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FixedSteamFriendsUI is a project which makes Steam friends & chat work again after Valve broke it on Sept 21 2023.
- For an introduction, continue reading from here.
- Or, jump to How to Install for the patch installation steps.
- Or, click on a link in the sidebar at the right for more information.
- Do you use a version of the Steam client released May 2023 or earlier?
- Do you use the June or July 2023 client with the
-vguiswitch? - Do you use the August 2023 client with
steam://restartinuimode/vgui?
If you answered yes to any of those, then you probably see this broken Friends List when you launch Steam:
This is Valve's handiwork.
The friends & chat feature in the Steam client is implemented via a nasty PWA that hosts the webpage at https://steam-chat.com/chat/clientui/. Every time you launch the Steam client, it downloads and runs this webpage in the Friends List window.
The entire steam-chat.com website is regularly updated and changed by Valve on a weekly basis. Valve has the power the disable/change/break your Steam client's Friends List at any time, by changing the code at steam-chat.com.
In Q3 2023, Valve abandoned all vgui-capable versions of their Steam client, less than 2 months after the latest vgui client release. Valve no longer tests steam-chat.com to ensure it works correctly in vgui-capable Steam clients.
On September 21st 2023, Valve introduced the first version of steam-chat.com which fails to work correctly under vgui-capable Steam clients. There are zero options in the Steam client to decline this update and use a prior, functional version instead.
The end result is the broken Friends List you see when Steam runs.
FixedSteamFriendsUI provides a patch for your Steam client which works around the issue. Once the patch is installed, you will be able to chat with your friends again like normal. The patch is semi-permanent, VAC-safe, and modifies only a single file where Steam is installed.
To learn more about the circumstances and how the patch works, refer to the Background and About the Patch articles.
For installation instructions, refer to the How to Install and How to Uninstall articles.