protonscr

[Arch] Steam crashes on startup; Steamwebhelper is not responding

steamclosed Distro Family: ArchWeb Component
ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux#10548 · opened 2024-02-28 by adoa · updated 2025-05-17 · 6 comments · github
Aadoa 2024-02-28 github

Your system information

  • steam 1.0.0.78-2 as packaged by Arch Linux
  • Arch Linux
  • Gnome + Wayland
  • Opted into Steam client beta?: No
  • Have you checked for system updates?: Yes
  • Steam Logs: steam-logs.tar.gz
  • minidump: minidump.zip
  • GPU: AMD RX 6700 XT with mesa 1:24.0.1-1 as packaged by Arch Linux
  • Be aware! I have a symlink in place /home/valneq/.local/share -> /data/valneq/local/share
  • My primary library is at /games/valneq/steam/library

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

I updated Steam today, and since then it crashes upon any attempt at launching it.
When trying to launch from terminal I see this output
https://gist.github.com/adoa/188833bd0f5bd84583635ee92a49772e

Visually I see this:
grafik

I tried

  • Gnome + X11→ same crash [I could provide those those logs too if you want.]
  • -cef-disable-gpu → same crash

I tried looking into the coredumps of steamwebhelper, but I get many warnings like this

warning: Can't open file /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgtk-3.so.0.2404.20 during file-backed mapping note processing

and finally only see output like this

Thread 1 (LWP 82944):
#0  0x000076322332f375 in ?? ()
No symbol table info available.
#1  0x000062ada2023c80 in ?? ()
No symbol table info available.
#2  0x0000000000000018 in ?? ()
No symbol table info available.
#3  0x8000000000000020 in ?? ()
No symbol table info available.
#4  0x0000000000000000 in ?? ()
No symbol table info available.
quit

I suspect that might be an Ubuntu vs Arch thing. Any tips how to make that info useful?

Steps for reproducing this issue:

  1. open terminal
  2. execute steam
TTTimo 2024-02-29 github

Most likely a duplicate of https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/10547

Aadoa 2024-02-29 github

I tried again with STEAM_LINUX_RUNTIME_VERBOSE=1 steam. I do get more verbose logs.
steam-logs-verbose.tar.gz
When looking into the steamwebhelper.log, I don't see any complaints about the symlinks. They seem to get resolved correctly. Is this really the culprit? The only error I see right before the crash is

[0229/233234.360978:ERROR:context.cc(100)] The browser_subprocess_path directory (./steamwebhelper) is not an absolute path. Defaulting to empty.
Aadoa 2024-03-01 github

Since other people are experiencing issues with more symlinks, here a list of symlinks on my system that may be involved:

/home/valneq/.cache -> /data/valneq/.cache
/home/valneq/.config -> /data/valneq/config
/home/valneq/.local/share -> /data/valneq/local/share

/home is on SSD, while /data is on HDD.

Aadoa 2024-03-01 github

I was reading up on #10552 which seems very similar. There, people mentioned bind mounts being more robust than symlinks.

I after replacing the .config symlink with a bind mount, Steam works again. :partying_face:

Finally, I decided to replace all three symlinks mentioned above with bind mounts.

Since this seems a duplicate, I close it here.

Ssmcv 2024-03-01 github

/home/valneq/.config -> /data/valneq/config

Based on what we have seen on other issues, I think this is the one that was actually triggering the problem, and the others were not relevant (but replacing them all with bind mounts is more future-proof than leaving the others as symlinks).

Ddanfilg 2025-05-17 github

I was reading up on [#10552](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/10552) which seems very similar. There, people mentioned bind mounts being more robust than symlinks.

I after replacing the .config symlink with a bind mount, Steam works again. 🥳

Finally, I decided to replace all three symlinks mentioned above with bind mounts.

Since this seems a duplicate, I close it here.

Reading that helped me. I have two arch linux installed in the same ssd nvme, but in different partitions. I was trying to open the steam by archcraft (partition II), and I already had steam in a partition with Pure Arch Linux (partition III). I erased that of the old Arch and it worked.

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