredeti hozzászólása:

hey man i know its being long since this topic
but my steam is completely dark as you said in the 2nd paragraphy of your answer is there any way to fix this? any way i can check again the hardware acceleration? caused i unchecked and now my steam is unusable its all black i even reinstalled and its still luike this

Try putting this at target field for steam shortcut.
-cef-force-gpu

If doesn't work try
-cef-enable-gpu

Hopefully that would tick the box for you to enable,

This should be next to what it's already on the target field right? Or do I erase what's there and put this one?
Srry I'm really really bad with all this

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

K! eredeti hozzászólása:

Dr.Shadowds 🐉 eredeti hozzászólása:

Try putting this at target field for steam shortcut.
-cef-force-gpu

If doesn't work try
-cef-enable-gpu

Hopefully that would tick the box for you to enable,

This should be next to what it's already on the target field right? Or do I erase what's there and put this one?
Srry I'm really really bad with all this

Example edit shortcut target:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steam.exe" -cef-force-gpu

or

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steam.exe" -cef-enable-gpu

or

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steam.exe" -cef-force-gpu -cef-enable-gpu

-edit-
Seem like not toggle the settings just tested.

Best I can suggest is move Steamapp folder out of Steam folder if you have games installed, uninstall steam, make sure Steam folder delete, reinstall Steam, then put back steamapp folder, and see if that fixes it for you.