Steam overlay browser extremely slow

[miquelc]

I have the same problem for a couple of months now and I have no clue as to why. Though as was suggested before, it might have something to do with the way Steam caches.

The loading of pages in the Store is really slow, I generally have to wait 10 to 15 seconds before I see anything. Same with the update Window(s), it takes an equal amount of time to load and yes I see the same thing again with the overlay browser.

It is super fast when I visit the Store through a browser like Chrome and my connection is more than sufficient to handle traffic like this. I'm on a cable connection, the ping is between 7-13 ms and the download speed around 40 Mbps (under perfect conditions).

[Scorcher24]

The latest Patch brought a huge improvement for me.
I think it is fine now.

[Allions]

Same problem for me. Store, Community, ingame browser are all very very very slow. With my old computer it was just fiar... now with my new overpowered pc i got this problem... why?

[Meepsauce]

I'm getting this exact same issue still and have been for ages. I've tried deleting everything, re-installing steam etc, nothing works.

I'm on an SSD with fast internet and firefox loads in seconds, but the in-game browser is painfully slow, the steam browser is slow, and trading takes multiple tries to work.

On other systems on this connection it works absolutely fine so I can only imagine that somewhere with the steam browser, things are going wrong.

It's highly frustrating and it ruins my experience with steam all the time.

[Veratyr]

I have had the exact same problem for almost a year now. THANK YOU HEARTBORNE because I think i fixed it when you mentioned virtualbox

I have many virtual network adapters (between 6 and 10) as I do a lot of work with virtualization. I do believe this to be the problem. Here is what I did:

1) Delete cookies, htmlcache, overlaycookies, overlayhtmlcache in your Steam>config folder. (Thanks to who posted that), they were over 500mb for me.
2) Disable ALL network adapters by right clicking on them and clicking "disable". all except the one that connects you to your network. Including a spare one that is not plugged in if you have one.

Voila, it's not chrome fast, but its "normal" speed again!

I think it was trying each network adapter even though only one of them has a gateway set... lol

[Heartborne]

Originally Posted by Veratyr

I have had the exact same problem for almost a year now. THANK YOU HEARTBORNE because I think i fixed it when you mentioned virtualbox

I have many virtual network adapters (between 6 and 10) as I do a lot of work with virtualization. I do believe this to be the problem. Here is what I did:

1) Delete cookies, htmlcache, overlaycookies, overlayhtmlcache in your Steam>config folder. (Thanks to who posted that), they were over 500mb for me.
2) Disable ALL network adapters by right clicking on them and clicking "disable". all except the one that connects you to your network. Including a spare one that is not plugged in if you have one.

Voila, it's not chrome fast, but its "normal" speed again!

I think it was trying each network adapter even though only one of them has a gateway set... lol

Indeed, cleaning up and disabling the network adapters seems to work! I'm glad we finally got to some sort of solution.

[jurasis]

Originally Posted by Heartborne

(Update 2)

After formatting again, reinstalling everything (and checking steam EACH time -_-) I think I found one of the culprits!

In my case, Oracle VM VirtualBox. Since it adds a Network Addaptor (called: "VirtualBox Host-Only Network") somehow, steam browser must get confused and probably tries to connect to it at first. That's probably the reason why after the first page view it stays normal...

Anyway, I just disabled it for the time being and it seems like it went back to normal

VIRTUALBOX's network addaptor + STEAM overlay's browser = problem

(Update 1)

I've just formatted and reinstalled my OS. Steam overlay's browser is finally working as intended (just like last time, till something happened). I'll keep an eye out to see if it slows down again. Now it's PERSONAL, I have to find the culprit!

yes, this helped me, thanks

[Heartborne]

Originally Posted by jurasis

yes, this helped me, thanks

By the way, today I had to go back to my VMs and totally forgot to turn the network adapter for virtualBox back on. I was able to "windows update" my Windows 8 in the VM with no problem, which means it was actually not using the virtual adapter but a bridge on my NIC.

Later when I went back to steam on my Win 7(host) sure enough, the overlay and steam itself went back to being SUPER SLOW, I obviously RAGED— the network adapter was off, everything seemed to be perfect. I tried enabling and disabling it, restarted the machine... nothing.
Then remembered I used virtualbox a few hours before -_-. I went to the "Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network Connections" and in my Local connection (the mounted adapter for my NIC), in the properties (where you see the QOS, IPv4, IPv6 properties) I disabled the "virtualBox Bridged Networking Driver", restarted and sure enough, AGAIN, this was the culprit!

Summary: disable, both, the virtual adapter for Virtualbox AND the "virtualBox Bridged Networking Driver" on your actual "local connection"/ NIC.


I will let you guys know if my steam browsing experience degrades, AGAIN.

[MaPi_svk]

Originally Posted by Heartborne

By the way, today I had to go back to my VMs and totally forgot to turn the network adapter for virtualBox back on. I was able to "windows update" my Windows 8 in the VM with no problem, which means it was actually not using the virtual adapter but a bridge on my NIC.

Later when I went back to steam on my Win 7(host) sure enough, the overlay and steam itself went back to being SUPER SLOW, I obviously RAGED— the network adapter was off, everything seemed to be perfect. I tried enabling and disabling it, restarted the machine... nothing.
Then remembered I used virtualbox a few hours before -_-. I went to the "Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network Connections" and in my Local connection (the mounted adapter for my NIC), in the properties (where you see the QOS, IPv4, IPv6 properties) I disabled the "virtualBox Bridged Networking Driver", restarted and sure enough, AGAIN, this was the culprit!

Summary: disable, both, the virtual adapter for Virtualbox AND the "virtualBox Bridged Networking Driver" on your actual "local connection"/ NIC.


I will let you guys know if my steam browsing experience degrades, AGAIN.

Thanks, this helped a ton! Anyway, there is still a slowdown for me, but instead of like 45 seconds it's only like 10 seconds. In the properties dialog do you have things like: Client for Microsoft Networks, File and Printer sharing for Microsoft Networks, Link-Layer Topology Discover? I'm on win 7 64-bit

[Heartborne]

Originally Posted by MaPi_svk

Thanks, this helped a ton! Anyway, there is still a slowdown for me, but instead of like 45 seconds it's only like 10 seconds. In the properties dialog do you have things like: Client for Microsoft Networks, File and Printer sharing for Microsoft Networks, Link-Layer Topology Discover? I'm on win 7 64-bit

Yeah, sure, all of those are normal and the default.

BTW, today I started a new VM for Ubuntu 12.04 and sure enough, everything worked fine (network-wise), even with the, previously mentioned, options disabled.

If it goes back to a bogged down state I'm not quite sure what I will do. Probably enable everything, restart and disable everything AGAIN...? As of now, things are running smoothly.

Well, 10 seconds are still better than 2 minutes to load google.com :P. Hope it gets better, try closing everything else, maybe there's some other application that you use and it's not on my scenario.

[CrazyMunky]

I can't believe Valve hasn't fixed this issue yet.

From what I have read in this thread, it doesn't look like there is anything one can do to solve the problem of the overlay browser going slower than molasses and sometimes completely giving up on loading a page...

[Heartborne]

Originally Posted by CrazyMunky

I can't believe Valve hasn't fixed this issue yet.

From what I have read in this thread, it doesn't look like there is anything one can do to solve the problem of the overlay browser going slower than molasses and sometimes completely giving up on loading a page...

We did find a few "fixes" —rather than solutions— but only for people that were running Virtual Machines(VM).
If you are experiencing the same problems and you are not even close to VM. I would suggest you check your network adapters or its properties. Maybe you have something similar running on the background.

To quote Veratyr:

I think it was trying each network adapter even though only one of them has a gateway set... lol

Hope you find a solution and if so, report back!

[icecreammatt]

I just wanted to add that I disabled the Virtual Box network adapters as well and it dramatically increased the speed. ( Not as fast as Chrome, but it no longer takes a minute to load the Store page ) This issue has been bugging me for over two years. Thank you for finding the answer.

[Heartborne]

Originally Posted by icecreammatt

I just wanted to add that I disabled the Virtual Box network adapters as well and it dramatically increased the speed. ( Not as fast as Chrome, but it no longer takes a minute to load the Store page ) This issue has been bugging me for over two years. Thank you for finding the answer.

You are welcome. If you find other issues or fixes, make sure to post back

[waipun]

guys can you make it more simply?i am not pro at computer
my overlay browser is extremely slow and now i can't even trade