Library shows up as a blank screen

[DawnPaladin]

I just exited a game and came back to Steam to find my library displaying as an empty black screen. I clicked Library to try and make it refresh and nothing happened; the Library dropdown gave me "Collections" to switch to, which also displayed as a black screen. I switched to the Store and back and that didn't help. Exiting the beta fixed the problem.

[Sky8Paradise]

+ me too

[Ageotas]

I had this problem, and I just accidentally fixed it by going the "Steam" top-left menu and clicking "Check for Steam client updates". As soon as I did, the black screens reverted to their usual content.

Hope this helps anyone else who is googling for an answer :)

[tempor2001]

Originally posted by Ageotas:

I had this problem, and I just accidentally fixed it by going the "Steam" top-left menu and clicking "Check for Steam client updates". As soon as I did, the black screens reverted to their usual content.

Hope this helps anyone else who is googling for an answer :)

worked for me too! thank for the hint :)

[overencumbered]

For me what worked was moving the app to my laptop screen, then back to the larger monitor I was using when the problem occurred.

[Empire526907]

Originally posted by overencumbered:

For me what worked was moving the app to my laptop screen, then back to the larger monitor I was using when the problem occurred.

This worked for me too, I'm using a really small laptop as a second monitor, clicking "Check for Steam client updates." did not.

[JAY™]

yes

[RiO]

Originally posted by overencumbered:

For me what worked was moving the app to my laptop screen, then back to the larger monitor I was using when the problem occurred.

Means this blank screen issue is indeed related to the same Chrome/Chromium bug that has existed since 2016.

Back then it was already identified that Chromium tries to access rendering contexts in a way that doesn't agree with how technology like Nvidia Optimus -- meant to switch between the low-performance Intel HD chipset and the high-performance Nvidia one -- works.

In particular, problems arise when a secondary monitor switches from the Intel HD chipset to the Nvidia one and then back again. Chromium just loses access to the rendering context and the browser content area 'black screens.' (The black is a fail-safe piece of zeroed out memory; a safety and security precaution built into the graphics driver.)

Also back then, the fix was to move the affected Chrome window back to the primary window on which the Nvidia chipset never became active and do something, anything really, which would force Chrome to repaint it.


IIRC Chrome contains several mitigations / workarounds for it nowadays to prevent it from happening or to automatically recover from it, but those live in the outer Chrome 'chrome', i.e. the browser's own UI shell. They wouldn't be part of the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) that Valve uses to embed Chromium in Steam.

So, Valve probably failed to correctly put those same safeguards in place.
(Not a big surprise there, considering how stupidly rushed the recent library update was.)

[Hannibal]

The ONE are people need the most gets blacked out the most. Thanks valve.

[TenMa<3A]

Originally posted by Ageotas:

I had this problem, and I just accidentally fixed it by going the "Steam" top-left menu and clicking "Check for Steam client updates". As soon as I did, the black screens reverted to their usual content.

Hope this helps anyone else who is googling for an answer :)

Just some rare times it helps, but in my case only for few seconds, then the screen goes black again

[Geek Bob]

Originally posted by overencumbered:

For me what worked was moving the app to my laptop screen, then back to the larger monitor I was using when the problem occurred.

oh thank you! that worked for me too

[Dracula]

Originally posted by Ageotas:

I had this problem, and I just accidentally fixed it by going the "Steam" top-left menu and clicking "Check for Steam client updates". As soon as I did, the black screens reverted to their usual content.

Hope this helps anyone else who is googling for an answer :)

didn't work, am not using other monitor, only way to bypass this is to use "Big picture" mode but issue still proceeds to be of nuisance. would so the age old trick of turing my PC of and on again but downloading important files that I cannot risk losing

[StormyBlaze]

2020 fix go to top left click steam restart in offline mode and then go back to online mode

[[SK] Kaldaien]

Originally posted by RiO:

Originally posted by overencumbered:

For me what worked was moving the app to my laptop screen, then back to the larger monitor I was using when the problem occurred.

Means this blank screen issue is indeed related to the same Chrome/Chromium bug that has existed since 2016.

Back then it was already identified that Chromium tries to access rendering contexts in a way that doesn't agree with how technology like Nvidia Optimus -- meant to switch between the low-performance Intel HD chipset and the high-performance Nvidia one -- works.

In particular, problems arise when a secondary monitor switches from the Intel HD chipset to the Nvidia one and then back again. Chromium just loses access to the rendering context and the browser content area 'black screens.' (The black is a fail-safe piece of zeroed out memory; a safety and security precaution built into the graphics driver.)

Also back then, the fix was to move the affected Chrome window back to the primary window on which the Nvidia chipset never became active and do something, anything really, which would force Chrome to repaint it.


IIRC Chrome contains several mitigations / workarounds for it nowadays to prevent it from happening or to automatically recover from it, but those live in the outer Chrome 'chrome', i.e. the browser's own UI shell. They wouldn't be part of the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) that Valve uses to embed Chromium in Steam.

So, Valve probably failed to correctly put those same safeguards in place.
(Not a big surprise there, considering how stupidly rushed the recent library update was.)

If the doofuses would stop emulating OpenGL ES using D3D9, this would not even matter. There is a robustness extension in WGL that Chromium could use to know the behavior implemented by the driver, but they have avoided using actual GL for GL because that somehow makes sense to Google :P

It's literally only D3D that has the possibility of the behavior discussed on a driver that's not even implementing that WGL extension. Google got things so backwards it's frankly scary.

[TenMa<3A]

There are many reasons why steam doesnt show library and some other sections, in many cases, it can be fixed using some of this solutions

- Disabling GPU in setting->interface
- Clear download cache (steam-settings-downloads) and web cache/cookies (steam-settings-web browser)
- Reinstall Steam
- Go to AppData in C:/ and manually delete Local Cache on steam (solve the problem just few minutes)
- Task Manager and end process of StemClientWebHelper
- Clicking in "friends & chat" logo
- Participate in Steam BETA (if you are already in, stop participating)
- Delete folder SteamUI and ClientUI
- Go offline restart, and then online
- Reinstalling some dll like the packet KB2999226
- Changing your default browser to Chrome

If anything works (like my case), it could be a root problem with W8.1 and Steam. So the only real solution it's to update your OS to W10. It's confirmed that W10 dont have this problem, and in the case it still happens, it can be easily fixed by the solutions already listed above

[Rastaman]

Originally posted by TenMa:

It's confirmed that W10 dont have this problem, and in the case it still happens, it can be easily fixed by the solutions already listed above

This is factually incorrect, as I am running W10 and I've been having this problem for more than a year now without any known fix. Whatever people mentioned above (disabling gpu acceleration etc. yadayadayada) does NOT work, except for temporary fixes (it goes black after like 10 minutes again).