There was an error communicating with the Steam servers

If you see the “There was an error communicating with the Steam servers” error message after launching Steam, you will not be able to play any games. There are multiple causes of this error, like internet connectivity issues, Steam server issues, bad Steam Browser cache, corrupted network drives, etc. In this article, we have listed some solutions that may help you fix the problem.

The complete error message is as follows:

There was an error communicating with the Steam servers. Please try again later.

There was an error communicating with the Steam servers

When you see this error message on Steam, wait some time and check again. If the problem was occurring due to the server outage, the error would get fixed automatically after some time. If the error doesn’t go away by itself, restart Steam. The following steps will help you.

1. Close Steam.
2. Click on System’s Tray. You will see the Steam icon there.
3. Right-click on the Steam icon in the System’s Tray and click Exit.
4. Launch Steam again.

Now, check if the error occurs again or not. If yes, try the solutions mentioned below to fix the problem.

1. Power Cycle your router
2. Modify the Internet Options
3. Uninstall and reinstall your network drivers
4. Disable your antivirus and firewall temporarily
5. Delete Steam Web Browser cache
6. Release TCP/IP, flush DNS, reset Winsock, and Proxy
7. Uninstall and reinstall Steam

Let’s see all these fixes in detail.

1] Power Cycle your router

Power Cycling a router resolves the Internet connectivity issues. In the error message, it is mentioned that Steam cannot communicate with the Steam servers. Therefore, Power Cycling the router can resolve this problem.

1. Turn off your router.
2. Disconnect it from the wall socket.
3. Wait for a few minutes.
4. Connect the router to the wall socket and turn it on.

Now, check if the issue occurs.

2] Modify the Internet Options

Turning off the Autodetect settings of LAN has fixed the issue for many users. You should also try this. The following steps will help you do that:

1. Click on Windows Search and type Internet Options.
2. Select Internet Options from the search results.
3. The Internet Properties window will appear.
4. Now, click LAN Settings.
5. Uncheck the Automatically detect settings checkbox.
6. Click OK to save the changes.

This should help. If not, try the next potential fix.

3] Uninstall and reinstall your network drivers

The issue is related to internet connectivity. Therefore, one possible cause of the problem is outdated or corrupted network drivers. When the drivers get corrupted, the respective hardware device stops working or does not work properly. The driver issues on a Windows computer can be fixed by uninstalling and reinstalling the driver of the affected device.

The following steps will guide you on how to reinstall your network drivers.

1. Open the Device Manager.
2. Expand the Network adapters node.
3. Right-click on your network driver and select Uninstall device.
4. Close the Device Manager and restart your computer.

Windows will automatically install the missing driver on restart.

4] Disable your antivirus and firewall temporarily

If your antivirus or firewall blocks Steam from accessing the internet, you may encounter internet-related errors on Steam. If this is the case with you, disabling the antivirus and firewall can fix the issue. See if this works. If yes, you have to add Steam.exe as an exclusion to Windows Security or your third-party antivirus and firewall.

5] Delete Steam Web Browser cache

Sometimes the problem occurs due to bad or corrupted cache files. We suggest you clear the Steam Web Browser cache and see if it helps. The steps for the same are listed below:

1. Open Steam.
2. Go to “Settings > Web Browser.”
3. Click “DELETE WEB BROWSER DATA.”
4. Click OK in the confirmation window.

6] Release TCP/IP, flush DNS, reset Winsock, and Proxy

If you face internet issues on your system, you can try restarting your system. If this does not help, you can reset TCP/IP, reset Windows Sockets, and flush the DNS cache to fix the problem. You can perform all these actions quickly by creating a batch file.

Release TCP/IP, flush DNS, reset Winsock and Proxy by running this batch file, and see if this brings any changes.

7] Uninstall and reinstall Steam

If nothing helps, uninstall Steam completely, download the latest Steam version from the official website, and install it again on your system.

Read: Fix Steam Error Code 2, The Steam servers are too busy.

How do I fix communicating with Steam servers?

The errors like “Steam is having trouble connecting to Steam servers” or “There was an error communicating with the Steam servers” usually occur due to internet issues. Therefore, when you see such error messages on Steam, check your internet connection. If the Steam server is down, the error will get fixed automatically after some time. You can wait for some time and see if the error occurs.

Other fixes you can try are updating or reinstalling your network drivers, power cycling your router, resetting Windows Sockets, renewing your IP address, etc.

What does error communicating with server mean?

This error message means Steam is unable to communicate with the Steam server. The reasons for this can be Steam server outage, your internet connection issues, Steam being blocked from accessing the internet by your antivirus or firewall, corrupted network drivers, etc.

I hope this helps.

Read next: Steam Image Failed to Upload, A server error occurred.