All Discussions > Steam Forums > Suggestions / Ideas > Topic Details
Cederic Jun 16, 2020 @ 4:22pm
Stop stealing focus
For whatever reason Steam decides to drop my connection to the Friends chat server.

Ok, fine. I can log in again. When I'm ready.

Not when I'm dragged out of a high paced twitch based online game with teammates relying on me not being alt-tabbed out of the game looking at the Steam 'Friends' window going, "What the.."

Suggestion: Stop stealing focus from games.
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Showing 1-13 of 13 comments
GuRu Asaki Jun 16, 2020 @ 8:24pm 
Just cause your focus is from Streaming, doesnt mean STEAM isnt taking the focus away from other parts of Gaming, too...

Ever since Black Friday, STEAM has been about Valve 1st, Gamers not even 2nd, more like Gamers dont matter...

I will 2nd the whole (Stop Stealing Focus) thing...
#1
Arokhantos Jun 17, 2020 @ 9:28am 
You mean like your in game and suddenly you aren't cos steam decided to change focus ? cos that is generally a windows issue also and a quite annoying one
#2
Washell Jun 17, 2020 @ 10:01am 
It's probably not steam, do some testing.

https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-prevent-programs-from-stealing-focus-in-windows-2624453
#3
Cederic Jun 17, 2020 @ 10:51am 
Thank you for that link, which as its very first recommendation suggests I avoid Steam stealing focus by.. uninstalling Steam.

I'm not sure that this will help me play games unhindered.
#4
Mailer Jun 17, 2020 @ 12:03pm 
I have an autohotkey script that prevents applications from putting themselves on top of whatever application window(s) I choose. I am not sure if this correlates to the stealing of focus, but I will say that I have noticed it happen when playing Terraria, at the point where the Friends Network becomes unreachable.
I will try enabling it and prompting the same focus stealing deliberately, to see if it would prevent it from doing so; in which case, that is an option.
Last edited by Mailer; Jun 17, 2020 @ 12:03pm
#5
Mailer Jun 17, 2020 @ 12:17pm 
Originally posted by Mailer:
I have an autohotkey script that prevents applications from putting themselves on top of whatever application window(s) I choose. I am not sure if this correlates to the stealing of focus, but I will say that I have noticed it happen when playing Terraria, at the point where the Friends Network becomes unreachable.
I will try enabling it and prompting the same focus stealing deliberately, to see if it would prevent it from doing so; in which case, that is an option.
Well I did some testing by enabling and disabling my Ethernet connection and the script does kind of prevent the application from losing focus but not completely:

The cursor still changes because the Steam application desperately tries to take over, but can't because it can't appear above Terraria due to my script, so all I have to do is click once on the game to get back control again without anything intrusive appearing in front of it, which is better...?

I think it boils down to whether you are using Full-screen, Windowed or Borderless Windowed for your application in when it decides to take over, because I really doubt that every application gets their focus taken away all the time or there would probably be a lot more complaints.
Still I think it is something that they should absolutely fix because it has no business intruding either way.

If you are interested in my script I could send it to you, or you could google for it just as well. I only took it from there.
Last edited by Mailer; Jun 17, 2020 @ 12:18pm
#6
GOMBA Jun 17, 2020 @ 7:45pm 
ouuff
#7
Washell Jun 18, 2020 @ 11:06am 
Originally posted by Cederic:
Thank you for that link, which as its very first recommendation suggests I avoid Steam stealing focus by.. uninstalling Steam.

I'm not sure that this will help me play games unhindered.
The first recommendation, before the actual recommendations, is to figure out which program is stealing focus through a tool, but you seem to be stuck on blaming Steam. Even if it is Steam, there are plenty of other recommendations in there to fix or alleviate the problem.
#8
Cederic Jun 18, 2020 @ 11:41am 
You'll have to forgive me for knowing what I'm talking about.
#9
GOMBA Jun 18, 2020 @ 11:45am 
Originally posted by Cederic:
You'll have to forgive me for knowing what I'm talking about.
Why xDDDDDDDDD ?
#10
Erebus Jun 18, 2020 @ 12:23pm 
Originally posted by Washell:
The first recommendation, before the actual recommendations, is to figure out which program is stealing focus through a tool, but you seem to be stuck on blaming Steam.

The problem is that a Steam window, specifically, is the one that pops up above all other windows under nearly any circumstances and steals focus away from them, so you'll have to forgive us for not thinking it's very helpful to start with "now are you absolutely sure it's Steam doing this?" when it very clearly is Steam doing this.
Last edited by Erebus; Jun 18, 2020 @ 12:24pm
#11
Washell Jun 20, 2020 @ 3:22am 
Originally posted by Sabi:
The problem is that a Steam window, specifically, is the one that pops up above all other windows under nearly any circumstances and steals focus away from them, so you'll have to forgive us for not thinking it's very helpful to start with "now are you absolutely sure it's Steam doing this?" when it very clearly is Steam doing this.
Don't see it much these days but there used to be quite a few threads where people blamed the steam ad/news window for crashing their game when the reality was that the game crashed, steam saw the game was no longer running, and pulled up the ad/news window as usual upon the game's "exit".

Something similar may be at work here, something steals focus for a split second, and when it releases it, it's the begging for attention friend chat that gets it rather the previous task, ie, the game.

https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

Even if it's Steam, it's not supposed to that. Given that 10+ million people use steam daily, if it was a bug inherent to steam, these forums would be swamped with complaints.
Originally posted by Cederic:
You'll have to forgive me for knowing what I'm talking about.
Well, when it comes to troubleshooting, "knowing what you're talking about" is a pretty solid way to keep living with the problem indefinitely. An open mind and testing verifying each assumption leads to a fixed problem. All I'm suggesting is to use the focus logging tool as step one of fixing this problem, but if you want to hamstring yourself, be my guest.

So again even if it is Steam, it still boils down to a corrupted install or some kind of interaction with your system that requires you to solve it, because Valve won't be able to replicate the problem on their systems, which leaves them unable to fix it.
Last edited by Washell; Jun 20, 2020 @ 3:22am
#12
ChiNoiRoux Aug 13, 2024 @ 4:27am 
Found a solution, forking for Windows 10 as per august 2024 :
1. Open the location of your "Steam" shortcut, the one you use to launch Steam
2. Right click on the shortcut, go to properties
3. Add "-silent" at the end of the "Target" box (separated from the target with a space) and add it to the "Comment" box too
Done, now when I click on my Steam shortcut it opens in the tray without the annoying splash screen nor the ad popup
#13
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All Discussions > Steam Forums > Suggestions / Ideas > Topic Details
Date Posted: Jun 16, 2020 @ 4:22pm
Posts: 13
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