So, if you just run the server without Steam being open, it throws the error etc?
It shouldn’t be doing that, if everything is flagged right, according to
const bool bIsServer = IsRunningDedicatedServer();
// Don't initialize the Steam Client API if we are launching as a server
bool bClientInitSuccess = !bIsServer ? InitSteamworksClient(bRelaunchInSteam, RelaunchAppId) : true;