protonscr

[BUG] Failed to connect to window manage with alvr (error code 497)

steamvrclosed bug
ValveSoftware/SteamVR-for-Linux#768 · opened 2025-01-17 by ethanguo770 · updated 2026-08-30 · 3 comments · github
Eethanguo770 2025-01-17 github

Describe the bug
SteamVR fails to connect to window manager error 497

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To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:
Launching streamVR via ALVR Dashboard

Expected behavior
Expect headset to connect and games to launch

System Information (please complete the following information):
Please use the latest Steam beta client and SteamVR beta for your bug reports!

  • Steam client version (build number or date): 1733265492
  • SteamVR version: 2.8.8
  • Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): 22.04.1-Ubuntu
  • Steam runtime diagnostics: diagnostics.txt
  • Steam and SteamVR logs: steam-logs.tar.gz
  • Minidumps: not found

Screenshots

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Additional context
Add any other context about the problem here.

it's seems issue(https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamVR-for-Linux/issues/767)
but in vrcompositor.log file， we have diffirent error:

Fri Jan 17 2025 14:35:46.661135 [Info] - Direct mode: enabled
Fri Jan 17 2025 14:35:46.661678 [Error] - CHmdWindowSDL: Failed to initialize mirror window
Fri Jan 17 2025 14:35:46.661791 [Error] - Error making window!
Fri Jan 17 2025 14:35:46.681240 [Info] - Failed to kill gpu-trace
Fri Jan 17 2025 14:35:46.681312 [Info] - Failed to initialize compositor
Fri Jan 17 2025 14:35:46.681340 [Info] - Failed to start compositor: VRInitError_Compositor_CannotConnectToDisplayServer

Eethanguo770 2025-01-24 github

I updated the system to the Ubuntu 24.04 version, and this issue was resolved.

Ggabriele2000 2025-02-03 github

I updated the system to the Ubuntu 24.04 version, and this issue was resolved.

Maybe you should update ALVR too.
Latest is 20.12.1 with a lot of improvements.

OOnishenko-sci 2026-08-30 github

Root cause + fix. Ubuntu 22.04, NVIDIA 580, GNOME/X11, ALVR v20.14.1.

The 64-bit vrcompositor loads the system libSDL2 (2.0.20 on Ubuntu 22.04) instead of
the 2.32.10 shipped in Steam's scout runtime. Scout pins libSDL2 only for 32-bit
(pinned_libs_32), not 64-bit, so /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu wins the search path.

Check ~/.steam/steam/logs/vrcompositor.txt:

SDL version: 2.0.20     <-- fails with "Failed to initialize mirror window"
SDL version: 2.32.10    <-- starts fine

Traced with an LD_PRELOAD interposer: SDL_CreateWindow("Headset Mirror", 4288x2240) and
SDL_Vulkan_CreateSurface both succeed, then it dies with no further SDL/Vulkan call —
likely SDL_GetWindowWMInfo returning SDL_FALSE because the runtime SDL is older than
the one SteamVR was built against (exact symbol not confirmed).

Fix — give the compositor the runtime's SDL:

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/steamvr-sdl-fix
ln -sfn "$(ls ~/.steam/root/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libSDL2-2.0.so.0.* | tail -1)" \
        ~/.local/share/steamvr-sdl-fix/libSDL2-2.0.so.0

then add to bin/linux64/vrcompositor-launcher.sh, right after export SDL_VIDEODRIVER=x11:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$HOME/.local/share/steamvr-sdl-fix${LD_LIBRARY_PATH:+:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH}"

Verified on SteamVR 2.12.14 (previous) and 2.16.7 (public). Before: mirror-window
failure in a ~2 s retry loop plus [Status Alert] Failed to connect to window manager (497).
After: Startup Complete (0.50 seconds), SteamVR reaches Ready, zero 497 alerts.

Caveat: this edits SteamVR's own tree, so any update or beta-branch switch wipes it.

Same class as #667 (compositor broken by the distro's SDL) — except here the distro SDL
isn't modified, just too old, which likely explains why it hits Ubuntu 22.04 and not
distros shipping SDL 2.26+.

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