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Fixed: Discord Overlay Not Working (2023 Update)

Contents:

Discord Overlay Not Working Overview

What is Discord? What is Discord Overlay?

What Games Does Discord Overlay Work With?

How to Fix Discord Overlay Not Working?

Discord Overlay Not Working Overview:

Gamers recently often hit upon Discord overlay not opening, not showing up, or just not working in games, like World of Warcraft and League of Legends.

If Overlay doesn’t work in Discord, you won’t be able to send messages and screenshot of games, or talk with your companions. For gamers, that can be rather frustrating. The in-game Overlay is not working in all games or in Steam games specifically. So move on to get rid of this Discord overlay not working Fortnite, Borderlands 2, League of Legend, etc.

What is Discord? What is Discord Overlay?

In brief, Discord is a free VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) application incorporating text, video, audio and image especially for gamers. And the Discord Overlay, gamers all know that it is a feature of Discord used to enable users to chat with your friends in the form of both voice and text during full-screen games.

Related: Discord Screen Share Audio Not Working on Windows 10

What Games Does Discord Overlay Work With?

But prior to specific solutions, you would better be well-informed that some games actually doesn’t support Discord Overlay, so there is no point saying why my overlay is not working in games. Generally speaking, of course, some popular and latest games like Minecraft, Fortnite, WoW, Dota 2, CS: GO, and League of Legends are supportive of Discord overlay, whereas some old games and those with Vulkan Support are not working with Overlay.

Therefore, after you confirmed that your game works with overlay, the problem comes down to Discord Overlay not showing.

How to Fix Discord Overlay Not working? 

The reasons why your Discord Overlay won’t open or isn’t showing in games differ from one computer to another. Nevertheless, with deep research, it can be found the most common cause are Discord permission, hardware acceleration settings, third-party software on your PC, and the system crash.

Solutions:

1: Reboot the Computer

2: Enable in-game Overlay in Discord

3: Run Discord as Administrator

4: Disable Discord Hardware Acceleration

5: Check the Third-party Software Blacklist

6: Scale the Discord Overlay

7: Use no Proxy

8: Uninstall and Update the Discord

Solution 1: Reboot the Computer

Whether your Discord Overlay is not showing up or can’t open or refuse to work for games, closing all the running apps like WoW game, Discord, and any other. And then determine to restart Windows 10, which can fix most errors for most users.

After signing in again, launch the game and Discord to see if this time Discord Overlay runs in games and allows you to communicate with others in games. This may also helps when Discord won’t open on your computer.

Solution 2: Enable in-game Overlay in Discord

In fact, to use Overlay in games, you need to hit Overlay hotkey to activate it in games before you start playing the game. So it is likely that you forget to enable the in-game overlay for the games you are playing, which is why you come across Discord overlay not working or not showing due to Discord blank screen. So there is much need for you to enable the in-game Overlay in Discord so as to make Overlay serve games.

1. Open the Discord.

2. Then on the left side of Discord, at the bottom, hit the User Settings (a gear icon).

discord user settings

3. In User Settings, in the left pane, scroll down to pinpoint App Settings > Overlay.

4. In Overlay settings, on the right corner, choose to Enable in-game Overlay.

enable in game overlay

Now you will have switched on Discord Overlay, and it is high time that you tried to enable it for the specific game on Windows 10.

5. In User Settings, on the left pane, find out Game Activity. And then click Add it to add the game to configure Overlay settings for it.

game activity add it

6. Then browse to Add game to let it use Overlay.

game activity add game

7. Turn on Overlay for the specific game and now you can play it with Overlay on as you wish.

turn on overlay

Now start your game to see if you can voice chat in full-screen games with the help of Discord Overlay. If needed, you can take the similar steps to turn off Discord Overlay.

Solution 3: Run Discord as Administrator

Sometimes, users can’t open Discord and Discord Overlay for games due to the application permission. Or in some games, it is required to run Discord with administrative privileges in order to use in-game discord on Windows 7, 8, 10.

1. Right click the Discord app from the Desktop to open its Properties.

2. Then under the Compatibility tab, tick the box of Run this program as administrator.

3. Then stroke Apply and OK to save changes.

In doing so, from then on, every time you need to open Discord, it will be launched with administrative rights. In this way, Discord Overlay not working Apex or PUBG will be removed.

Solution 4: Disable Discord Hardware Acceleration

Discord hardware acceleration does smooth the performance of this freeware, but it can also causes troubles in some conditions for unknown reasons, of which the most likely one is game stuttering with FPS drops and features lose functionalities.

As turning off this feature for Discord helped fix the Overlay not showing in all games for many users, you may make an attempt to do so.

1. In Discord application, hit the gear icon of User Settings as well.

2. In User Settings, pick out Appearance under App settings.

3. Then under Appearance, on the right pane, slide down to the bottom to locate and turn off Hardware Acceleration under Advanced.

disable discord hardware acceleration

Then a window of Change Hardware Acceleration will pop up warning you that changing hardware acceleration settings for Discord will quit and re-launch Discord.

4. Hit Okay to confirm the change.

confirm hardware acceleration option

 Reboot the Discord app to take effect. At this moment, you might as well start your game like Fortnite, PUBG, Word of Warcraft to check whether Discord Overlay not showing or not working will still come up again.  In a large sense, stopping Discord hardware acceleration can also fix Discord mic not working on Windows.

Solution 5: Check the Third-party Software Whitelist

Many a user tend to get antivirus programs for PC for the sake of safety, nevertheless, it is likely that your third-party software has blocked Discord or the game, thus Discord Overlay won’t open or work on Windows 10 for the games. It takes Discord as malware and hampers it from running during game play.

In this part, you are supposed to open the antivirus program to make sure it hasn’t added the Discord app to the untrusted apps or blacklist. And then add it to the trusted programs if available.

Otherwise, you may have to uninstall the third-party software in Control Panel > Programs > Uninstall a program > Uninstall.

Then reboot your PC and you will be enabled to voice chat or send message in games using Discord Overlay.

Related: How to Uninstall Avast on Windows 10

Solution 6: Scale the Discord Overlay

It sounds absurd. But actually it did help fix Discord Overlay not working in any game to rescale the size of Discord app. So, you would better try to change the size of the app to the recommended one or the original one if possible.

1. Go to Start > Settings > System.

2. Under Display, find out Scale and layout and the make it 100% (Recommended).

change scale and layout

3. Boot your game and enable Overlay for it again.

You will notice Discord Overlay is showing and working on Windows 10 in proper size.

Solution 7: Use No Proxy

It is said that Proxy is more prone to be infected by virus from hackers, which may prevent Overlay in Discord from working. In case any errors caused by Proxy, there is much need for you to use VPN rather than Proxy on Windows 10. Here if you are to fix Discord Overlay not showing or working, try to disable Proxy and use VPN instead to see if it works.

1. Search Internet Options in the search box and then stroke Enter to go further.

2. Under the Connections tab, hit LAN Settings.

3. Then uncheck the box of Use a proxy server for your LAN.

uncheck the box of use a proxy server

4. Click OK to save changes.

Use a VPN and enjoy your game while chatting with your friends with Discord Overlay.

Solution 8: Uninstall and Update Discord

It is your last resort, but it can also be the most straightforward way to solve Overlay not showing up in games, which is to get rid of the problematic Discord app to remove the corruptions. And then download the updated Discord in hopes that games can enjoy Discord Overlay function with the reinstalled Discord software.

Navigate to Control Panel > Programs > Uninstall a program > Uninstall Discord.

Reboot your PC to take effect if you are asked to do so.

The instant you removed Discord, it is time to download the latest version of Discord from the official site.

The newly downloaded Discord software will better improve the performance in-game overlay for PUBG, League of Legends, and WoW on Windows 10.

In general, ways in this tutorial can fix Discord Overlay not showing or working for most users.

More Articles:

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Fixed: Discord Update Failed on Windows and Mac

Brian Peng
Brian Peng is a PC technician and network engineer with over 13 years of IT experience. He has worked in the IT industry for a long time, providing IT support and network service support for various companies. Currently, he has written over 1000 articles about computers, games, and mobile.

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