Steam stopped counting hours of game, playing status and Steam in-game tab

[eliasimple]

I have The Sims 4 on Steam, linked on Origin, and I've been playing since november 2020 and it was all fine. But since this week, the Steam stopped counting my time of playing and stopped showing that I'm playing it, the steam tab in game also not works. I don't know how to solve this, didn't find anything searching on web.

Right now, I have 241 hours on Origin (it didn't stopped counting in there), and 221 hours on Steam.

Already tried removing my mods (I only use mccc), log off and log in, restarting and reinstalling Steam and The Sims 4 (this actually fixed, but after I was going to play again the error came back), I tried everything, and nothing worked

I appreciate your help!

[eliasimple · Accepted solution]

And I think I just found where the problem was, and I am feel kinda embarresed lol

When I was testing all that time, I was impatient and was closing the game trough the task manager, I wasn't closing in game options. I just tested it, restarted the programs, opened the game, it worked, closed the game in the options, opened the game again and it was all right. Also tried a few more times to be sure and it's working the way it should be.

I am also afraid for this going to be a problem again, but I'm almost sure that's it.

Thank you very much for your attention and help, and I am also sorry for wasting your time with such a silly solve lmao

[puzzlezaddict]

@eliasimple  You're the second person to report this, and it's not clear what the issue is.  Does the Steam overlay work for other games, and does Steam recognize that you're playing those games?  What antivirus program do you use?  Please also run a dxdiag and attach it to a post; I'd like to have as much info as possible.

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/

And please let me know if you can remember anything changing when this happened, for example did Windows have a feature update, did something else update, did you install any other apps, that kind of thing.

Finally, when you uninstalled and reinstalled both Sims 4 and Steam, what did you do between then and when the in-game features stopped working?  As in, did you shut down or restart your computer, or did you simply quit the game and reopen it later?

[eliasimple]

Yes, the Steam overlay works for any other game, except for The Sims 4, the moment I press to play, my name got green and show that I'm playing and the Steam immediately stops recognizing and make it seems that I'm not playing, and the game opens. The first notification in a Steam game that is ''press shift + tab to see the overlay'' does not show and don't work. I only use the Windows Defender antivirus.

I don't remember installing any programs or files before this happened, I think it was suddenly, I just got a new hard disk so it was all clean, I installed The Sims 4 game first (because I love it), some other Steam games like Skyrim and Stardew Valley, and just that, got some windows updates but this error wasn't going through for some days before it.

When I uninstalled the game and Steam, and installed again, the error did got fixed, but after I run the game again, it came back. After that I tried closing the Origin and let the Steam open it with the game, also it seemed that fixed, but it also came back after I was going to run it again and this method stopped working.

Right now I just turned on my laptop without opening first in initialization Origin and Steam, I opened the game from the desktop, both programs started, and it worked well and with Steam overlay, but again, I closed the game, opened again and the problem got back and this method won't work anymore, maybe the problem is something with an file between Steam and Origin, I don't know, I am thinking of formatting my computer...

[puzzlezaddict]

@eliasimple  I don't think you need to format your computer, certainly not at this point.  There are plenty of intermediate steps you can take, including reinstalling Windows without wiping your data, but we're nowhere near that.

The first thing to try is to disable Game Mode and Game Bar entirely.  They're both under Windows Settings > Gaming.

If that doesn't help, please let me know whether you can reliably make the overlay work if you restart your computer and immediately launch Sims 4 from its desktop shortcut.  It may be that some process from Origin or Steam isn't quitting when you close them and the game; a restart closes everything.

[eliasimple]

Ok so I just opened the game from desktop with Origin and Steam closed, and with the settings of game mode and game bar turned off, and it worked, and I again thought that this was finally solved, but when I restarted the game for testing, and the overlay stopped working again.

I think the theory that an Origin or Steam program that's not quitting is really possible. Also I did this method again, closed both programs and initiated the game from desktop and it worked. So yeah, apparently I need to do this if I want that to work.

[eliasimple · Accepted solution]

And I think I just found where the problem was, and I am feel kinda embarresed lol

When I was testing all that time, I was impatient and was closing the game trough the task manager, I wasn't closing in game options. I just tested it, restarted the programs, opened the game, it worked, closed the game in the options, opened the game again and it was all right. Also tried a few more times to be sure and it's working the way it should be.

I am also afraid for this going to be a problem again, but I'm almost sure that's it.

Thank you very much for your attention and help, and I am also sorry for wasting your time with such a silly solve lmao

[puzzlezaddict]

@eliasimple  Try disabling the Origin Client and Web Helper Services.  You can find them in the Task Manager's background processes list.  They'll reopen, or at least the Client Service will, when you open Origin again.  The more permanent fix is to disable them in msconfig, but see whether they're the problem first.

Edit:  I just saw your edit, and you don't have to apologize for wasting my time.  It's useful information to have, because you're definitely not the only person who's done this or will in the future.

[eliasimple]

Oh okay! Thank you for your help, you did a really good job! I'm glad that my topic may be useful in the future