What is Discord overlay?
You might have heard about the new feature of Discord, so the question arises, what’s this feature and what’s the hype about? Discord’s overlay feature allows you to combine your text and voice chats with your gameplay during a game by giving a semi-transparent window on your screen.
Discord overlay is a recently released feature of Discord. Therefore, only the latest version of the app can provide you with the feature. Being new to Discord, Discord overlay bugs users often.
Quick fixes to resolve Discord overlay not working error
1. How to enable Discord overlay?
Since Discord’s overlay feature is new and developers themselves do not seem to be very sure about the feature’s errors, it contains a few bugs that may sometimes bother you.
One fixes that may help you resolve the error is enabling the game-play overlay in Discord. You have to make sure that you have enabled the Discord overlay feature.
Here are the steps to enable Discord overlay:
- First and foremost, you have to open the Discord and navigate to the settings.
- The settings contain ‘overlay’ on the left side of the panel opened. Please make sure you click on it.
- There is a toggle ‘enable in-game overlay,’ and you have to make sure that you turn it on.
- Next, on the left side of the panel, there is another icon named ‘Game Activity’ or “Activity Status,” you have to click on it.
- Add your desire game if it is not listed here so you can enable overlay feature for your particular game.
- Check the ‘game activity’ of the specific game in which you want to enable the overlay feature, and make sure you turn on the ‘overlay’ feature of that game.
This action should help you resolve the error. You can check by starting your game and checking if the Discord overlay work is working now.
2. Run Discord as administrator
Usually, people using Windows without administrator access might face different errors, and one of such errors is Discord overlay not working.
However, running Discord as an administrator helps you with many Discord related issues. To run Discord as an administrator, you need to follow the instructions properly as under;
- Firstly, your desktop contains a shortcut to Discord. Make a right-click on it and select ‘properties.’
- A window will pop up on your screen where you have to select the ‘compatibility’ tab.
- Under the compatibility tab, make sure you tick the option ‘run this program as an administrator’ and click on ‘ok.’
- Continue playing your game while using Discord and check if the issue persists.
3. Disable antivirus temporarily
There are a few third-party antivirus applications that interfere with Discord and result in Discord overlay not working. However, if you exclude Discord from antivirus supervision, you may get rid of the error.
To disable the antivirus, make sure you follow the steps as under;
- Begin with opening the antivirus app that runs on your device.
- Navigate to the ‘virus and threat protection’ settings.
- Next, you have to click on ‘add’ exclusions to add the app of your choice.
- Once you add the Discord in exclusions, save the settings and make sure you restart your PC before checking if the error has resolved.
4. Disable hardware acceleration
Several factors are responsible for running Discord without any interruption. One such feature is ‘hardware acceleration.’ However, you might encounter the Discord overlay not working error if you have enabled Discord’s hardware acceleration.
Therefore, you can try disabling the hardware acceleration on Discord and see if the error persists;
- First and foremost, you have to open Discord and then navigate the users’ settings by clicking on the gear icon.
- On the left side of the panel, there is an ‘appearance’ tab. Make sure you open it.
- Make sure you untick the box beside ‘hardware acceleration’ to turn the feature off on Discord.
Once you have followed the steps to disable the hardware acceleration correctly, you can check if the Discord overlay error has resolved or not.
5. Software conflict
If you have tried the fixes mentioned above and do not seem to work for you, you can try disabling other software on your PC to check if they are not responsible for causing the Discord overlay error. Different applications running on your PC in the background can cause multiple errors without you knowing.
However, disabling all the background running software on your PC might help you get rid of the Discord overlay not working.
6. Reinstall the app
Undoubtedly, reinstalling Discord on your device helps you with solving a lot of Discord related errors. But, it would help if you tried this fix when the rest of the solutions fail to entertain you.
To reinstall the app, make sure you follow the steps as under sequentially;
- Using the key combinations, open the ‘run’ window by pressing Windows + R.
- Type in ‘control’ so that the ‘control panel’ shows up.
- Once the control panel opens, select ‘view by category’ and choose ‘uninstall a program.’
- Another window will pop up with different programs to make a right-click on Discord and select ‘uninstall.’
- Once you have followed the steps to uninstall the app, make sure you restart your PC before downloading it again.
- To download and install the app again, visit the official Discord’s website.
- Once you reinstalled the latest version of Discord on your PC, please open it and add your specific game to Discord.
- Make sure you enable the Discord overlay feature as mentioned earlier in this guide.
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In conclusion
Despite several errors encountered frequently by gamers, they do not wish to stop using the fantastic app since it has many unique features to offer. Although Discord’s overlay not working error bugs people from time to time, the easy solutions to the error relieve them.
This article contains helpful information on Discord’s overlay feature and what easy and quick fixes you can try to eliminate the error without knowing any rocket science. We hope this will prove helpful!
