If anyone else finds Steam’s desktop chat client a bit unreliable on Linux—sluggish UI, finicky context menus, emoji pickers that vanish when you try to click them—there’s a solid alternative worth knowing about.
You can use Steam’s web-based chat directly in your browser at:
https://steamcommunity.com/chat/
Just log in and everything works noticeably smoother: menus behave, emojis are clickable, and the interface feels much more responsive. The only catch is you’ll need to keep a browser tab open for it.
Hope this helps anyone else looking for a more stable Steam chat experience.
Interesting - I’m surprised to hear so many don’t experience this. I’ve used Steam chat on Arch and EndeavourOS for years, and I’ve always found the desktop client to feel a little sluggish, with menus and emoji pickers being particularly finicky. I wonder if it’s related to certain desktop environments or specific setups?
Sluggish? It’s absolute nightmare on Hyprland: whole client crash randomly on opening/closing games, steam in game UI sometimes crash game/stuck/grabs input/does not appear and steam chat just have all those problems incorporated within it, with a bonus inability to correct words (menu with choices does appear, but choosing correct word does nothing).
Dunno, maybe Hyprland is the issue here, for a while it even required workaround in hypr config, to have working sub-menus. But I also tried Gnome and most problems remain. Most probably it still isn’t optimized for wayland.