Fix Steam Remote Play Not Working

Trying to fix Steam Remote Play not working?

Hopping on a quick online brawl with your friends, but finding that Steam’s Remote Play is not working? It’s a real bummer when the game night gets spoiled by such an ambiguous and annoying error.

Luckily, there’s a lot of methods that you can use to try and fix this problem! The Remote Play error is most likely due to a network or device error that’s interacting with the Steam feature. This issue should be pretty easy to fix, so don’t worry, you’ll get back to your games in no time!

In this article, we’ll be going over what’s causing this problem as well as guide you through several methods to fix this issue. Here’s how you can fix Steam Remote Play not working for your computer.

Let’s get started.

• 1. Refresh Remote Play in Steam Settings.
• 2. Whitelist Steam To Your Firewall.
• 3. Disable Hardware Decoding.
• 4. Leave Or Join Steam’s Beta Program.
• 5. Update Steam To The Latest Version.
• 6. Reinstall Steam.

1. Refresh Remote Play in Steam Settings.

First off, here’s the most basic fix that you can do to try and fix your problem. We intentionally made this the first method since most users might forget to try this out. Refreshing Remote Play in your Steam settings will give the feature a chance to reboot and start again properly.

By disabling the feature, all Remote Play connections should cease, together with any software bugs or errors that were messing with the feature. Hopefully, when you enable it again, everything should run as intended and be back to normal.

Here’s how you can refresh Remote Play settings in Steam:

1. Start by opening up the Steam app on both your computer and your friend’s. Both of you will need to do this step to try and fix the problem.
2. Once you’ve logged in, click on the Steam button at the top-left corner of your screen and select Settings.
3. A window of all the different Steam settings should pop up on your screen, navigate to Remote Play.

4. From there, uncheck Enable Remote Play and click on OK to save your changes.
5. Restart both of your computers and open up Steam again. Now, repeat Steps 1 to 4 except leave the Enable Remote Play option checked.

Once you’re done with that, go ahead and run a game to see if the error is still there. Remote Play should hopefully be working properly now, but if the issue persists go ahead and proceed to the next method.

2. Whitelist Steam To Your Firewall.

Remote Play is a feature that requires a more ‘personal’ type of internet connection with your friend. Essentially, you’re somewhat hosting a server that your friend connects to with his or her device.

Contrary to popular belief, your firewall doesn’t monitor software viruses but instead is a middle-man for malicious network activity. In this case, Remote Play is most likely misinterpreted as a malicious network attack which is why it’s being restricted.

Before you perform these steps, make sure that you have access to administrative privileges on your user account.

Here’s how you can add Steam to your firewall’s whitelist:

1. Go ahead and open up the Start menu so you can search for ‘firewall’. Click on Firewall & network protection to open the system setting.
2. From there, look for and select Allow an app through firewall.

3. You should be directed to a list of all currently installed applications on your computer. So we can start whitelisting steam, click on the Change settings button at the top-right corner of the window.
4. Once you have access to the list of applications, left-click on any app and type in ‘Steam’ to automatically highlight the program.
5. Finally, check both the Private and Public boxes to the right before clicking on OK and exiting the window.

With that out of the way, Steam should be fully whitelisted by your firewall. A whitelist is simply a list of programs that are free to act without your firewall completely restraining them. In doing so, Steam should now be allowed to make network connections to your friend.

3. Disable Hardware Decoding.

‘Hardware Decoding’ is a feature that has come a long way to improve the performance of streams and hosted lobbies. Enabling this feature will move bits of your processing tasks to your GPU instead of your CPU.

This is only applicable for computers with a dedicated GPU. Otherwise, the feature can’t be utilized by integrated GPUs.

By disabling this, we’ll be getting rid of any unnecessary processes that could be affecting your host. While this might arguably decrease your performance, it’s worth a shot if it ends up fixing your Remote Play feature.

Here’s how you can disable ‘Hardware Decoding’:

1. First, open up the Steam program on your computer and click on the Steam button at the top-left corner of your window. Move your mouse down and click on Settings.
2. From there, go and navigate to Remote Play and select Advanced Client Options.

3. Near the bottom part of your screen, you should see the Enable hardware decoding option. Uncheck this feature and click on OK to save your settings.
4. Restart Steam for both you and your friend’s computer and see if this fixes the issue.

You’ll have to perform this step for you and your friend, especially for the host computer.

4. Leave Or Join Steam’s Beta Program.

Being able to access Steam’s beta program can be a cool experience. You’ll be the first one to access many beta features that haven’t been released yet, which is an achievement that not a lot of people know about.

However, the beta program is subject to many bugs that can affect your overall experience with the Steam program. In this case, being a beta tester might be compromising your Remote Play feature. Alternatively, feel free to be a beta tester and see if that fixes your problem.

Here’s how you can leave or join Steam’s beta program:

1. Hopefully, Steam is still open on your computer. From there just navigate to the Steam button at the top-left edge of your screen.
2. With the list of different tabs on your left, click on Account and look for Beta participation.

3. Whether you’re a beta tester or not, click on the Change button and leave or join the Beta participation option.
4. Restart Steam and see if the issue persists.

Opting in or out as a beta tester can be a great way to fix your problem, especially if you’re on the leaving-end of this method. Hopefully that’ll help you fix Steam Remote Play not working.

5. Update Steam To The Latest Version.

While Steam may offer a ton of offline games, it is still an online platform that heavily relies on network connections for most of its features. In light of this, running an outdated version of Steam on your computer can inadvertently compromise your experience.

By keeping your Steam version up-to-date, you’ll be able to get the latest bug fixes as well as the most recent patch updates for Steam features. In this method, we’ll be updating your Steam program to try and fix the Remote Play feature.

Here’s how you can update Steam:

1. Start by opening up the Steam app on your computer.
2. Now, click on the Steam button at the top-left corner of the Steam window.

3. Next, select the Check for Steam Client Updates option and Steam should automatically download any updates available.
4. Once that’s done, Steam will have to restart so it can apply the changes from the update.

Log into your account and see if the Remote Play feature is finally fixed. If the issue persists, you may have to proceed to the last and final method.

6. Reinstall Steam.

Have you exhausted all the methods above? If so, reinstalling Steam might not be such a bad idea. Unfortunately, the process of reinstalling Steam is somewhat lengthier than reinstalling a normal third-party application.

This is due to the fact that we’ll have to save your games so you won’t have to download them again. Steam will completely delete the Steam app as well as all your games in its folders, so we’ll have to back up your games.

Furthermore, here’s how you can reinstall Steam on your computer. As you read both articles, you’ll find that there are two ways of storing your files. While copying your games out of your folder might be easier, the chances of success are not 100 percent certain. Try to back up your games instead, just to be safe.

That wraps up this article! Hopefully, this post has helped you fix Steam Remote Play not working on your computer. If you have any clarifications, feel free to leave us a comment down below.

If this guide helped you, please share it. 🙂