Catastrophic Steam Failure [SOLVED]

[The White Dragon]

Buckle up, because this one's gonna be a long post. I'm not particularly knowledgeable with working a computer, so if anyone reads this and is handy with computers and files, I beg you for assistance, any assistance.

The strangest thing started happening to me less than a week ago with steam. I was playing the Witcher 3 when suddenly textures started disappearing all around me. It happened slowly and systematically until the game crashed. I thought this was awfully weird, since my computer can handle The Witcher 3 just fine, and has been for this 2-week-long playthrough. I attempted to restart the Witcher 3 again, but the game never launched. I originally thought that the problem was solely with the Witcher 3, and no amount of research was of any help, on account of most of the troubleshooting questions being asked 5 years and many patches ago.

After a while, I gave up and decided to play Skyrim for the rest of the evening, only to find out that Skyrim wouldn't launch either. I then systematically tried every single game that I have, and nothing worked. I restarted my computer to no avail. I uninstalled and then reinstalled Steam; during the wait, I discovered that games not purchased through steam like Minecraft played just fine, implying that the issue is specifically with steam. After reinstall was finished, I reinstalled the Witcher 3, and it worked...for 3 minutes. The same phenomenon happened again; none of my steam games would launch even after uninstalling and reinstalling. In desperation, I've systematically uninstalled every single mod I have (after backing up my game files), and that didn't work either.

I've uninstalled and reinstalled Steam 3 times now. I've made absolutely sure steam is exempted from my antivirus (Avast), run antivirus scans to see if any malware is interfering with steam, and before I reinstalled steam for the 3rd time, I've booted my computer in safe mode to systematically scour away every single file associated with steam or any steam games (the game files are backed up on an external hard drive which is disconnected upon installation of steam). One curious thing of note is that on the 3rd installation of steam, the Witcher 3 will now launch, and get all the way into the main menu, but it will not load any saves. Starting a new game and attempting to load an old save will also not work. No other steam games will launch. Another curious thing to note is that steam keeps giving me a popup notifying me that there's a new steam client update available. I'll click "restart and apply" thinking that will solve the issue, and steam will restart. The odd thing is that 5-10 minutes later, the same popup will come up again as if I never applied the update; rather oddly, the date of the update correlates to when I started experiencing this problem

I don't have a single clue of how to proceed, and to my knowledge, I'm not aware of anyone else who has had a similar issue as of late. Any advice is welcome, though I would ask that it be phrased in layman's terms; as stated, I'm not that particularly knowledgeable with computers and files. Thank you in advance.

[nullable]

Well I kinda wonder since you seem to have the issue while in game, and in general graphical issues might suggest an issue with the GPU. Minecraft isn't a terribly GPU demanding game so if say your GPU was overheating in the Witcher 3 it might not be in Minecraft because the game isn't as GPU demanding.

So what are your specs? What other (non-Steam games) have you tried? When you get Steam working have you tried not very demanding games, or 2D games in Steam?

Although I wouldn't expect all the other issues you describe solely because of a overheating or failing GPU. And games crash all the time, even games running in Steam and usually they don't clobber the whole Steam install no matter how bad. Not in my experience.

Also keep in my correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation. Hardware and systems fail, it's natural to want to attribute the last change as the cause. But a lot of times that's just coincidental and can just be a red herring. I'm not saying completely dismiss it, just keep an open mind until you have more evidence.

[Zekiran]

Yeah also my first thoughts, it sounds more like bad drivers, a bad update to your OS, or hardware issues.

Go up to the top of your Steam library window and click HELP > SYSTEM INFORMATION and paste the *entire* list here. That way we can see whether there are any glaring issues with drivers and whatnot.

Something that was working and now isn't, tends to be because of outside issues, rather than the steam client. Did your operating system recently update or any hardware drivers get updated while you weren't looking? If you're on windows 10 or a laptop in particular that may have happened without you even knowing to look.

[The White Dragon]

引用自 Zekiran：

Yeah also my first thoughts, it sounds more like bad drivers, a bad update to your OS, or hardware issues.

Go up to the top of your Steam library window and click HELP > SYSTEM INFORMATION and paste the *entire* list here. That way we can see whether there are any glaring issues with drivers and whatnot.

Something that was working and now isn't, tends to be because of outside issues, rather than the steam client. Did your operating system recently update or any hardware drivers get updated while you weren't looking? If you're on windows 10 or a laptop in particular that may have happened without you even knowing to look.

I do run on Windows 10, so an unexpected update may very well be the case. Here's the info from System Information:

Computer Information:
Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
Model: OptiPlex 9020
Form Factor: Desktop
No Touch Input Detected

Processor Information:
CPU Vendor: GenuineIntel
CPU Brand: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790 CPU @ 3.60GHz
CPU Family: 0x6
CPU Model: 0x3c
CPU Stepping: 0x3
CPU Type: 0x0
Speed: 3592 Mhz
8 logical processors
4 physical processors
HyperThreading: Supported
FCMOV: Supported
SSE2: Supported
SSE3: Supported
SSSE3: Supported
SSE4a: Unsupported
SSE41: Supported
SSE42: Supported
AES: Supported
AVX: Supported
AVX2: Supported
AVX512F: Unsupported
AVX512PF: Unsupported
AVX512ER: Unsupported
AVX512CD: Unsupported
AVX512VNNI: Unsupported
SHA: Unsupported
CMPXCHG16B: Supported
LAHF/SAHF: Supported
PrefetchW: Unsupported

Operating System Version:
Windows 10 (64 bit)
NTFS: Supported
Crypto Provider Codes: Supported 311 0x0 0x0 0x0

Video Card:
Driver: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
DirectX Driver Name: nvldumd.dll
Driver Version: 26.21.14.3200
DirectX Driver Version: 26.21.14.3200
Driver Date: 7 24 2019
OpenGL Version: 4.6
Desktop Color Depth: 32 bits per pixel
Monitor Refresh Rate: 60 Hz
DirectX Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
VendorID: 0x10de
DeviceID: 0x1c82
Revision: 0xa1
Number of Monitors: 1
Number of Logical Video Cards: 1
No SLI or Crossfire Detected
Primary Display Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Desktop Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Primary Display Size: 23.54" x 13.23" (26.97" diag)
59.8cm x 33.6cm (68.5cm diag)
Primary Bus: PCI Express 16x
Primary VRAM: 4095 MB
Supported MSAA Modes: 2x 4x 8x

Sound card:
Audio device: Speakers / Headphones (Realtek

Memory:
RAM: 16289 Mb

VR Hardware:
VR Headset: None detected

Miscellaneous:
UI Language: English
Media Type: DVD
Total Hard Disk Space Available: 705280 Mb
Largest Free Hard Disk Block: 219933 Mb
OS Install Date: Dec 31 1969
Game Controller: None detected
MAC Address hash: 23e438b6ec8ec865622fc54b50cf72963dd3ecae
Disk serial number hash: b33d813e

[Zekiran]

Well your nvidia drivers are VERY old, I'm sure there are more recent ones than july of 19?

Try manually updating those drivers. Windows 10 sometimes also FORGETS WHAT GRAPHICS CARD to use, so also while you're at it make sure that your computer is USING the right card! that's more a problem with laptops, but it's always something that might just go sideways given how 'quirky' windows 10 actually seems to be.

[The White Dragon]

引用自 Zekiran：

Well your nvidia drivers are VERY old, I'm sure there are more recent ones than july of 19?

Try manually updating those drivers. Windows 10 sometimes also FORGETS WHAT GRAPHICS CARD to use, so also while you're at it make sure that your computer is USING the right card! that's more a problem with laptops, but it's always something that might just go sideways given how 'quirky' windows 10 actually seems to be.

I'll definitely give that a try...in the morning. It's getting late where I am. I'll update y'all on whether that works or not. Thanks a bunch!

[Zekiran]

Crossing our fingers. :D

[Callahan420]

If the games are an external hdd have you tried moving a game to a different drive and launching it?

[The White Dragon]

引用自 Zekiran：

Crossing our fingers. :D

It worked! The Witcher 3 will now launch and play just fine! Though curiously, it'll only launch when I have steam in offline mode. On the bright side, I don't play anything multiplayer. I'll install the rest of my library, and see if they all work, too; I've got a feeling it will. Thanks a bunch man!