Resolved - Steam open but not open

[Ducky MoMo]

Name: Judge Dredd

Rank: BAR Officer

Type of issue: Software

Brief Description of Issue: When i turn on my computer, i have to sign into steam. When i sign in, 50% of the time it doesn't work, it says it couldn't connect. Then, i cannot try and open it because it says it is already running. t does not show up in a task manager located in ctrl+alt+del.The only way to get out of it is to restart my computer, which takes 5 minutes to boot up, and i accidently dowloaded a crap load of startup stuff which i have to exit. I tried deleting these things, but couldn't. Are they playing a role in this problem? Is there a way i can access a deeper kind of task manager like the computer has when shutting off and saying that program is running, then turning it off? Sorry if this is hard to understand, but it's become very annoying and i just nearly threw my voice out and got grounded for screaming at the computer about it.

***Medical Supply Staff ONLY Below this line***

Current Status: Resolved

Main Technician: Sgt R. Marchese

Supporting Technician:Bryant

[Bryant 1st MRB]

Did this issue start after you downloaded the shit?

And go start>computer>uninstall/install programs then chose the ones you want to destroy.

[Marchese 1st MRB]

I would suggest first to back up your game files then uninstall/re-install steam. Start up programs may be a factor but lets see if this works

[Ducky MoMo]

Seems to have fixed it, thank you. On another note my computer runs a hell of a lot better. Thank you, i did not know of that pert of my start menu as well, but could you still see if there is a way to open a more in depth task manager? If not, that's fine, but just in case that happens again, i think that should fix it.

[Marchese 1st MRB]

There may be online software that maybe can give a little more info but I wouldn't recommend it. Just keep an eye on your processes in task manager, uninstall unwanted/unnecessary programs from control panel and you can always run msconfig to shut off start up programs. I am now closing this ticket

[Holland 1st MRB]

The default task manager on Windows will not show all tasks running, however, Steam will always be shown. It is quite easy to hide a running program from the default task manager, and because if that, I would recommend any non-default task manager, as there are many of them with many different features. One I use when I need an external task manager, is found here.

However, keep in mind that they will be more difficult to use, as they are showing many more tasks than the default one would. Many of which, are the core processes for your OS itself, and if terminated, would likely cause your OS to crash, potential file corruption, etc. So if you plan to use them, please do so at your own risk. Google is your friend.

Again, this would have little relevance to steam, as the version downloaded from the steam website will never be a hidden process.

When you start up your computer, it will take time for everything to connect to your network, and then to the internet. On my system, it takes between 15 - 30 seconds after log-in for my connection to come up. If Steam were to open in that time-frame, it would quickly discover that it cannot connect to the network. If Steam is on start-up I strongly recommend you take it off. If you are looking for maximum optimization of your system, there should be nothing that starts up when your system starts, with the exception of the core processes, anti-virus, drivers, etc. It takes very little effort to click a little icon when you want a program to run.

As for the reason why it would fail to find a connection, and then disappear, my first point of blame would be again to your start-up programs. During launch, Steam takes up a surprising amount of resources to bring itself to open. If your system's resources are being shared between a large number of start-up processes, it will take, in some cases literally forever for your system to do anything. I can tell your system is being maxed out, as you said it took up to 5 minutes for it to boot. That is a problem. If worse comes to worse, I would recommend you look into an upgrade for yourself. I'm sure one of our more hardware specialized techs could help you out with that.

As stated above, a quick and easy way to manage start-up programs is to type "msconfig" into the run prompt (start >> run), clicking on the "Start up" tab, and disabling anything unnecessary.

*NOTE* On my system, there is a "Steam" in the start-up tab of msconfig, which directly relates to the VAC server connection. Do not disable that, as it will result in being kicked every 5 minutes or so due to no connection to VAC servers.

I believe there is an option to disable automatic start-up in the steam options.

Keep in mind, if any problems occur after disabling a start-up program, you may easily re-open msconfig to re-apply it's start-up status.