The Steam overlay is a feature that allows you to seamlessly use all of Steam’s community features without having to tab out of your game.
But there are times when the overlay simplyrefuses to open on a gameorbecomes unresponsive right after opening it.
This issue is most prominent if the overlay process isglitched,corrupted, orinterrupted by other third-party overlay applications.
you may start the repair process byenabling the overlayandchecking the key binds.From there, you may move on toresetting the glitched processandclearing the in-game overlay data.
Turn On Steam Overlay
Before moving on to troubleshooting the Steam overlay, you’ll need tomake sure that it’s enabled in the settings.
Here, we will enable the general Steam overlay option in theSteam settingsand the separate overlay option for individual games from itsproperties.
To do so,
Restart the Steam Overlay process
If you’re not able to open the Steam overlay at all, then there could be issues with the overlay process.
For such cases, you may restart the overlay process by force-closing it from theTask manager.
Follow the steps below while you’re in the game,
Clear In-Game Overlay Data
If the Steam overlay freezes frequently andbecomes unresponsiveright after opening it on a particular game, then it could relate to having problematic overlay data and cache files.
Here, you may reset the Steam overlay for any game by clearing its in-game overlay data. To do so,
Delete GameOverlayUI.exe
The GameOverlayUI.exe file is responsible for running the Steam overlay.
Issues regarding this file can make it impossible to launch the overlay application. A quick fix to this problematic overlay file is todelete itfrom theinstallation directorypermanently.
After deletion, Steam will automatically download and re-install the missing GameOverlayUI.exe file.
To delete the file,
Run Steam as an Administrator
Some users have reportedly fixed their issues regarding the Steam overlay by simply running Steam and the overlay processas an administrator.
So, you might want to give this fix a try to see whether it solves your overlay problem as well. Here,
Verify Game Integrity
The Steam overlay will not work properly if game files that utilize the Steam overlay randomlybecome corrupted.
To resolve any sort of Steam game file corruption, you may run the game integrity verification tool. To do so,
Close Conflicting Application
Using a third-party overlay application such as FRAPS,Nvidia Geforce Experience, Discord, or any other game launcher with overlay functionalities can interfere with the Steam overlay.
So, make sure todisable thembefore running the Steam overlay.
While we’re at it, also ensure tofree up some system resourcesby closing background applications, as Steam overlay will require some resources to function properly.
I’ve personally faced this exact issue whenever I playedhigh-resource-demanding gameslike Cyberpunk 2077 while running multiple background apps like browsers and recording software simultaneously.
Re-install Steam
Having a faulty Steam client application can also result in the Steam overlay not working properly.
This can happen due to a buggy update, installation, or file corruption. The best way to resolve this issue is tore-install a fresh version of the Steam client.
