protonscr

All games crash after opening with proton

protonopen
ValveSoftware/Proton#6650 · opened 2023-03-27 by Flyingbacen · updated 2025-04-09 · 14 comments · github
FFlyingbacen 2023-03-27 github

Proton versions-all
games-all when using proton

For any game I try and open with Proton, it says playing for a few seconds, then stops. I'm unsure where the issue lies as when reinstalling my OS (linux mint Mate), it works fine for about 2-3 runs before failing to work entirely.
Attached is the log file for FFXIII.
steam-292120.log
I tried looking online for pid 111642 != 111641, skipping destruction (fork without exec?), but all I could find was someone saying it wasn't related to Proton, and only a part of the game.

Kkisak-valve maintainer 2023-03-27 github

Hello @Flyingbacen, please copy your system information from Steam (Steam -> Help -> System Information) and put it in a gist, then include a link to the gist in this issue report.

Kkisak-valve maintainer 2023-03-29 github

Thanks, the symptoms in your Proton log is:

err:winediag:nodrv_CreateWindow Application tried to create a window, but no driver could be loaded.
err:winediag:nodrv_CreateWindow The explorer process failed to start.

And taking a look at https://gist.github.com/Flyingbacen/37c1f6498db827f25b38839f58554a19#file-system-information-L181-L193 and https://gist.github.com/Flyingbacen/37c1f6498db827f25b38839f58554a19#file-system-information-L352-L363, Vulkan appears to be broken in general.

Maybe there's a filesystem issue? What filesystem are you using with /home/aster/Games/Game Roms/SteamLibrary/?

FFlyingbacen 2023-03-29 github

I am using an ext4 filesystem for that drive.

Kkisak-valve maintainer 2023-03-29 github

Blind guess, maybe give https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-runtime/issues/434 a read and see if it's relevant to your system?

FFlyingbacen 2023-03-29 github

despite what they're using is an NTFS fs, I still decided to follow what they did to make proton work again. No matter what filesystem an app/tool is installed on, it fails to start.

FFlyingbacen 2023-04-03 github

I'm unsure why I haven't tried this sooner, but upon attempting to uninstall proton - experimental, I get the error "missing shared content" would this be at all relevant? I remember this first being an error back when I first switched to Mint when trying to uninstall steamworks redistributable. proton 7.0 uninstalled fine without errors.

DDaeLliux99 2023-04-05 github

I have the same problem. My games suddenly stop working and it seems like PROTON_USE_WINED3D=1 %command% doesn't work for me anymore 😔(All my games had that parameter)

FFlyingbacen 2023-04-09 github

I ended up just installing steam os, with holo, but the emulation for stuff like citra isn't the best, so I might just OS hop for a bit

Ee-seng 2023-04-09 github

Just to bump, I am also running into this issue with any of my Windows-based steam games at the moment, although it was just working fine two days ago. My filesystem is also ext4 as well, though I'm on an Arch installation instead of Mint.

I've tried re-installing just about everything, including steam itself, but I've yet to find a solution.

Also, in response to FlyingBacen's earlier comment:

I'm unsure why I haven't tried this sooner, but upon attempting to uninstall proton - experimental, I get the error "missing shared content" would this be at all relevant? I remember this first being an error back when I first switched to Mint when trying to uninstall steamworks redistributable. proton 7.0 uninstalled fine without errors.

I believe that this error is only thrown when other steam games depend on the tool. Uninstalling those games first, I found, was a solution. If there's a more streamlined method, it would be good to know lol

Kkyanter 2023-12-06 github

Bump! I just started having this issue a week ago. Nobara 38, BTRFS, Wayland. Here's my proton log (with the same err:winediag:nodrv_CreateWindow Application tried to create a window, but no driver could be loaded. err:winediag:nodrv_CreateWindow The explorer process failed to start. mentioned earlier) if it helps at all: https://gist.github.com/kyanter/e93e1feb18d4e4d4d91f4263bb734931

Jjessedoka 2024-10-07 github

has any one solved this still getting a similar error.
steam-11118657606153928704.log

RRitrox008 2024-11-19 github

I just had this issue and launching games without proton experimental seems to work for me (proton 9 for example).

I'm unsure why I haven't tried this sooner, but upon attempting to uninstall proton - experimental, I get the error "missing shared content" would this be at all relevant? I remember this first being an error back when I first switched to Mint when trying to uninstall steamworks redistributable. proton 7.0 uninstalled fine without errors.

For this I've found u/PolygonKiwii saying here that :

Steam won't let you uninstall them if any installed game is set to use them, either by overriding the version in the game's properties or because the game is on the official whitelist, as each whitelisted title will start in a version of Proton that it was tested against (unless manually overridden).

which worked for me

SShubadecka 2025-04-09 github

I was getting this same error,

pid 111642 != 111641, skipping destruction (fork without exec?)

and instead of not working with proton - experimental, switching from proton - hotfix to proton - experimental fixed the error in two games I was having trouble with.

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