If anyone else finds Steam’s desktop chat client a bit unreliable on Linux—sluggish UI, finicky context menus, emoji pickers that vanish when you try to click them—there’s a solid alternative worth knowing about.
You can use Steam’s web-based chat directly in your browser at:
https://steamcommunity.com/chat/
Just log in and everything works noticeably smoother: menus behave, emojis are clickable, and the interface feels much more responsive. The only catch is you’ll need to keep a browser tab open for it.
Hope this helps anyone else looking for a more stable Steam chat experience.
Yup, that’s essentially been my experience with Steam and chat as well, though it sounds like you might be having an even rougher time than I am. I’m on LXQT, but it’s the only app I’ve used that consistently acts this poorly across different installs and distributions. I’d always assumed it was just a universal “Steam-on-Linux” quirk, but it’s interesting to hear it’s not quite the same for everyone.