Trying to fix Steam browser not working?
If you’re an avid fan of the PC master race, then you’ve probably come across Steam much more than the average person. Unfortunately, the video game distribution platform does have it’s hiccups and can run into problems.
The Steam browser especially has always been quite buggy, slow, and sometimes completely unresponsive over the years. But that’s alright! If your Steam browser isn’t working, it should only require a few minutes of fiddling with your settings to get this to work.
In this article, we’ll go over the possible causes of this problem and all the methods that you can use to try and fix this issue. Here’s how you can fix Steam browser not working on Windows and even Mac.
Let’s get started!
- 1. Enable Steam In-Game Overlay.
- 2. Restart Your Steam App.
- 3. Clear All Browser Cache Files.
- 4. Delete Browser Cookies.
- 5. Flush Steam Cache Files.
- 6. Disable The DirectWrite For Steam’s Browser.
- 7. Join Or Leave The Steam Beta Program.
1. Enable Steam In-Game Overlay.
First off, you might already be in-game while you’re reading this article. If so, you may not necessarily have to exit the game to try and fix this problem. Are you having a hard time opening the Steam overlay or browser?
Chances are, depending on the game you’re playing, there’s probably a setting built into the game that’s disabling the Steam overlay. This is particularly common for CS:GO players that might have accidentally or unknowingly reverted their settings back to the default orientation.
Try to scour and rummage through your settings to see if there’s an option that explicitly disables the Steam overlay. If you find one, enabling that should fix your problem and allow the Steam overlay together with the browser to run normally.
2. Restart Your Steam App.
Giving your Steam app a restart should always be one of the first things to try out whenever you’re trying to fix a software problem. In fact, this method is pretty much universal when it comes to fixing bugs and glitches in almost any program.
By restarting your Steam app, you’ll be able to terminate any running software errors and bugs which are currently running with Steam that could be causing this issue. Now, Steam doesn’t have a designated ‘Restart’ button, so you’ll have to exit and reopen the program manually.
Here’s how you can restart your Steam app:
- First, open up your Steam program and click on the Steam button at the top-left corner of your screen.
- From the list of options in the drop-down menu, select Exit to log out of your account and exit Steam.
- Once that’s done, simply open up the Steam app again and log into your account. You can find the Steam app on your Start menu by pressing the Windows key and searching for ‘Steam’.
When you’ve logged into your account, try to run or browse through the Steam browser to see if the issue has been fixed. You can navigate through the Steam Store to troubleshoot the problem for any errors.
3. Clear All Browser Cache Files.
In the next three methods, we’ll be clearing and flushing out cache files that could be responsible for the broken Steam browser. While cache files might elevate and semi-automate your browsing experience, these can be quite disruptive if compromised.
Cache files save your settings and login history, so you don’t have to log back into your account every time you open up a familiar website. Unfortunately, sometimes these files do cause problems which ultimately stops the Steam browser from working.
Clearing your Steam browser’s cache files will not remove any personal data from your computer, other than your login history. You’ll have to log back into all the accounts that you’ve accessed through the Steam browser after this step.
Here’s how you can clear Steam’s browser cache files:
- Start by opening up the Steam app on your computer and navigating to the Steam button at the top-left corner of your window.
- Now, move your mouse down and click on Settings.
- Next, navigate to the Web Browser tab and select Delete Web Browser Cache.
- Lastly, you should be asked to confirm, so just click on OK to proceed.
With that out of the way, your Steam’s browser cache files should now be completely cleared from your computer. Don’t exit the settings yet! We’ll be proceeding from here for the next step.
4. Delete Browser Cookies.
Now that you’ve deleted your browser cache files, it’s time to remove the cookies stored in your Steam’s browser. Cookies are a term used to describe a small piece of data that is stored on your computer by a web browser to track and monitor your browsing activity.
In this way, companies and websites get to track your behavior when navigating around their website. While this can be pretty invasive, it does help those companies collect and tabulate the data of how their visitors navigate around their website.
Here’s how you can delete your browser’s cookies:
- If you’re still on the same page from the last method then simply click on Delete All Browser Cookies and select OK.
- However, if you’re nowhere there yet, simply open up the Steam app on your computer to start.
- After that, click on the Steam button at the top-left corner of your screen and go to Settings then Web Browser.
- You should see two options to your right, for this method, click on Delete All Browser Cookies and confirm the deletion.
While you may have deleted your cookies, they will return every time you visit a website for the first time or if they notice that the cookies have been deleted.
5. Flush Steam Cache Files.
For the last clearing and flushing method, we’ll be flushing out Steam’s configuration files to completely clear your Steam app from waste. The config files are just temporary files that have built up as cache files in your Steam folder.
To be honest, simply clearing your Steam web browser files should already do a good job. However, it doesn’t hurt to be thorough since this step takes about five seconds to do anyway.
Here’s how you can flush Steam’s cache files:
- Press on the Windows key + R buttons simultaneously to open up the Run dialog box.
- In the text field, copy and paste or type down the text below and hit Enter.
steam://flushconfig
That should delete and thoroughly clear any remaining cache and config files from your Steam program and browser.
6. Disable The DirectWrite For Steam’s Browser.
Playing from a low-resolution monitor, Steam’s web browser has pretty much been a blurry experience for me. Thankfully, the DirectWrite setting does help smoothen and clear the entire window, which makes the Steam browsing experience much more pleasant.
Unfortunately, you may have to bid goodbye to clear and smooth texts on your screen since we’ll be disabling that in this step. By turning off the DirectWrite feature, your Steam browser should no longer have to pass through an aesthetic filter before being displayed on your screen.
While this might be a long shot, it’s worth a try especially if you’ve exhausted all the methods above. Here’s how you can disable Steam’s DirectWrite feature:
- First, bring out the Steam program.
- Now, click on the Steam button at the top-left corner of your screen and select Settings.
- On the new window, click on Interface and look for the option that says Enable DirectWrite for improved font smoothing and kerning. Disable this by unchecking the box.
Once you’re done with that, try to restart your Steam program to completely implement all the changes, especially from the past methods. Hopefully, that should fix Steam browser not working on your computer.
7. Join Or Leave The Steam Beta Program.
Finally, you might want to try joining or leaving the Steam beta program. Beta testing is a novelty job that a lot of gamers like to fantasize about. After all, who wouldn’t want to make money playing games that haven’t even been released yet?
Well, you could be a beta tester for Steam right now if you wanted to. While this actually isn’t as prestigious or exciting as it sounds, joining or leaving the beta program can fix a ton of issues with the Steam client.
Here’s how you can join or leave the Steam beta program:
- With the Steam app open on your screen, navigate to the Steam button at the top-left corner of your screen and click on it.
- Select Settings from the dropdown list and the Settings window should open up in the Account tab by default.
- From there, look for Beta participation and select Change.
- You can either opt out or join a beta program, choose whichever option you currently aren’t using and restart your Steam client.
Log back into your account and try to browse through the Steam browser to see if the problem persists. Ideally, that should fix Steam browser not working on your computer. Unfortunately, if that didn’t work, you can always reinstall Steam to try and fix this issue.
If you want to try reinstalling Steam, we suggest following our guide since it’s written to be extremely thorough. At the same time, you’ll also be able to save most of your game files by following the steps we’ve laid out. Doing so will help you avoid having to download your games again after reinstalling the Steam client.
With that done, that about wraps up this article! Hopefully, we’ve helped you fix Steam browser not working for your computer. If you have any questions or clarifications, feel free to leave us a comment down below.
If this guide helped you, please share it. 🙂