I just noticed this error also in the console:
/home/george/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/SteamVR/bin/linux64/vrmonitor: error while loading shared libraries: libsteam_api.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
NixOS issue: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/40209
I had this issue last week when setting things up on Gentoo. It was fixed by installing lsusb, installing dbus and starting dbus.
Nothing extracted yet.
How To Collect SteamVR System Information:
Your system information
Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:
I launch SteamVR expected room setup to launch. The base stations, HMD, and controllers show that they are detected in the status popup (i.e., the green logos). The problem is that I get the popup error "SteamVR failed to initialized for unknown reasons. (Error: Hmd Not Found Presence Failed (126))". In my steam logs I see lots of "Connect Failed (306)" errors:
Steps for reproducing this issue: