Is Steam Experiencing Issues? Don’t Worry, It’s Likely Just Maintenance Day!

About half an hour ago, I logged off my work computer and headed to my living room, where we’ve set up a PC connected to the TV for a better gaming experience with our Steam library. I was all set to dive back into Fields of Mistria and work on redeeming March from his perpetual jerk status. But then I hit a snag: an error popped up saying Steam couldn’t connect to the cloud to retrieve my save file, and upon checking my connection, it looked like Steam wasn’t connecting at all.

Was Steam down? A quick check confirmed it. SteamDB and DownDetector were both reporting issues. I also took a peek at the Steam subreddit, where a bunch of other confused gamers were trying to figure out what was happening. Thankfully, some knowledgeable folks were on hand to shed light on the situation.

It turns out, Steam tends to do this on Tuesdays.

Did you know Steam has maintenance on Tuesdays? I certainly didn’t. It’s not something you’ll find in any official announcements, but it seems to be a well-known fact among the community, with users sharing their experiences over the years. According to various posts dating back several years, Steam usually goes down for maintenance for about 10-30 minutes on some Tuesday evenings, typically between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. ET. I guess I’ve just never noticed this pattern since I don’t usually rush to game right after work on Tuesdays. You’d think I would have caught on by now, but life has its distractions.

Here’s a handy flow chart for future reference:

Hope that helps!

As I wrap this up, Steam is back online, which the flowchart indicates means it was just the usual Tuesday maintenance. Time to jump back into some gaming!