Steam stealing window focus

[malina?]

Nearly every time I launch Steam and play a game, opening a new chat window (or simply receiving a message / invite / whatever) forcibly tabs me out of the game and steals the window focus. I've tried the "numerous" fixes suggested online (such as messing with Windows 10 focus assistant settings, or... messing with Windows 10 focus assistant settings...), but nothing works. The issue has been reported several times in various different threads, but there's never a solution or official answer.

Restarting Steam sometimes fixes the issue, but not reliably and I've had to restart my computer entirely to get rid of the problem.

Is anyone having similar experiences?
Does anyone have an idea what's wrong?
More importantly, though, does anyone have an idea for fixing this?

 

[Zippo Raid]

Is the ingame overlay actually enabled in settings? I think there's a way to disable it for certain games. Ensure it's actually enabled:

Not sure if you've done this already, but right click GMod > Set Launch Options
-windowed -noborder -l 1080 -w 1920

Replace 1080 and 1920 with your own resolution and see what happens. Then try full screen if it doesn't work. Before we do anything we need to eliminate GMod and Steam as part of the problem because that'll make it easier to diagnose as an outright Win10 issue or whatever else it could be.

 

[slug]

It's a fail-safe built into Windows 10 for when @Bennet Dyson tries to access your ERP logs. Exercise extreme caution.

 

[malina?]

-

Happens with every game, unfortunately. They all have the overlay enabled. Maybe I'm just seriously unlucky and GMOD, 7 Days to Die, Heat Signature, Dead Cells and Fallout: New Vegas are all broken themselves, but I doubt that's it. The given fixes don't work for those games, naturally :(

 

[Eternal Tipper]

Happens with every game, unfortunately. They all have the overlay enabled. Maybe I'm just seriously unlucky and GMOD, 7 Days to Die, Heat Signature, Dead Cells and Fallout: New Vegas are all broken themselves, but I doubt that's it. The given fixes don't work for those games, naturally :(

I'm not sure if this'll work but I used it to fix an issue I had with my stream browser and I haven't had a problem since.

1 - Create a steam.exe shortcut
2 - Left click shortcut icon > shortcut tab > add -no-cef-sandbox at the end of the Target (should be a space between the last character and the -no-cef-sandbox)
3 - Hit Apply and OK, profit.

Your shortcut should look like this:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe" -no-cef-sandbox

 

[bungo]

It seems bennet has taken an interest in you

 

[malina?]

I'm not sure if this'll work but I used it to fix an issue I had with my stream browser and I haven't had a problem since.

1 - Create a steam.exe shortcut
2 - Left click shortcut icon > shortcut tab > add -no-cef-sandbox at the end of the Target (should be a space between the last character and the -no-cef-sandbox)
3 - Hit Apply and OK, profit.

Your shortcut should look like this:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe" -no-cef-sandbox

Not having an issue with the browser, but with Steam as a whole. What does the command do, anyway? All I can find is stuff about how it helps with non-Windows operating systems.

 

[Somedude]

I have this exact same issue and thought it was just me since no one else knew what I was talking about.

Whenever I get a message on steam, regardless of game, it tabs out. The only way I've found to get around it is by keeping open the chat windows of people I talk to regularly, since it only minimizes the game if it's a new chat window.

 

[Eternal Tipper]

Not having an issue with the browser, but with Steam as a whole. What does the command do, anyway? All I can find is stuff about how it helps with non-Windows operating systems.

I used this command to fix an issue where my windows opened in steam browser would just go black. I could still click on things I just couldn't see it. I had thought your problem was just with the browser as well.

 

[malina?]

I used this command to fix an issue where my windows opened in steam browser would just go black. I could still click on things I just couldn't see it. I had thought your problem was just with the browser as well.

If only, but no. It's with Steam as a whole; the in-game overlay works just fine, but it still tabs me out and prioritizes the regular desktop Steam application instead.