Steam Client keeps closing randomly, please help!

[iRaft]

I have searched everywhere I know and I can't seem to find an answer. My steam client keeps closing itself or crashing (but gives no errors or anything). It just vanishes and I have to restart it every 5-10 minutes. Has anyone else experienced this? I've tried just about every suggestion that I've found. Restarting my computer, running virus and drive scans, uninstalling and reinstalling steam, disabling antivirus and nothing seems to work at all. I'm almost at the point of wiping my whole pc and starting from scratch. It's very annoying. I will say that I'm trying to download a game but I've also downloaded many games in the past and have never had this problem over the 5+ years that I've had steam. I'm at a loss. Maybe I'm just having a dumb moment and its a super obvious fix that is staring me in the face and I just can't see it. Anyway, thanks in advance. Any help is much appreciated!

[robsanta74]

Have you tried switching to the beta client? Just go to "Steam -> Settings -> Account -> Beta participation" in the client menu and opt in. It'll install the beta client and then restart Steam. Hopefully, it might stop your problem I was having a problem with the official client because, apparently, it hates Windows11 and keeps acting weird. Moving to the beta solved my problem... mostly.

[iRaft]

Thank you for the suggestion but, unfortunately, it still crashes.

[Lithurge]

When did it start doing it, e.g. have you recently moved to Win 11, have you installed any other software, updated drivers etc... and did it start doing it after that?

[iRaft]

I upgraded to Win 11 basically right after it was available. I haven't done any other recent updates since aside from the regular automatic windows updates and such. Weird thing is, this all started because I had trouble updating Ark, it kept saying corrupt update files. So I uninstalled the game completely and was just going to start from scratch. That's when all this started, once I started the fresh download of the game. It crashed every few minutes and I'd have to restart steam. After 2 full days of constantly restarting steam, the download finally finished successfully this morning and steam hasn't crashed anymore... very strange. Thanks, you guys, for the suggestions and everything. Hopefully that's the end of it? I guess we shall see next time I have to download something.

[robsanta74]

The problem is most definitely the new Steam client. Not W11 by itself. I've been using W11 for months and it's only this latest client that has been giving me problems. It either enters an update loop or fails to patch. It's frustrating. I can only hope that the next version fixes it because I have something like 400 games in my library and would want to lose access to them.

[iRaft]

Origineel geplaatst door robsanta74:

The problem is most definitely the new Steam client. Not W11 by itself. I've been using W11 for months and it's only this latest client that has been giving me problems. It either enters an update loop or fails to patch. It's frustrating. I can only hope that the next version fixes it because I have something like 400 games in my library and would want to lose access to them.

Oh man, well... That is extremely unfortunate but it does make me feel a little better knowing that its nothing that is necessarily wrong with my pc. I hope they fix it soon, it's very annoying. Thanks for the info!!

[robsanta74]

I mean, I'm sure that Windows11 might be PART of the problem, but it's almost certainly the Steam client itself that's at the core of things. It's not the first time a client has been janky. I had similar stuff happen to me pre-W11. They eventually fixed it [the client] and eventually life went on.

It just so happens that this particular client breaks in several different ways, which probably makes tracking down the problem more complex.

For some people, it's the steamui.dll not loading. For others, it's a never ending loop of failure to extract the update and then reverting back to pre-udpate. Still, for others, even if you do update, the client keeps nagging you with a popup to update. And then there are those for whom the Steam client won't even load.

Best bet, for now, it to just suffer the insanity. Steam WILL fix things much sooner rather than later; A broken client is the last thing that they want since that's how they make their money.

[Potato]

I'm on windows 10 22H2 and having this exact same problem. Did you ever found a fix,
OP?

[LComeno]

win 10 here and half of my games crash now as soon as I try to get them to run, because Steam keeps crashing. I have been building my own computers since 1998, so I know it's fine. I'm running on an i9 with 32 RAM and a RTX 3080. Never had a problem on here in 11 years. Started a week or so ago, so I'm pretty sure it's on Steam's end. Hope there's a fix soon. I spend more time restarting and waiting on Steam, just to try to play one of my 700+ games and watching it all crash as soon as the game loads.

I have had a ton of probs with the latest Windows update it trys for an hour to install it, then says it can't and then takes 10 more minutes to undo it all. *sigh* That's getting old real fast too but everything runs fine on here, except Steam.

[LComeno]

It's Steam's problem. I just fired up the GOG Galaxy client since I have it linked with Steam and a couple other sites I have games on. I fired up a couple of the games that have not worked for me via the Steam client and was amazed when they worked. I got into both games and played a bit, then came in here to let you know. I build my own computers (since 1998) and have been online 30 years, so a problem will drive me nuts until I get it fixed, solved, killed, whatever is the best solution. :)

So if you are having problems with Steam, try getting the GOG Galaxy client from GOG.com if you don't already have it. Maybe you too will be able to play your games. Link Steam to the GOG client and you are all set. If anyone tries this, please let me know if it worked for you too. Thanks gang.

[Scaly_Pride]

@iraft I have a similar problem with this if your still experiencing a random Steam crash….But mine is like Close the Game as normal but Steam decides to close itself for no reason and doesn’t give a min, to play the next game!! I wonder if u had that sort of issues in 2023 steam keeps crashing?!

[Lavie]

Origineel geplaatst door Scaly_Pride:

@iraft I have a similar problem with this if your still experiencing a random Steam crash….But mine is like Close the Game as normal but Steam decides to close itself for no reason and doesn’t give a min, to play the next game!! I wonder if u had that sort of issues in 2023 steam keeps crashing?!

Hi! It's best to start your own thread. For the clarity of the discussion.

[Yandy]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.