As one of the dominant hubs for buying and playing PC games, Steam has a robust network behind it. But every so often the system runs into some issues, or the traffic gets a little too overwhelming for even Valve’s servers to keep up with. Whether it’s a server throwing errors or an unexpectedly large amount of players descending on the service, sometimes things just break.
If you can’t get Steam to run properly and you’ve tried everything you can at the client end, there could be a server-end issue going on. Here’s how to find out if that’s the case.
How to check if Steam is down
It’s obviously not possible to just log into Steam and find out what’s up if the servers are down, but thankfully there are external options to find out if the system isn’t functioning. There are various tools available online to check if certain domains or servers are currently down. DownDetector, for example, compiles real-time insights and user reports to reveal whether a particular service is undergoing issues.
It is important to note that every Tuesday, roughly around 6 PM EST, the Steam Servers go through a small update period. When this happens, the servers are typically rough to access, and some of the online games that rely on this service are offline for a short time. If this happens, and it’s presently Tuesday, there’s nothing to fear. This is normal, and the servers should return within an hour or two of them going down.
If you’re looking for more granular information about the status of specific parts of the Steam network, SteamDB can provide data on that front. It lets users know whether various sections like the Steam Store, Steam Community, or Steam Web API are up and running or not, as well as several game-specific services for titles like CS: GO and Team Fortress 2.
What to do if Steam is down
Unfortunately, if Valve is experiencing a problem at its end that takes its servers or a chunk of its systems offline, there’s not much that users can do except wait. Reloading the page or restarting the Steam client might help, but if there’s a server-side issue, you’ll just need to hang tight until the problem gets fixed.
This can be an annoying process to wait through, but there’s little else to do beyond waiting for the servers to come back up. Remember, always check the date, and double-check how widespread it is with your friends.
