While frequently active on discord you may experience the problem where the discord overlay option is not working especially on windows 10 while playing games like PUBG, Fortnite, and Among Us.
With the help of this article you can fix the discord game overlay problem within a few minutes but before proceeding to the fix, let me brief you on what is discord overlay.
Note: – Most of the users are having these issues while playing the game on an emulator like Bluestacks where they play mobile games such as Among Us on PC
What is Discord Overlay?
Discord overlay is an amazing feature of discord that helps to combine text and voice chat dashboard over your gameplay.
So when you are playing any game you can voice or text chat with discord running in the background and you can bring discord any time on the game screen with the overlay shortcut of Shift + ~ that can be changed anytime.
Many of the users use third-party apps or bots for the overlay feature, as they are not aware of this discord feature, or either it doesn’t work for them.
How to Fix Discord Overlay not working
I won’t take you through with the long list of troubleshooting methods as I have shortlisted the most common cause behind discord overlay not showing.
Try these 5 solutions one by one and proceed to the next solution only when the first doesn’t work for you.
Note: – Make sure you are using the discord app on your PC for the overlay features.
SOLUTION 1: – Enable Discord Overlay & Toggle Overlay Lock
You won’t be able to use discord overlay features while playing any games until and unless the overlay option is enabled and the overlay hotkey is set.
To enable Discord overlay and overlay hotkey, open your discord app, and click on the user settings located at the very left-hand bottom.
From the settings, scroll down to the App settings and click on Overlay.
In the Overlay settings, on the top, you will see Enable in-game overlay, click on it to enable. Once enabled it will show the toggle checked in green.
Now on the very right to enable in-game overlay, you will see toggle overlay lock.
Click on the keyboard icon which will start the recording and you can record the shortcut key by pressing keys like Shift + ~.
Once you are done with this, restart the game and discord to check whether an overlay is working or not.
SOLUTION 2:- Turn on Discord Overlay from Activity Status
I am very sure, most of the Discordians miss to enable game overlay from the discord game activity.
There is an option in-game activity for the overlay which can be enabled or disabled and most of the time, it’s off and we need to manually turn it on.
Follow these steps.
Click on the user settings icon located at the very left-hand bottom and then scroll down to the bottom and click on Activity Status.
Now at the very top in the activity status section, you will see the game currently you are playing in the green box.
On the very right of the game name, you will see the overlay option with a monitor screen icon.
Make sure the overlay status is on and if not click on it to turn it on.
You will also see the list of games under the Added games section.
Hover up to every game and make sure the overlay is not off. Click on the red icon to enable the overlay.
SOLUTION 3:- Change Settings if playing with Emulator like Bluestacks
If you have added any games in the discord game activity manually such as games on bluestacks then discord overlay won’t work.
While playing any mobile games on an emulator like bluestacks you will have to change the settings of that game to streamer mode for the proper functioning of overlay over games.
Pull up bluestack and then open the game you want to play with discord overlay. Click on the menu option and enable streaming mode, this will open the game in a new window.
Now open your discord user settings and then choose the Game activity. Click on add game! and choose the “streaming game for bluestack” from the drop-down.
You can edit the game Among us or any custom playing status and close the screen.
Open your game again and now you will see the overlay is working absolutely fine.
SOLUTION 4:- Disable Hardware Acceleration
This is another major cause behind discord overlay not working and many users got their problem fixed by disabling discord hardware acceleration.
Open Discord dashboard and click on the user settings icon located at the very left-hand bottom.
From the settings menu, scroll down and choose Appearance. In the appearance, section scrolls down to the bottom again to find hardware acceleration just below the developer mode.
Click the toggle in front of hardware acceleration to disable it.
Restart your device to see the changes.
SOLUTION 5: – Close all other apps including Anti-Virus
Probably any other apps or games running in the background can conflict and become the reasons behind overlay not showing.
Open Task manager by making a right-click on the taskbar and choose task manager.
Now close all the other apps that you are not using and also temporarily close the antivirus program to find out the reasons.
Discord overlay not working on Chrome
If you are using discord on chrome and having trouble with overlay then try all the above methods.
As an add-on, you also need to make some changes to your Google Chrome browser.
NO 1 – Disable Chrome Hardware Acceleration
Chrome hardware acceleration occupies more graphics and that can also lead to improper functioning of discord overlay.
To disable follow the below instructions
- Launch Google Chrome browser and then click on the 3 dots at the very right-hand top.
- From the suggestions, choose settings.
- Now on the settings windows, scroll down and click on Advanced to bring up more options.
- Scroll down again to the System section and disable the option of Use “hardware acceleration when available“
NO 2:- Clear Chrome Cache and Cookies
Chrome cache and saved cookies can also cause the problem with discord overlay.
Follow the steps to clear chrome cache and data
- Launch Chrome browser and click on the 3 dots icon located at the very right-hand top.
- From the suggestions choose settings and on the settings page, scroll down to the Privacy and Security section.
- Click on “Clear browsing data” > Advanced > Set time range to All.
- Uncheck the box of Password and Autofill form Data and then click on Clear Data.
How do I Reset Discord Overlay
You can reset the discord overlay hotkey and the position of discord over the game.
To reset the discord overlay hotkey, click on the discord user settings and choose Overlay.
Now in the overlay section on the very top, you will find a toggle overlay lock, click on it and then press the key that you want to set.
To reset the discord overlay position open your discord on the chrome browser and then press the Ctrl+ Shift+I key to open the inspect element page which will appear on the right side of the page.
From the top tab click on the arrow and choose application > Local Storage > discord link in the local storage drop-down.
In the key section scroll down to find overlay storeV2 and make a right-click on it, choose delete.
Restart the device to see the changes.
CONCLUSION
In this article, I shared 5 top fixes for discord overlay not working. Apply the third step only when you are using an emulator or else you can skip that.
Discord overlay is an amazing feature through which we can use discord while playing games without any interruption.
I would be glad if you share the solution that worked for you in the comment box, even if nothing worked for you.