Steam icon disappears from taskbar, Windows 11

[snerft]

I have the problem that the Steam icon disappears from the taskbar. Steam is still running and I can access it by Alt-Tabbing. Steam is also visible on the right side of the taskbar under "hidden icons" and opens its window when I double-click it. But the Steam icon in the taskbar is missing. When I open the friends list, the Steam icon appears in the taskbar. But only the friends list window is there. When I close the friends list, the Steam icon also disappears from the taskbar. But Steam is still running.

The problem has been going on for a few days. I haven't found a permanent solution yet. Restarting does not work in any case.

I found this thread here in the Steam forum, but it was closed recently:
https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/3203745634153321651/

[Supafly]

1. Unpin it from the taskbar
2. Exit Steam or use hidden icons to on friends so it shows again
3. Pin it to Taskbar

If you never had it pinned before do the above but switch step 1 to pin and step 3 to unpin

[RiO]

What Supafly said.

It's hard to explain the why - but to give you a simplified explanation: it's has to do with how Steam consists of multiple processes and the way it handles those. In some cases it ends up confusing Windows about which one(s) supply handles that connect to the task bar.

Unpinning Steam from the taskbar; exiting and restarting it; and then re-pinning it; is you explicitly telling Windows: "No, this one!"

To be clear: this isn't a bug on Microsoft's end. This is purely Valve doing something weird and not-quite-supported.

[snerft]

yes that worked, thank you both.
hopefully that will be adressed in an upcoming steam update.

[Supafly]

Originally posted by goldfrapp:

yes that worked, thank you both.
hopefully that will be adressed in an upcoming steam update.

Happy to help

It's happened to me 1-2 time in the last year so not that frequent to be that annoying, especially with such an easy fix. So I wouldn't count on it being fixed anytime soon.

[Rachow]

Yes, that's right, I thought I was the only one this happened to. I report it to valve anyway for a solution, I think it can be reported in the official bugs thread.

So, I will try with the fix that you mention.

Edit: I tried the solution and indeed it seems to work, since before another icon was created on one side of the other when opening steam. So yes I think its a little bug with Valve doing something strange with Windows pins in Steam client

[Feasting Zombie]

I just wanted to hop on and tell you I want to buy you a beer. Yes, this still works even to the day I am posting. I have dealt with this for almost 2 months!!!

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

[:}]

Originally posted by Supafly:

1. Unpin it from the taskbar
2. Exit Steam or use hidden icons to on friends so it shows again
3. Pin it to Taskbar

If you never had it pinned before do the above but switch step 1 to pin and step 3 to unpin

Doesn't work for me. I tried pining it, unpinning it and even un/re installing Steam but there's still a blank icon...

[:}]

Originally posted by BN I Gambasse:

Originally posted by Supafly:

1. Unpin it from the taskbar
2. Exit Steam or use hidden icons to on friends so it shows again
3. Pin it to Taskbar

If you never had it pinned before do the above but switch step 1 to pin and step 3 to unpin

Doesn't work for me. I tried pining it, unpinning it and even un/re installing Steam but there's still a blank icon...

Now it works and I have absolutely no idea why

[PusherBot]

Originally posted by Rachow:

Yes, that's right, I thought I was the only one this happened to. I report it to valve anyway for a solution, I think it can be reported in the official bugs thread.

So, I will try with the fix that you mention.

Edit: I tried the solution and indeed it seems to work, since before another icon was created on one side of the other when opening steam. So yes I think its a little bug with Valve doing something strange with Windows pins in Steam client

Worked for me too. I got a brand new (a couple weeks old) high-end gaming setup (first one in like 13 years) and I was like... WTF, my Windows install is unstable already??? lol

[Bierson]

Guys, this solution of pin and unpin didn't work for me but here's another one I found:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/15do7fa/comment/jutikhw/

This one worked!

[divyabonkey]

Hey man, so this might be a dead post, but I had the same problem as you and here is how I fixed it:

Assuming you have Steam pinned, open steam. You should now have the pinned steam icon showing up normally plus the weird blank steam icon that you want to get rid of.

Right-click the blank steam icon and a list of steam locations will pop up.
At the bottom there should be one that just says "Steam," right above the "Pin to Taskbar" option. Right click on that one and go to "Properties."

Okay, now a properties window should open. You'll notice fields named "Target" and "Start in." You'll notice that these have the wrong file path for your steam file.

Put the correct filepath in there for where your steam.exe file is on for the Target field, and then put the filepath for your Steam folder on the Start in field.

That should fix it.


the above is from a forum post in r/steam by the user https://www.reddit.com/user/SagaciousKurama/

and it helped me out and is the correct fix and fixes it at the base level which is if u have reinstalled or because windows is ♥♥♥♥ this happens so the way to fix it would be the above method and it should not occur again for you guys have fun and hope this helps someone.

[Supafly]

Originally posted by bonkeymr:

Hey man, so this might be a dead post, but I had the same problem as you and here is how I fixed it:

Assuming you have Steam pinned, open steam. You should now have the pinned steam icon showing up normally plus the weird blank steam icon that you want to get rid of.

Right-click the blank steam icon and a list of steam locations will pop up.
At the bottom there should be one that just says "Steam," right above the "Pin to Taskbar" option. Right click on that one and go to "Properties."

Okay, now a properties window should open. You'll notice fields named "Target" and "Start in." You'll notice that these have the wrong file path for your steam file.

Put the correct filepath in there for where your steam.exe file is on for the Target field, and then put the filepath for your Steam folder on the Start in field.

That should fix it.


the above is from a forum post in r/steam by the user https://www.reddit.com/user/SagaciousKurama/

and it helped me out and is the correct fix and fixes it at the base level which is if u have reinstalled or because windows is ♥♥♥♥ this happens so the way to fix it would be the above method and it should not occur again for you guys have fun and hope this helps someone.

Or just do the solution posted in post #1

.......no need to necro with a solution when a solution was provided, simple and already worked.

[travi]

Solutions for different problems. Bonkeymr's solution solved my problem while the original did not.

[Ashborn]

Originally posted by bonkeymr:

Hey man, so this might be a dead post, but I had the same problem as you and here is how I fixed it:

Assuming you have Steam pinned, open steam. You should now have the pinned steam icon showing up normally plus the weird blank steam icon that you want to get rid of.

Right-click the blank steam icon and a list of steam locations will pop up.
At the bottom there should be one that just says "Steam," right above the "Pin to Taskbar" option. Right click on that one and go to "Properties."

Okay, now a properties window should open. You'll notice fields named "Target" and "Start in." You'll notice that these have the wrong file path for your steam file.

Put the correct filepath in there for where your steam.exe file is on for the Target field, and then put the filepath for your Steam folder on the Start in field.

That should fix it.


the above is from a forum post in r/steam by the user https://www.reddit.com/user/SagaciousKurama/

and it helped me out and is the correct fix and fixes it at the base level which is if u have reinstalled or because windows is ♥♥♥♥ this happens so the way to fix it would be the above method and it should not occur again for you guys have fun and hope this helps someone.

Originally posted by bonkeymr:

Hey man, so this might be a dead post, but I had the same problem as you and here is how I fixed it:

Assuming you have Steam pinned, open steam. You should now have the pinned steam icon showing up normally plus the weird blank steam icon that you want to get rid of.

Right-click the blank steam icon and a list of steam locations will pop up.
At the bottom there should be one that just says "Steam," right above the "Pin to Taskbar" option. Right click on that one and go to "Properties."

Okay, now a properties window should open. You'll notice fields named "Target" and "Start in." You'll notice that these have the wrong file path for your steam file.

Put the correct filepath in there for where your steam.exe file is on for the Target field, and then put the filepath for your Steam folder on the Start in field.

That should fix it.


the above is from a forum post in r/steam by the user https://www.reddit.com/user/SagaciousKurama/

and it helped me out and is the correct fix and fixes it at the base level which is if u have reinstalled or because windows is ♥♥♥♥ this happens so the way to fix it would be the above method and it should not occur again for you guys have fun and hope this helps someone.

Hey man, just wanted to say how much you helped me. I'm not good at IT stuff and it was the only fix that worked for me since the "Solution" on this thread was to unpin it from the taskbar, but mine was never pinned in the first place.

[Supafly]

Originally posted by Ashborn:

Originally posted by bonkeymr:

Hey man, so this might be a dead post, but I had the same problem as you and here is how I fixed it:

Assuming you have Steam pinned, open steam. You should now have the pinned steam icon showing up normally plus the weird blank steam icon that you want to get rid of.

Right-click the blank steam icon and a list of steam locations will pop up.
At the bottom there should be one that just says "Steam," right above the "Pin to Taskbar" option. Right click on that one and go to "Properties."

Okay, now a properties window should open. You'll notice fields named "Target" and "Start in." You'll notice that these have the wrong file path for your steam file.

Put the correct filepath in there for where your steam.exe file is on for the Target field, and then put the filepath for your Steam folder on the Start in field.

That should fix it.


the above is from a forum post in r/steam by the user https://www.reddit.com/user/SagaciousKurama/

and it helped me out and is the correct fix and fixes it at the base level which is if u have reinstalled or because windows is ♥♥♥♥ this happens so the way to fix it would be the above method and it should not occur again for you guys have fun and hope this helps someone.

Originally posted by bonkeymr:

Hey man, so this might be a dead post, but I had the same problem as you and here is how I fixed it:

Assuming you have Steam pinned, open steam. You should now have the pinned steam icon showing up normally plus the weird blank steam icon that you want to get rid of.

Right-click the blank steam icon and a list of steam locations will pop up.
At the bottom there should be one that just says "Steam," right above the "Pin to Taskbar" option. Right click on that one and go to "Properties."

Okay, now a properties window should open. You'll notice fields named "Target" and "Start in." You'll notice that these have the wrong file path for your steam file.

Put the correct filepath in there for where your steam.exe file is on for the Target field, and then put the filepath for your Steam folder on the Start in field.

That should fix it.


the above is from a forum post in r/steam by the user https://www.reddit.com/user/SagaciousKurama/

and it helped me out and is the correct fix and fixes it at the base level which is if u have reinstalled or because windows is ♥♥♥♥ this happens so the way to fix it would be the above method and it should not occur again for you guys have fun and hope this helps someone.

Hey man, just wanted to say how much you helped me. I'm not good at IT stuff and it was the only fix that worked for me since the "Solution" on this thread was to unpin it from the taskbar, but mine was never pinned in the first place.

....Last line on original answer

Originally posted by Supafly:

1. Unpin it from the taskbar
2. Exit Steam or use hidden icons to on friends so it shows again
3. Pin it to Taskbar

If you never had it pinned before do the above but switch step 1 to pin and step 3 to unpin