Issues with the STEAM menu loading during launch and the icon not appearing under hidden icons. Any suggestions?
Issues with the STEAM menu loading during launch and the icon not appearing under hidden icons. Any suggestions?
Hey everyone, this might be tough to convey, but I've been going through the usual fixes and checking various VODs and forums without success. I really don’t want to reinstall or uninstall STEAM since I’m pretty sure it’s fixable—similar issues happened about six months ago and I managed to work around them with a workaround provided below.
Everything seemed normal today. While playing Diablo 4, the game closed my Steam account along with the game itself (it looked like a crash, but no errors). After that, I couldn’t access the Steam menu again. I could no longer launch STEAM directly, but it still loads in the task bar as if it should be working (see the screenshot below).
However, the STEAM icon is no longer visible under Hidden Icons and doesn’t function at all. The context menu with my game library, settings, etc., doesn’t open, and I can’t launch any games via their shortcuts either. It just shows a launched icon on my screen but doesn’t appear when I try to interact with it.
Back in the day, it was more about scaling or UI issues, so I found a solution that worked for me a while ago. You can find the fix here:
https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/f...474/?ctp=2
I added the -vgui launch parameter to steam.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe, which worked before. Also:
https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/f...933/?ctp=4
My scaling is fine at 100%, but I tried pinning the Steam icon to the start button or taskbar. It launches successfully then, and it shuts down properly with a right-click. However, it exits without showing up in the task bar or opening any tabs like settings or library.
My PC specs are what they should be, except for Windows version—my new PC came with Windows 11 about six months ago, which is when I started having these issues.
Here’s what I have:
- MSI Gaming Desktop / Aegis RS 13NUF-439US / Intel Core i7 13th Gen 13700KF (3.40GHz)
- Motherboard: MSI PRO Z790-P WIFI
- RAM: 32GB DDR5 / ADATA XPG GAMMIX D10 32GB (4x8GB) DDR5 4800Mhz CL40 1.1V AX5U4800C408G-BB10
- 2 TB PCIe SSD / 3 TB HDD
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti
- Windows 11 Home or Pro 64-bit
It’s a bit confusing, but I thought about asking for help as a last resort. I tried rebooting and shutting down completely—no driver issues, everything was up to date, and no changes were made before this incident. I was playing a game, exiting the game which automatically closed Steam, and I couldn’t get back in afterward. I can’t even check the game integration cache because that menu doesn’t load at all. The context menu or anything similar isn’t accessible either.
I’m considering saving my common files folder and reinstalling Steam to see if it resolves the problem, hoping it’s something solvable—possibly related to Windows 11 or Steam compatibility.
You can access the "common" directory and relocate all your game files there. There, a straightforward reinstall should work well.
It seems to be a recognized problem, and some solutions have worked so far.
However, it's probably just a temporary fix until another update resolves it.