Steam is an online platform where you can get all of your favorite PC games. Instead of going to a store to buy a physical copy of the game you can just download it to your computer which is quite convenient for most people. Although this is a stable platform there are instances when certain issues can occur. In this latest installment of our troubleshooting series we will tackle the Steam not opening issue.
How To Fix Steam Not Opening Issue
Before performing any of the recommended troubleshooting steps listed below it’s best to restart your computer first. This action refreshes the operating system and remove any corrupt temporary data that could be causing the problem.
Force close the Steam app
When you close the Steam app normally there are times when it will just be running in the background. The first thing that you want to do in this case is to force close the Steam app from the task manager so that you can open the app normally again.
- Launch the Task Manager by selecting it from a number of options after you enter ctrl + alt + del.
- End all Steam related processes starting from the process ‘Steam Client BootStrapper”.
Check if the Steam not opening issue still occurs.
Try running Steam as an administrator
There are times when the Steam application will require elevated privileges in order for it to run. To check if this is what’s causing the problem you will need to right click on the Steam client and choose “Run as administrator”. Once this is done check if the Steam not opening issue still occurs.
Modify the ClientRegistry.blob
- End all Steam related processes from the task manager
- Browse to your Steam directory. The default one is at C:\Program Files\Steam.
- Look for the ClientRegistry.blob
- Rename the file to ‘‘ClientRegistryold.blob’.
- Restart Steam and allow the file to be recreated.
- Go back to your Steam directory and look for Steamerrorreporter.exe
- Run this app then relaunch Steam.
Check if the Steam not opening issue still occurs.
Delete then reinstall Steam
One last troubleshooting step that you can do if the above steps fail is to uninstall then reinstall the Steam client.
- Go to your Steam directory and look for the Steam.exe file and the SteamApps folder
- Delete all files in the Steam directory except for the ones mentioned above.
- Restart your computer then run the Steam client as an administrator.
- Wait for Steam to finish downloading the missing files.
Check if the Steam not opening issue still occurs.