If you’ve been experiencing problems with using certain features or connecting to Steam, you’re not alone. Like many other online services, Valve’s platform occasionally experiences outages, server problems, and surges in traffic.
These problems can impact user experience on the platform for everything from players just trying to play their games to actively looking to purchase new products. The platform sometimes has issues during its larger Steam sales, which generate a massive amount of user traffic as players try to get their hands on popular games while they are discounted.
Another recent example is the widespread report of user issues and errors popping up as soon as reservation periods or other updates regarding Valve’s new handheld system, the Steam Deck, are involved. Just minutes after the initial pre-orders went live, Steam users were met with long waiting times, error messages, and endless loading screens while attempting to place their orders.
Most of the time, these outages are something players can’t resolve themselves, but you do have some options to check for potential reports that could provide insight into these issues.
How to check if Steam servers are down
You can check the Steam community hub, SteamStat.us, for specific status information, including how many users are online, how different areas of the platform are performing, and more. SteamStat.us is an unofficial service that keeps an eye on how Steam is performing for users around the world and can help pinpoint exactly why a problem is occurring.
Downdetector is also a useful, if more general, resource for seeing if the problem is on your end or Valve’s, along with seeing if a spike in reports pops up at specific times.
Is Steam down?
Update, Jan. 17: 5am CT: Steam Community is currently down due to E502 L3, according to our own usage of the platform and SteamStat.us.
As most of Steam’s problems are on Valve’s end, there usually isn’t much you can do besides waiting for traffic to slow down or for the servers to come back up. In the meantime, you can always try restarting Steam or your internet connection to see if it fixes the problem.
From our experience, if Steam goes down for weekly maintenance, it usually comes back up in a little under half an hour. If you’re having some issues, just wait patiently and all should be sound again soon.
Published: Jan 17, 2025 06:30 am