Games no longer work on my windows 10 computer

[jkrame2]

I did not play any of my 50 games on Steam in around 3 weeks. When I tried last week, many of the games started to load, but would kick me out. There were icons in my task bar showing that each of the games were running, but I could not get the games to show up on my screen. Clicking the icon would not do anything. I had to hit the STOP button to stop the games.

Thus far "Customer Service" says I must contact each game manufacturer to have them tell me what is wrong with these games. REALLY????

Any one have similar issues? Can someone provide assistance, since Steam will not? Anyone know how and who to contact at Steam to actually get action?

[nullable]

Valve doesn't offer game support or PC support. Presumably there's an issue on your system, chances are the games in question work for most other users. You're responsible for administrating your PC and dealing with system issues.

Welcome to PC gaming.

What are your full system specs? Have there been any changes on the machine in the last three weeks? Or any other events of note?

What have you done to troubleshoot or resolve the issue besides be gobsmacked?

Origineel geplaatst door jkrame2:

Thus far "Customer Service" says I must contact each game manufacturer to have them tell me what is wrong with these games. REALLY????

Well while it's not great advice for something that's probably not a game issue. Valve isn't responsible for your system issues or giving advice on how to resolve them. Game issues would be managed by the developers. There's no way for Valve support to know what your issue is, and it's not their responsibility to figure it out to give you advice you'd rather hear.

Origineel geplaatst door jkrame2:

Any one have similar issues? Can someone provide assistance, since Steam will not? Anyone know how and who to contact at Steam to actually get action?

There is no one to contact at Steam. They don't offer PC support.

Try reinstalling Steam, update your graphics drivers. You might look at what's in your Windows Event Viewer, errors there might tell you something if no errors are displayed on screen.

[Haruspex]

Everything Nullable said above is accurate.

You really have two options here; You can either roll up your sleeves and use the resources available to you to troubleshoot your PC problems which will require patience and willingness to research and read. Or, you can hire a tech person to do it for you. That's it. Using a PC sometimes requires tinkering and troubleshooting, so either you are willing to learn to tinker and troubleshoot, or you have money so you can pay someone to tinker and troubleshoot for you.

[jkrame2]

Origineel geplaatst door nullable:

Valve doesn't offer game support or PC support. Presumably there's an issue on your system, chances are the games in question work for most other users. You're responsible for administrating your PC and dealing with system issues.

Welcome to PC gaming.

What are your full system specs? Have there been any changes on the machine in the last three weeks? Or any other events of note?

What have you done to troubleshoot or resolve the issue besides be gobsmacked?

Origineel geplaatst door jkrame2:

Thus far "Customer Service" says I must contact each game manufacturer to have them tell me what is wrong with these games. REALLY????

Well while it's not great advice for something that's probably not a game issue. Valve isn't responsible for your system issues or giving advice on how to resolve them. Game issues would be managed by the developers. There's no way for Valve support to know what your issue is, and it's not their responsibility to figure it out to give you advice you'd rather hear.

Origineel geplaatst door jkrame2:

Any one have similar issues? Can someone provide assistance, since Steam will not? Anyone know how and who to contact at Steam to actually get action?

There is no one to contact at Steam. They don't offer PC support.

Try reinstalling Steam, update your graphics drivers. You might look at what's in your Windows Event Viewer, errors there might tell you something if no errors are displayed on screen.

Nullable

[jkrame2]

Origineel geplaatst door nullable:

Valve doesn't offer game support or PC support. Presumably there's an issue on your system, chances are the games in question work for most other users. You're responsible for administrating your PC and dealing with system issues.

Welcome to PC gaming.

What are your full system specs? Have there been any changes on the machine in the last three weeks? Or any other events of note?

What have you done to troubleshoot or resolve the issue besides be gobsmacked?

Origineel geplaatst door jkrame2:

Thus far "Customer Service" says I must contact each game manufacturer to have them tell me what is wrong with these games. REALLY????

Well while it's not great advice for something that's probably not a game issue. Valve isn't responsible for your system issues or giving advice on how to resolve them. Game issues would be managed by the developers. There's no way for Valve support to know what your issue is, and it's not their responsibility to figure it out to give you advice you'd rather hear.

Origineel geplaatst door jkrame2:

Any one have similar issues? Can someone provide assistance, since Steam will not? Anyone know how and who to contact at Steam to actually get action?

There is no one to contact at Steam. They don't offer PC support.

Try reinstalling Steam, update your graphics drivers. You might look at what's in your Windows Event Viewer, errors there might tell you something if no errors are displayed on screen.

Nullable, I have made no changes to my system in the last month or so. Everything worked fine then. I looked online and someone said to clear the Steam Cache, which I did. I also validated the game files. These solutions did not work. I have NOT uninstalled Steam and reinstalled it, because then I would need to reinstall all my games (over 50). However, I will do that if necessary. Can you tell me if I do that, do I lose my saves?

I have not checked every game yet. The ones that definitely cause the issue are: Heroes of Might and Magic V with add on Hammer of Fate and Tribes of the East, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, Duke Nukem Forever, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Pinball Arcade, Star Trek 25th Anniversary, and Risk: Global Domination.

I have not updated my graphics drivers, but why would I need to do so if the games all worked 3 weeks ago?

Used to be that if there was a problem, Steam would ask for some windows files to see if they would tell you what the issue was. They did not do so this time.

[jkrame2]

Origineel geplaatst door Haruspex:

Everything Nullable said above is accurate.

You really have two options here; You can either roll up your sleeves and use the resources available to you to troubleshoot your PC problems which will require patience and willingness to research and read. Or, you can hire a tech person to do it for you. That's it. Using a PC sometimes requires tinkering and troubleshooting, so either you are willing to learn to tinker and troubleshoot, or you have money so you can pay someone to tinker and troubleshoot for you.

Haruspex, I can build the computers but I am not an expert in the software. Do you have any ideas where to turn for paid expert help?

I did not have any issues 3 weeks ago. Tried playing some games with my grandkids last weekend and found the issue.

[RPG Gamer Man]

Origineel geplaatst door jkrame2:

Origineel geplaatst door nullable:

Valve doesn't offer game support or PC support. Presumably there's an issue on your system, chances are the games in question work for most other users. You're responsible for administrating your PC and dealing with system issues.

Welcome to PC gaming.

What are your full system specs? Have there been any changes on the machine in the last three weeks? Or any other events of note?

What have you done to troubleshoot or resolve the issue besides be gobsmacked?




Well while it's not great advice for something that's probably not a game issue. Valve isn't responsible for your system issues or giving advice on how to resolve them. Game issues would be managed by the developers. There's no way for Valve support to know what your issue is, and it's not their responsibility to figure it out to give you advice you'd rather hear.



There is no one to contact at Steam. They don't offer PC support.

Try reinstalling Steam, update your graphics drivers. You might look at what's in your Windows Event Viewer, errors there might tell you something if no errors are displayed on screen.

Nullable, I have made no changes to my system in the last month or so. Everything worked fine then. I looked online and someone said to clear the Steam Cache, which I did. I also validated the game files. These solutions did not work. I have NOT uninstalled Steam and reinstalled it, because then I would need to reinstall all my games (over 50). However, I will do that if necessary. Can you tell me if I do that, do I lose my saves?

I have not checked every game yet. The ones that definitely cause the issue are: Heroes of Might and Magic V with add on Hammer of Fate and Tribes of the East, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, Duke Nukem Forever, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Pinball Arcade, Star Trek 25th Anniversary, and Risk: Global Domination.

I have not updated my graphics drivers, but why would I need to do so if the games all worked 3 weeks ago?

Used to be that if there was a problem, Steam would ask for some windows files to see if they would tell you what the issue was. They did not do so this time.

Do you games have cloud saving? That means the saves will be permanently saved to the cloud, which means even if you delete your games and reinstall them, the saves should be fine. You can see which games have cloud saving on the store page, or in your library page of said game.

[RPG Gamer Man]

Origineel geplaatst door jkrame2:

Origineel geplaatst door Haruspex:

Everything Nullable said above is accurate.

You really have two options here; You can either roll up your sleeves and use the resources available to you to troubleshoot your PC problems which will require patience and willingness to research and read. Or, you can hire a tech person to do it for you. That's it. Using a PC sometimes requires tinkering and troubleshooting, so either you are willing to learn to tinker and troubleshoot, or you have money so you can pay someone to tinker and troubleshoot for you.

Haruspex, I can build the computers but I am not an expert in the software. Do you have any ideas where to turn for paid expert help?

I did not have any issues 3 weeks ago. Tried playing some games with my grandkids last weekend and found the issue.

If this issue is new, it is most likely something got installed new, like a new windows update, or maybe even your grandkids installed something that caused it. Actually i can guarantee there was a windows update as they usually do it on the second tuesday usually of every month.

[nullable]

Well I didn't say uninstall Steam, you can just reinstall which may reset any corrupted program files, if that is an issue. Although this is just one of those easy to do things you try first, because if you try it last after elaborate/exotic solutions, you won't feel smart. If it's not some kind of Steam issue, then you wouldn't see any change.

Save games generally aren't stored inside the SteamLibrary folders (there are a few exceptions) game saves are managed by each individual game. Steam does not manage save games. You can use a utility like https://www.gamesave-manager.com/ to backup and restore all your game saves, which isn't a bad idea because not all games use cloud saves.

You can also copy installed games from the SteamLibrary to avoid downloading them again. There's some flexibility there. Lots of ways you can insulate yourself from hassle to better enable aggressive troubleshooting.

Easy/dumb -> difficult/clever is generally the direction you want to go in with troubleshooting.

[RPG Gamer Man]

Also, as a suggestion, maybe some malware could be causing issues on your pc? I would run malwarebytes and a virus scanner just to be safe, in case youir grandkids installed something that may have had something bad hiding in the program or app. Sometimes it happens and people do not even realize it.

[Princess Luna]

Origineel geplaatst door nullable:

Welcome to PC gaming.

Surely console gaming is better right?

Wnat new GTA 6 - get PlayStation 5. I dont need new PC to run new games, can play news games slower.

Console broke - get a new one. PC broke-replace component

[Haruspex]

Origineel geplaatst door jkrame2:

I can build the computers but I am not an expert in the software.

You don't need to be an expert. Just have patience, a willingness to learn, and enough research skill to be able to identify problems and locate solutions.

Origineel geplaatst door jkrame2:

Do you have any ideas where to turn for paid expert help?

Due to a prevalence of scams out there, I highly recommend you search locally for this one. Find someone who people you know personally would recommend. This also has an added benefit of that expert being able to show you personally.

[nullable]

Origineel geplaatst door Princess Luna:

Origineel geplaatst door nullable:

Welcome to PC gaming.

Surely console gaming is better right?

Wnat new GTA 6 - get PlayStation 5. I dont need new PC to run new games, can play news games slower.

Console broke - get a new one. PC broke-replace component

Well the underlying thought is PC's are powerful, versatile, but there's a higher barrier to the hobby because sometimes problems arise. And one needs to be resourceful and relentless if you want to solve problems and accrue the knowledge to manage issues when they arise.

So welcone to PC gaming (where it helps to learn about the nuts and bolts, ins and outs, if you want to have a consistently good experience)

Origineel geplaatst door jkrame2:

I have not updated my graphics drivers, but why would I need to do so if the games all worked 3 weeks ago?

Used to be that if there was a problem, Steam would ask for some windows files to see if they would tell you what the issue was. They did not do so this time.

Two reasons. One it's an easy silly thing to do, so you do it to cross it off the list. Because if you tell yourself it can't be the drivers and you try 50 other things and then do the drivers last, and that works, ya ain't gonna feel smart.

Two, sometimes things get borked and even if you never figure out how it happened, the problem won't go away because you don't like a possibility. It's better to rule things out than try to asdume because it seems like a good shortcut. Beware your ego, it doesn't really care if you ever play pc games again.

As for your support claims, maybe if you had specific issues with the Steam client itself. But not any time your system slips on a banana peel.

[jkrame2]

Origineel geplaatst door RPG Gamer Man:

Also, as a suggestion, maybe some malware could be causing issues on your pc? I would run malwarebytes and a virus scanner just to be safe, in case youir grandkids installed something that may have had something bad hiding in the program or app. Sometimes it happens and people do not even realize it.

RPG Gamer Man, thanks for your help. My grandkids are too young to operate a computer without me, so I know that they did not turn on the computer or install something. I turned it on and opened Steam with them sitting on my lap. Also, I have Bitdefender runninjg at all times and have scanned the computer for viruses after the issue. No problems were detected.

[RPG Gamer Man]

Origineel geplaatst door jkrame2:

Origineel geplaatst door RPG Gamer Man:

Also, as a suggestion, maybe some malware could be causing issues on your pc? I would run malwarebytes and a virus scanner just to be safe, in case youir grandkids installed something that may have had something bad hiding in the program or app. Sometimes it happens and people do not even realize it.

RPG Gamer Man, thanks for your help. My grandkids are too young to operate a computer without me, so I know that they did not turn on the computer or install something. I turned it on and opened Steam with them sitting on my lap. Also, I have Bitdefender runninjg at all times and have scanned the computer for viruses after the issue. No problems were detected.

You would be supsrised about young people being able to use pc's. I had my 3 year old cousin one time install a game and play it, and acted like they knew what they were doing. Apparently they installed one of those running games. I do not like them, but i was very suprised they did this.

[jkrame2]

Origineel geplaatst door nullable:

Well I didn't say uninstall Steam, you can just reinstall which may reset any corrupted program files, if that is an issue. Although this is just one of those easy to do things you try first, because if you try it last after elaborate/exotic solutions, you won't feel smart. If it's not some kind of Steam issue, then you wouldn't see any change.

Save games generally aren't stored inside the SteamLibrary folders (there are a few exceptions) game saves are managed by each individual game. Steam does not manage save games. You can use a utility like https://www.gamesave-manager.com/ to backup and restore all your game saves, which isn't a bad idea because not all games use cloud saves.

You can also copy installed games from the SteamLibrary to avoid downloading them again. There's some flexibility there. Lots of ways you can insulate yourself from hassle to better enable aggressive troubleshooting.

Easy/dumb -> difficult/clever is generally the direction you want to go in with troubleshooting.

Thank you nullable. Not sure what you mean by copying the games from Steam. I typically just reinstall them from Steam. If there is another way to do this, let me know. How do you check to see if the games store saves in the cloud or in your file?