@Plagman this issue also bothers me for a while now, so I want to add more detailed information about it.
I've made a screenshot with sections marked by numbers.

I can't tell how exactly this issue could be reproduced, but it always happen when I leave Steam Client window unfocused, running in background, and return to it after working with other applications (like browser, email client, text editor, etc).

• When issue occur sections 1, 2, 4 are not reacting to mouse cursor when I hover above elements in them.
• When issue occur mouse clicks are registered (or pre-cached somehow), because when I click on games in list in section 1 it becomes selected internally, but sections 1, 2, 4 won't be redrawn to indicate that.
• When issue occur simply hovering with mouse cursor above elements in section 3 (Store, Library, Community, Nickname) will make sections 1, 2, 4 immediately redrawn, making them usable again and their state will be updated (currently selected game if it was changed during frozen state, friends currently playing the game, etc).
• When issue occur any steam notification message (chat message, received game invite, etc) will make sections 1, 2, 4 usable again and their state will be updated.

My PC specs: gist link

Steam Client settings I use.

I'm experiencing the exact same issue as described by @sizeofbool in the above comment.
Summary of my specs:

CPU Vendor:  GenuineIntel
CPU Brand:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz
"Manjaro Linux" (64 bit)
Kernel Name:  Linux
Kernel Version:  5.3.12-1-MANJARO
X Window Manager:  KWin
Driver:  NVIDIA Corporation GeForce GTX 1070/PCIe/SSE2
Driver Version:  4.6.0 NVIDIA 440.31
RAM:  31821 Mb

Here's the full system info report
And here's a screenshot of the Steam about info:

Exactly what @sizeofbool describe in detail, you can easily get library to unfreeze if you click the top menu (he says just hover but I always clicked to unfreeze library).
My specs: https://gist.github.com/Zorrototo/533bb4f3b9d8d5abc137cd8cf5c00f02

I've been having the exact same issue for the past year :<

The common thread here seems to be Arch Linux

I'm having the exact same issue with both the library and the chat. I'm running Debian, so no Arch here.
I don't turn off my computer when leaving it, and usually either the chat has lost connection and reappeared on my focused workspace, and both the library and chat seem to work, or it's kept its connection and both the library and chat are effectively frozen and don't graphically respond to anything.

    CPU Vendor:  AuthenticAMD
    CPU Brand:  AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 16-Core Processor        
    Debian GNU/Linux bullseye/sid (64 bit)
    Kernel Name:  Linux
    Kernel Version:  5.9.0-11.3-liquorix-amd64
    X Window Manager:  bspwm
    Driver:  NVIDIA Corporation GeForce RTX 3080/PCIe/SSE2
    Driver Version:  4.6.0 NVIDIA 455.45.01
    RAM:  128807 Mb

Also affected by the same symptoms on a fresh install of Ubuntu 20.04.
Also tested older 450 driver and still experienced the same issue.

CPU Brand: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 6-Core Processor @ 3.70GHz
Kernel Version: 5.4.0-58-generic [#64](/issue/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/64)-Ubuntu
Driver: NVIDIA Corporation GeForce GTX 1080 8GB/PCIe/SSE2
Driver Version: NVIDIA 455.38
Primary Display Resolution: 2560x 1440
RAM: 32102 MB

After enabling video hardware acceleration (Steam -> Settings -> Interface -> Enable GPU accelerated rendering in web views), the issue seemed to disappear. Steam also performs significantly better with this enabled (before I was getting like 20fps in web views).
Issue happened again, even with GPU accel.

After enabling video hardware acceleration (Steam -> Settings -> Interface -> Enable GPU accelerated rendering in web views), the issue seemed to disappear. Steam also performs significantly better with this enabled (before I was getting like 20fps in web views).

This is interesting. I already had that enabled, so I've now tried disabling GPU rendering and seen no difference in page performance yet. The library freezing is still occurring but the delay before becoming responsive again seems significantly reduced now following my brief 10 minute testing.

Update: Further testing and timing has revealed no significant difference in the time it takes to unfreeze on its own with GPU rendering enabled or disabled. The improvement I saw initially was most likely a one-off.

Hovering the mouse over the elements in section 3 as detailed by sizeofbool will still redraw all the elements and make the interface usable again straight away.

Interesting. Just had the issue again, but it seems to happen less often with the GPU acceleration enabled (perhaps something was improved in a recent steam update?).
My last message was inaccurate, so you can disregard :)

Tested with Plasma desktop and the 455 and new 460 drivers as well. Same results and same workaround.

Just keeping this alive - still happening. I'm now running Manjaro with KDE and still getting the same issue.

I have this issue as well on Linux Mint 20.1. It works exactly as described; the entire Library page freezes. I think it might have something specifically to do with the Library not being the active window. Sometimes changing tabs on the top fixes it, other times switching to the Store and Community pages leaves me with a black screen and switching back to Library does nothing. If it's that bad, I have to restart Steam entirely, either by killing the process or selecting the icon in the bottom panel and clicking "Exit Steam"

I'm running into this with Sway on Manjaro Linux with kernel 5.11.22

If I launch steam with the env variable GDK_SCALE set to 2.0:
GDK_SCALE=2.0 steam

steam no longer freezes (not yet at least)

It seems like in my case the issue is related to when steam is trying to display a tooltip, like when hovering over certain menus.

I have not noticed this in a long time.

Same here, no issue since some time now. Probably a couple month already, I don't have real date but it's been a while now.

//EDIT: OS is Manjaro KDE if that can make a difference.

This needs to be reopened, this is happening again. The Library, or the Downloads page, are freezing like before, and passing the mouse over the menu on top unfreeze it and it refreshes content of the page. Not sure if it happens in other places but I have multiple freeze/stuck/old_content situation everyday. Here is system info: https://gist.github.com/Zorrototo/fa38882648d2c8a76e559f62883bd554

When I am on the download page for a game files verification for example, if it takes lot of time (100+GB games are good candidate to reproduce), sometimes the progression bar stops, it can even finish, but the content of the Downloads page in Steam, is stuck where the bar stopped progressing, and only hovering the mouse on the top menu unfreezes it.

On a side note, is there an opened issue about core dumps when going into the "System Information" thing in Steam? Because it does this when I access it, because of the va-api check script apparently (it may be on Arch/Manjaro, as there is a similar issue on Firefox too so maybe both are related and this has nothing to do with Steam. If there is none (didn't find one) I may open one later.

I can confirm this behavior is happening again.

I have this issue on kubuntu 22.04, happened for the 3rd time in 2 weeks for me - fresh install and I am new linux gamer so can't say how it was in the past. Might be related or not, but everytime the bug occured i downloaded games during steam launch that became buggy. "Fast workarounds" from this thread do not work - playing with menu "3" (from the screenshot in 2nd message in this thread) does not fix problem for me. Need to close and reopen steam. Happened under both xorg and wayland. My GPU is amd rx 6950 xt. I had library in background for good while when the bug happened.

Additional symptoms:

1. When i press a tab in menu "3" to switch tab it renders blank black page indefinitely.
2. Friendlist is also affected by the bug. Closing friendlist from OS level and attempting to reopen it from steam tray icon right-click (which works) results in friendlist not appearing again.
3. Pressing "add a game" under library opens UI so something works. Same can be said about calling help -> about etc. from the very top menu

It happens to me as well, same workaround and all (I'm on Windows 11)

GPU:

• Intel HD Graphics 630
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti

Same issue here,, but I have a very simple workaround, hope this helps.

• System: https://gist.github.com/ruinedraziel/9bba33b331d036d1538fe86ad6ff76fb
• I3-WM on Arch Linux

I can simply cause the issue at will by changing the workspace and then change back to the workspace wich has steam opened, the current page stop rendering, it seems to keep working without updating the ui, cause when the workaround is applied whenever I clicked for testing is where i'm at.

Simply pressing my full-screen I3 hotkey and back to normal mode fix the issue.

Edit - Improved clarity on the text, sorry, my native language is not English, as you can probably tell from the video...

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/assets/125985412/2b3e7c5b-8529-4332-801a-67dcad8d57ac

Can also confirm. I am having the exact same issue, and even the temporary fix mentioned in the comment above works.

I am not sure if this is actually related to the problem, but it started right after changing my GPU (GTX 1660 -> RX 6700 XT). I also checked the posted specs in the previous comment which also has an AMD GPU (RX 7600 XT). Again not really sure if it is just a coincidence, but its at least worth mentioning.

The issue persists on the stable, and beta version of steam.

Try disable "Enable GPU accelerated rendering in web views" in interface setting

I did have this issue with my old computer, but it is not present with my new hardware:
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER
Driver: 560.35.03
CPU: Intel i9-14900KS
Kernel: 6.9.3-76060903-generic
Windowing System X11
GPU Accelerated Rendering Enabled
Steam Version: 1730853027 Stable

OLD Computer:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 SC
CPU: Intel i7-6700K
Windowing System X11

Edit: Added more specs

Try disable "Enable GPU accelerated rendering in web views" in interface setting

Worked on my case