Sometimes, Steam becomes unusably slow and I don't know why

[BlazeHedgehog]

Sometimes the Steam interface will be EXTREMELY sluggish. Text is immensely slow at coming up in chat windows, it takes 3-5 seconds for any clicks to respond when I'm browsing my library (or anything through the Steam client, really).

Restarting Steam usually fixes it.

Absolutely nothing precludes this happening. In the most recent case (just now), it was the first time I'd used Steam since booting up my PC two hours ago. A chat message from a friend came up, and trying to bring up the chat window from the task bar took several seconds.

[BlazeHedgehog]

I've narrowed the criteria for this down: it's whenever Steam boots up with my PC. For whatever reason, that "First start-up" Boot of Steam is unusably slow until I close and re-open it.

If I had to guess, something isn't hooking properly during boot-up? Maybe the Steam service is struggling to start?

Edit: The Steamservice's startup type is listed as "Manual." Is it supposed to be automatic?

[BlazeHedgehog]

Still trying to diagnose this problem. Fiddling with SteamService's startup type in the services manager didn't fix it.

Found the article on Steam's support page about flushing Steam's configs:

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3134-TIAL-4638

This also did not help. I also tried turning off the Steam Update News, thinking maybe that popping up was causing problems. That was not the solution, either.

The problem still persists: Every time Steam boots up with Windows, it is unusably slow until I manually quit out and restart the client. I've checked the Event Viewer and found no shenanigans.

Looking at Steam's debug log, it's full of this kind of stuff, though:

[0327/023940:ERROR:renderer_main.cc(227)] Running without renderer sandbox
[0328/002049:ERROR:gpu_info_collector_win.cc(103)] Can't retrieve a valid WinSAT assessment.
[0328/002710:ERROR:gpu_info_collector_win.cc(103)] Can't retrieve a valid WinSAT assessment.
[0328/002721:ERROR:renderer_main.cc(227)] Running without renderer sandbox

I also realized I never provided my PC specs:

Processor:
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU E7600 @ 3.06GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory:
2048MB RAM
Video Card:
ATI Radeon HD 5670
Operating System:
Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 3

I'm all up to date on everything.

[BlazeHedgehog]

Okay, despite the fact that I don't think Steam has updated recently, the problem has vanished just as mysteriously as it started happening.

I guess maybe Steam and Security Essentials was having a conflict or something.

[BlazeHedgehog]

So the problem came back, and I figured out a work around:

Before shutting down my PC, if I kill the Steam.exe task, then the next time it launches with Windows, it'll work like it is supposed to.

The bug of "Steam becomes unusably sluggish when my PC first boots" seems to be tied to the fact that something in Steam's shut down routine is bugged (Steam Cloud sync, maybe?). If I kill the task, I bypass the normal shut down routine, and everything's fine the next time it boots up.

So I don't know. I think I've given about as much information as I can.

[Silicon Vampire]

this issue also has a lot to do with your configuration/hardware and how many things you have starting with Windows.

You can delay the start, if you want (mildly difficult) so all the required networking process are running first or just don't have Steam start with windows at all.

[BlazeHedgehog]

Delaying the start doesn't actually seem to do anything, as now sometimes, I hit the bug 2 or 3 times in a row (rarely, but it does happen).

Today, I killed steamwebhelper.exe instead and the problem went away without having to restart Steam. I don't think I've ever tried this before. Could be a webkit problem, I guess?

[BlazeHedgehog]

Confirming that yes, the problem does appear to be steamwebhelper.exe

I've begun to notice websites loaded through the Steam browser are seriously wonky (especially Youtube, which will often show me a black screen for videos half the time). Furthermore, when Steam first boots, the Steam update news will be blank until I kill the steamwebhelper.exe process.

I am confident with 90% certainty that the slowdown-on-boot-up problem I'm having with Steam is centered around steamwebhelper.exe not functioning properly.

[The Mad One]

I am also having this problem, did you ever get to a resolution?

Happens for me nearly every other cold boot and the only way to resolve it is to start steam.

Specs:
Motherboard: Asus Z87 MAXIMUS VI HERO
CPU: Intel Core i7 4770K @ 4.2Ghz
RAM: 16GB (x4 4GB) Corsair DDR3 Vengeance @ 1866Mhz
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 980TI 6144MB
PSU: EVGA SuperNova G2 850W
OS HDD: Samsung 128GB SSD 840 PRO
Games HDD: Samsung 1TB SSD 850 EVO (steam is installed on this)
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

[BlazeHedgehog]

Terminating the Steamwebhelper.exe process fixes it for me, but you have to do that every single time you boot up Windows. It'll start right back up again after you terminate it, but for whatever reason, the first time it loads with Windows, this happens.

[Joikleave]

Seems here, This problem started last week.

I tried to re-install steam, but nothing changes.

Edit: This happens sometimes when i boot up Windows, not every time. (about 1 time on 10)

[Silicon Vampire]

I see I am going to need to re-iterate this as it does not appear anyone has read it yet...

Originally posted by Silicon Vampire:

this issue also has a lot to do with your configuration/hardware and how many things you have starting with Windows.

You can delay the start, if you want (mildly difficult) so all the required networking process are running first or just don't have Steam start with windows at all.

[BlazeHedgehog]

Originally posted by Silicon Vampire:

I see I am going to need to re-iterate this as it does not appear anyone has read it yet...

Originally posted by Silicon Vampire:

this issue also has a lot to do with your configuration/hardware and how many things you have starting with Windows.

You can delay the start, if you want (mildly difficult) so all the required networking process are running first or just don't have Steam start with windows at all.

Changing how and when Steam starts up does not actually fix it. I looked in to all of that, and actually went through the trouble of setting it up so that Steam would start up with Windows in different ways, and it still happened with every single one.

Right now, Steam is typically the last thing to start up on my system, and I still have to kill the "steamwebhelper.exe" process every time.

[The Giving One]

Boot your PC into safe mode WITH networking, use ethernet to connect directly up to your modem, and then log into Steam and check to see if you have improvement.

EDIT...What the good Silicon Vampire told you and others here (twice, actually) is exactly correct.

And why users have Steam set to start automatically on boot is a total mystery to me.

[BlazeHedgehog]

Originally posted by The Giving One:

Boot your PC into safe mode WITH networking, use ethernet to connect directly up to your modem, and then log into Steam and check to see if you have improvement.

EDIT...What the good Silicon Vampire told you and others here (twice, actually) is exactly correct.

And why users have Steam set to start automatically on boot is a total mystery to me.

Steam has plenty of social features that make it important to start with the system. I have quite a few friends who only talk to me through Steam.

So either I set Steam to start up with Windows... or I start Windows up and then have to start Steam manually before I do anything.

[The Giving One]

Originally posted by BlazeHedgehog:

.. or I start Windows up and then have to start Steam manually before I do anything.

So....why not this way ? This is how most people do it, as far as I know. Why can't you just start Steam manually ? And what about my other suggestion that you totally ignored to comment on ?