It appears the popular PC gaming platform and storefront, Steam, is suffering from some outages today (October 26, 2026). Hundreds of users have reported problems with the service, particularly pointing to a “Loading user data” message stuck on repeat when trying to access the software. This seems to have already been resolved in many regions, based on an unofficial Steam Status tracker.

However, we are still seeing reports fly in, and steamstat.us reveals high load in some regions at the time of writing. At the same time, several regions are reported as ‘Recovered’ following outages. Steam Store and Community pages have reportedly remained unaffected throughout, and from our own experience (in the UK), we currently have no problems logging in to Steam, accessing our game library, browsing the store, or checking out Steam Community forums.

Can’t log in to Steam?

There are many reasons why Steam won’t open, or why you can’t log into your account. Server outages are one of the obvious reasons, and if you’re stuck watching the “Loading user data,” we can only recommend waiting for services to return to normal. As mentioned above, status trackers show most systems operational at the time of writing, despite some dips earlier today.

APIs for Valve games such as Counter-Strike, TF2, Dota 2, and Deadlock are also reportedly working as normal. Valve is always making improvements to Steam, whether that be new client updates or improvements to SteamOS (mainly to help out Steam Deck, and more recently, Steam Machine users. If you’re not currently back online, we suggest it’s only a matter of time before you are.

About the Author

Jack Goodall

At PC Guide, Jack is mostly responsible for reporting on hardware deals. He also specializes in monitors, TVs, and headsets and can be found putting his findings together in a review or best-of guide.