Hello @techmouse, this reads like #10543.
Can you test if completely closing steam, then running steam from a terminal with -system-composer and/or -cef-disable-gpu works around the issue you're seeing?
Hello @techmouse, this reads like #10543.
Can you test if completely closing steam, then running steam from a terminal with
-system-composerand/or-cef-disable-gpuworks around the issue you're seeing?
Yep, both of those fixed it! Thank you very much! Which one is the preferred option?
Same issue on Englightenment DR16 (e16).
Also, the Steam window now follows me when I switch virtual desktops, which is really annoying.
I've been seeing the same thing on Arch Linux with Openbox as my window manager. Same as techmouse, using either -system-composer or -cef-disable-gpu fixes the problem although I'm not sure why exactly or which I should prefer.
Disabling gpu acceleration in settings seems to prevent it. This might be the cause?
distro: Arch
window manager: i3
gpu: RTX 4070
drivers: nividia 550.78-1
Steam Beta Branch: Stable Client
Steam Version: 1709846872
Steam Client Build Date: Wed, Mar 6 17:28 UTC -08:00
Steam Web Build Date: Thu, Mar 7 18:17 UTC -08:00
Steam API Version: SteamClient021
I had the same issue and I've also fixed it with either of those flags (would be great to know which is the preferred flag). For some reason, this only started happening to me after a mid-December 2025 update.
distro: Manjaro
window manager: i3
gpu: RTX 3060TI
drivers: 550.144.03
Steam Beta Branch: Steam Beta Update
Steam Version: 1739497777
Steam Client Build Date: Thu, Feb 13 8:29 PM UTC -08:00
Steam Web Build Date: Fri, Feb 14 1:41 AM UTC -08:00
Steam API Version: SteamClient021
I just noticed some transparent windows weren't working due to running picom (on i3 launch) with a deprecated flag. I removed the flag which fixed the transparency issue, and I'm now able to run steam as usual.
Nothing extracted yet.
Your system information
steam --versiondoes nothing. But it's not automatically updating at startup, so I'm assuming I'm at the most recent version.Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:
KDE Neon rolled out Plasma 6 and it broke everything for me so I'm migrating to a more proper tiling window manager.
So far, Steam is the only thing not working in i3. I've restarted i3 and Steam in a number of different ways but I can't get it to work. Games still play just fine, but I can only run them from the Steam tray icon, which means I'm limited to the 5 most recent games.
I also tried "small mode" and it didn't produce any better results.
This is what I get when I run Steam from a terminal
To be clear, it's only the main Steam window that's just a black square. Other Steam windows, like chat windows, the settings window, and even the big drop down menus for "Store" and "Library", are visible and working just fine. But it's only by memory and guesswork I can find these things.
Steps for reproducing this issue:
sudo apt-get install i3) and log out