Steam is down for many — here's what we know about the 'loading user data' issue

On the mend?

This is the first sign of a drop in Steam reports on Downdetector that we've seen in over five hours.

There's no been reports of an official fix, but it seems many are able to log into their Steam accounts again. Let's hope that trend continues...

A possible fix?

Strangely, there's been no official statement from Valve about today's "loading user data" issue yet, despite it starting over five hours ago.

This is, unsurprisingly, causing an increasing amount of frustration from gamers on X and Reddit. For some, quitting Steam, removing their PC from their network, reopening the app, and then re-connecting their PC to their network or Wi-Fi seems to do the trick — but many are also reporting that this doesn't work for them.

Hopefully, Valve will push out a fix for this bug soon — or at least tell an increasingly angry horde of Steam gamers when that might happen...

We're at four hours and counting

Today's Steam issues started at around 4am ET / 9am BST but there's still no sign of a fix or any successful troubleshooting tips.

The Reddit thread above continues to grow with comments from across the globe, from Japan to Spain — and while some are suggesting fixes (like turning off Wi-Fi, opening Steam, then turning on Wi-Fi again) they don't seem to be working for very many users.

I've contacted Valve for an official response and will update you as soon as I hear anything.

You're not alone

Those Steam reports on Downdetector are very much going in the wrong direction — with the spike now near-vertical in the US and UK.

Almost everyone is reporting the same problem — being stuck on a "loading user data" page when trying to log in. Many are reporting that this happened after they cleared their download cache, but it isn't clear if that's a universal theme.

There's still been no official word from Valve on social media or other channels, but I'm trying to get a response now and will report back as soon as I hear anything.

This isn't an outage

The Steam dashboard is green across the board right now, so we don't appear to be looking at a network outage.

That means all of Steam's traditional advice — from restarting Stream, to clearing your download cache or changing your download region — isn't really applicable or working for most people.

Some have reported that restarting their PC without an internet connection, launching Steam in offline mode, then re-connecting to the internet has done the trick for them, but many are reporting that it hasn't solved their issues.

The screen of pain

This is the screen that thousands of Steam users are reporting seeing right now — and it seems resistant to most of the commonly-known fixes.

Many users have reported closing their games and restarting their PCs, but without any joy. This also doesn't seem to be a maintenance outage — those typically takes place on Wednesdays at 00:00 UTC.

The Steam Dashboard continues to show no official issues, but hopefully we'll get some official guidance from Steam soon...

Reports are on the rise

Today's Steam issue has been a bit of a slow burn rather than a sudden outage, but reports are now increasing sharply.

On Downdetector, they've now hit a peak of almost 500 in the US and about 450 in the UK. However, it does seem to be a global issue according to a Reddit thread, with users in Germany, the Netherlands and Russia all saying they can't log in.

Over on the Steam Dashboard, there's no report of an official problem — so this appears to be a software bug or issue rather than a service outage.