"steamwebhelper.exe" not responding no matter what

[DieVirulenz]

Hi there,

a friend of mine has been having constant issues with "steamwebhelper.exe" not responding and so far nothing we came up with worked at all.

Here is a list of things we tried:

- Restarting Steam when it happens leads to the same issue
- Starting Steam with the "-no-browser" option
- Reinstalling steam (both to the default location and on a different harddrive)
- Restarting the webhelper with both GPU acceleration and sandboxing disabled
- Deleting "steamwebhelper.exe" and having Steam redownload it
- Clearing steam browser and download caches (both via menu and filesystem)
- Opting for STEAM Beta client
- Adding the "steamwebhelper.exe" and the whole steam folder to the Windows Defender Exceptions list
- Checked firewall settings for steam
- We replaced the RAM (16GB) as we thought it might have been the issue, which it wasnt

Some additional notes:
- There is no additional Antivirus on the system which is Windows 10 and up to date
- When starting the PC and waiting a while so all services come up the error occurs. Starting steam right after being on the desktop seems to work, but we could not identify any services that might cause the issue
- The issue has been going on for a while
- After the dialogue for the non responsive "steamwebhelper.exe" the main Steam window opens but browser and Friends list wont show up

We have been browsing the web up and down and saw a lot of these issues occur but so far no fix seems to remedy it.

So any input regarding this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a lot in advance!

[iMageYou]

I am having this problem now every other day. I have tried literally every step on here. Installed to program files and program files x86, put on my D drive, deleted Achievements file, all the A/V. port checks. I uninstalled Windows update KB 503771 because it came on around the same time. Re-installed Steam (yet again, annoying). And then it will work for one day (made sure the windows update didn't install again) before going back to the "steamwebhelper, a critical Steam component, is not responding. The Steam UI will not be usable. Click here for more information." Memory has been fine, I am literally out of ideas and this has been the most annoying issue I've ever had. Epic Launcher and Xbox are still fine. Just crappy Valve struggling. All this started after I tried to install Apex of all things.

[iMageYou]

Publicado originalmente por Alice Liddell:

Publicado originalmente por iMageYou:

I am having this problem now every other day. I have tried literally every step on here. Installed to program files and program files x86, put on my D drive, deleted Achievements file, all the A/V. port checks. I uninstalled Windows update KB 503771 because it came on around the same time. Re-installed Steam (yet again, annoying). And then it will work for one day (made sure the windows update didn't install again) before going back to the "steamwebhelper, a critical Steam component, is not responding. The Steam UI will not be usable. Click here for more information." Memory has been fine, I am literally out of ideas and this has been the most annoying issue I've ever had. Epic Launcher and Xbox are still fine. Just crappy Valve struggling. All this started after I tried to install Apex of all things.

See, this happened to me when Steam was boot looping and all I did was install Steam on another drive, start that one (then the Webhelper issue appears and goes to offline mode) then click on the original Steam and presto, the original worked again.

My issue though was that achievement_progress.json file.

As for MS Windows 10 updates, I stopped them all after a similar crashout and never turned them back on 3 months ago, except for Security Updates.

I literally put Win10 EOL at 3 months ago personally for myself and my system runs great (after fixing 1000+ errors and warnings which is the reason I stopped all Win updates).

I want to point out to you all that Windows Shell Service Host could be corrupted because that was my issue. Easy to fix if you know the permission parameters.

RuntimeBroker is also corrupt but on every Windows system and has no weight on anything, it's a false positive.

Long OS builds seem to become corrupted over time with newer updates coming in especially if you have OS builds from BEFORE 2020 (or was it 2021 - I forget).

If you have 1000+ errors and/or warnings in Event Viewer within 7 days or less, you have this same issue as I did and it is not fun to fix.

The OS should only have up to 70 - 100 errors and warnings every 7 days which is normal for some systems while others will see lower totals towards 20 - 30 errors and warnings per 7 days.

Use Reliability History in conjunction with Event Viewer and use a Custom Panel for EV.

OMG, so you got me thinking and I started playing around with literally everything. I have a gaming laptop and I hook it into a laptop docking station to connect to my dual monitors. If my laptop goes to sleep and I have it connected to the docking station, Steam will throw this error no matter what I try. It's only when I disconnect my laptop from the docking station and open the laptop monitor that Steam will immediately open. Going to look into updates for the docking station etc but that's definitely what the problem is in my instance. Thanks again

[madmarkymark]

OK - I am confused - I don't have a librarycache folder anywhere on my system?? Is this the issue? Thanks

[iMageYou]

Publicado originalmente por madmarkymark:

OK - I am confused - I don't have a librarycache folder anywhere on my system?? Is this the issue? Thanks

I had literally tried every single thing mentioned and my issue was my laptop docking station( I use a gaming laptop and dock it into monitors, keyboard, mouse). When I disconnect it and open the laptop lid Steam opens immediately. Most everyone else’s issues seems to be that achievements file in the user data folder.

[Maxnoise]

does anyone else have any ideas on how to fix this issue. i've tried everything listed above here and everything i can read online. uninstalled and reinstalled steam so many times i lost count. i cannot get this to work. windows firewall disabled, i use avast and have totally disabled it and i still get the same looping behavior where the steam ad windows pop up for a second and then disappear. when i right click in the tray i get the standard error dialog " steamwebhelper, a critical Steam component, is not responding The Steam UI will not be usable" and the only option that works is Exit steam - none of the others do anything.

When i look at windows task manager i see "steam (32 bit)" running and then "steam client webhelper" quickly jumps in the mix like 7 times and disappears. about every 4 ot 5xs a steamerrreporter jumps in a sec too. this continues to do loop OVER AND OVER until i kill it.

So at this point the steam and all of my games are unplayable. i've been trying to resolve this for days and i'm at a dead end. is there anything else that someone has tried that has worked ??? at this point i'll literally try ANYTHING

[iMageYou]

Publicado originalmente por MaxNoise:

does anyone else have any ideas on how to fix this issue. i've tried everything listed above here and everything i can read online. uninstalled and reinstalled steam so many times i lost count. i cannot get this to work. windows firewall disabled, i use avast and have totally disabled it and i still get the same looping behavior where the steam ad windows pop up for a second and then disappear. when i right click in the tray i get the standard error dialog " steamwebhelper, a critical Steam component, is not responding The Steam UI will not be usable" and the only option that works is Exit steam - none of the others do anything.

When i look at windows task manager i see "steam (32 bit)" running and then "steam client webhelper" quickly jumps in the mix like 7 times and disappears. about every 4 ot 5xs a steamerrreporter jumps in a sec too. this continues to do loop OVER AND OVER until i kill it.

So at this point the steam and all of my games are unplayable. i've been trying to resolve this for days and i'm at a dead end. is there anything else that someone has tried that has worked ??? at this point i'll literally try ANYTHING

Are you on a gaming laptop by chance with it docked?

[Iceira]

If any have dual GPU card , then deal with it, not sure is webhelper that try use a gpu card now have a issue with 2 cards, but lets see if this is now part or the issue.
alos only win11 maybe ( its look like no win10 as fare as we know or is it 2 seperated issue tahst mixup with steam dont start or webhelper wont work tif gpu have 2 card choise )

dont forget we are not support here, we only look at the issue from user point , and lack of info in top of this.

ps.
also why above user ask if this laptop maybe, most gamer laptop has 2 cards.

[DarkFriend]

I'M here to update this if anyone encounters this. That trick won't work anymore here's the new trick. Just go to go to drive letter:\your user name\AppData\Local and delete steam folder. Upon opening steam again you will be prompt to LOG IN again. Done simple as that! Cheers!

[Saxoid]

Publicado originalmente por iMageYou:

Publicado originalmente por madmarkymark:

OK - I am confused - I don't have a librarycache folder anywhere on my system?? Is this the issue? Thanks

I had literally tried every single thing mentioned and my issue was my laptop docking station( I use a gaming laptop and dock it into monitors, keyboard, mouse). When I disconnect it and open the laptop lid Steam opens immediately. Most everyone else’s issues seems to be that achievements file in the user data folder.

Dude! Thank you so much .. In my case itsn ot a docking station but simple HDMI cable of external monitor.
Problem persists if both monitors are running. Simply turn one off. Sad solution but its working.

[Sergibor8]

Publicado originalmente por Saxoid:

Publicado originalmente por iMageYou:

I had literally tried every single thing mentioned and my issue was my laptop docking station( I use a gaming laptop and dock it into monitors, keyboard, mouse). When I disconnect it and open the laptop lid Steam opens immediately. Most everyone else’s issues seems to be that achievements file in the user data folder.

Dude! Thank you so much .. In my case itsn ot a docking station but simple HDMI cable of external monitor.
Problem persists if both monitors are running. Simply turn one off. Sad solution but its working.

Hey guys,
I don't know what the bug is, I've tried everything from reinstalling STEAM to cleaning json files.
In short - DISCONNECTING HDMI OR DOCKSTATION WHEN STEAM STARTS - WORKS!!!!.
Thanks so much for the clarification, no way I could have guessed that the problem could be such a small thing.

[Iceira]

Publicado originalmente por Sergibor8:

Publicado originalmente por Saxoid:

Dude! Thank you so much .. In my case itsn ot a docking station but simple HDMI cable of external monitor.
Problem persists if both monitors are running. Simply turn one off. Sad solution but its working.

Hey guys,
I don't know what the bug is, I've tried everything from reinstalling STEAM to cleaning json files.
In short - DISCONNECTING HDMI OR DOCKSTATION WHEN STEAM STARTS - WORKS!!!!.
Thanks so much for the clarification, no way I could have guessed that the problem could be such a small thing.

its a laptop setup issue, docking station at desktop pc is not same or normal to do that, to my knowledge no desktop pc will ever be in a docking stations. ( only repair shop might do such. )

[Ottovonurso]

Publicado originalmente por Sergibor8:

Publicado originalmente por Saxoid:

Dude! Thank you so much .. In my case itsn ot a docking station but simple HDMI cable of external monitor.
Problem persists if both monitors are running. Simply turn one off. Sad solution but its working.

Hey guys,
I don't know what the bug is, I've tried everything from reinstalling STEAM to cleaning json files.
In short - DISCONNECTING HDMI OR DOCKSTATION WHEN STEAM STARTS - WORKS!!!!.
Thanks so much for the clarification, no way I could have guessed that the problem could be such a small thing.

IT'S WORKKED. The problem was the most stupid thing. I try everything, but the solution was "Occam's razor"

[almond-110]

I reinstalled windows and steam finally works. Still have no idea what was wrong.

[raumkrieger]

The only thing that worked for me was unplugging my second monitor, rebooting with it unplugged, then after Steam launched, plugging it back in.

[bidulless]

Publicado originalmente por raumkrieger:

The only thing that worked for me was unplugging my second monitor, rebooting with it unplugged, then after Steam launched, plugging it back in.

hello
Do you have steam on autostart ?
if so just remove it and use steam when you need by just clicking on it icon.