Steam UI won't open from `steam.desktop` application entry on Ubuntu 24.04 using Wayland
I don't know if it's a wayland problem. I had the steam UI not appear at all on startup while running Xorg as display server. The only thing that would appear was the system tray icon. But even that wouldn't get steam to shutdown. Killed it, restarted it, and it displayed correctly. This behavior only happened once, so unsure how to reproduce.
restart the computer (or log out and log back in)
Why would restarting the computer be necessary for a .desktop change? (Is it a GNOME thing?)
I don't know if it's a wayland problem.
That is good to know. Maybe the version of xdg-open that is bundled with 24.04 doesn't support commands defined in .desktop file of installed Steam?
What version of what OS are you running @xrogaan? Did the posted workaround work for you? (you can also try to run command steam from terminal, if that works, the workaround should also work for you)
Why would restarting the computer be necessary for a .desktop change? (Is it a GNOME thing?)
Simply editing .desktop file is not enough, the .desktop files also need to be reloaded by your system to update application menu entries. I am sure there are many ways to do so, but I think the easiest is to log out and log back in. I suggested restarting so people wouldn't potentially get confused and think you need to log out of Steam and log back in.
I don't know whether .desktop files are "watched" and reloaded automatically after changes on other desktop environments, such as KDE.
Did the posted workaround work for you?
I already stated in my comment, it was a one time problem. Might not be related to yours at all, if you can reproduce the behavior on your end. I'm running Devuan, just your regular debian stable without systemd.
Said workaround wouldn't solve any issue on my end, as both desktop files contain the same exec entry.
What I suspect happened, but too lazy to verify, is that I shutdown my computer without closing steam first. KDE might try to restart previously running software, and in this case it may have failed.
I don't know whether .desktop files are "watched" and reloaded automatically after changes on other desktop environments, such as KDE.
They are. KDE watches specific directories for changes and update the various menu automatically. At least, that's my experience.
I had an identical problem to the one described immediately upon upgrading to Kubuntu 24.04. The problem is that your workaround in the first post did not work. However, launching Steam from the terminal DOES allow it to function normally for some reason.
Launching through a terminal would have steam inherit the environment of said terminal. Though I do not know how wayland handle that.
I had an identical problem to the one described immediately upon upgrading to Kubuntu 24.04. The problem is that your workaround in the first post did not work. However, launching Steam from the terminal DOES allow it to function normally for some reason.
Have the commands from the workaround executed successfully? Have you perhaps installed steam through snap (or app center GUI, which would install through snap)?
To troubleshoot, you could:
- run
which steamin terminal to see if path starts with snap (it shouldn't start with snap) - run
cat ~/.local/share/applications/steam.desktopand/usr/share/applications/steam.dekstopto see if the two files are identical except for the name field
I am not using the snap version of Steam. This problem is now fixed for me, but the fix was a bit complicated. I had to:
- manually install the latest NVIDIA proprietary 550 driver
- resolve its weird dependency issues with nvidia-driver-550
- rebuild the desktop with kubuntu-desktop because I removed the wrong package
- force 550 to be the used graphics driver
- uninstall Steam
- install the 32-bit nvidia packages that Steam wants and reinstall Steam.
- reboot
It's possible some or all of these steps could be skipped but that is what I did.
@itsryzor i had this same issue on fedora 40, plasma 6.1 wayland. steam from terminal opened fine but didn't work when launching as a normal UI application. the desktop file wasn't in my .local/... dir but somewhere else and used root perms to edit it. i edited it and changed PrefersNonDefaultGPU=true to PrefersNonDefaultGPU=false and now it's working fine... in case this helps anyone
Same issue on fresh Debian Trixie w/ KDE.
dPreininger's workaround worked for me too. Nuke the symlink ~/.local/share/applications/steam.desktop; replace it with a copy of /usr/share/applications/steam.desktop; edit to change "Install Steam" to just "Steam." Reboot wasn't necessary.
Hi, I was running into this issue as well on Fedora 40 KDE Spin.
For me, the fix was to disable the "run using dedicated graphics card" option in the UI (right click on the application entry, go to the Application tab, and click Advanced Options). Interestingly, the argument looks like it's still set to true in the steam.desktop file, but not in the UI.
I'm using an RX6600XT in a Razer Core X Chroma enclosure, so I think that argument combined with some other flags I'm messing with using all-ways-egpu broke something.
I had an identical problem to the one described immediately upon upgrading to Kubuntu 24.04. The problem is that your workaround in the first post did not work. However, launching Steam from the terminal DOES allow it to function normally for some reason.
I had this same issue, with Steam only working when launching through the terminal, disabling "GPU accelerated rendering in web views" in Settings > Interface made it work for me (I'm running Ubuntu 24.10, Wayland, RX 7900XTX)
I had an identical problem to the one described immediately upon upgrading to Kubuntu 24.04. The problem is that your workaround in the first post did not work. However, launching Steam from the terminal DOES allow it to function normally for some reason.
I had this same issue, with Steam only working when launching through the terminal, disabling "GPU accelerated rendering in web views" in Settings > Interface made it work for me (I'm running Ubuntu 24.10, Wayland, RX 7900XTX)
i was having this issue in the past, but now my steam isn't launching through the terminal anymore. i have almost an identical setup to this. Kubuntu 24.10, wayland, rx 7900xtx. worked fine for a long time... until upgrading to 24.10
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I am running into this problem with Kubuntu 25.04 and Fedora 42.
The Flatpak works fine, but the official .deb is broken (the GUI never opens even though the icon is accessible in the System Tray). As mentioned in https://github.com/pop-os/steam/issues/18 the workaround of commenting out or removing PrefersNonDefaultGPU=true in steam.desktop DOES fix the problem for me.
X870 motherboard with a Radeon 9070 XT.
I had this same issue, with Steam only working when launching through the terminal, disabling "GPU accelerated rendering in web views" in Settings > Interface made it work for me (I'm running Ubuntu 24.10, Wayland, RX 7900XTX)
BINGO. This solved it for me. I attempted setting "PrefersNonDefaultGPU=true", but that did not fix it.
Running Kubuntu 24.04 with AMD CPU and GPU.
I had this same issue, with Steam only working when launching through the terminal, disabling "GPU accelerated rendering in web views" in Settings > Interface made it work for me (I'm running Ubuntu 24.10, Wayland, RX 7900XTX)
Fixed the issue also for my setup which uses X11.
Details
System:
Host: xxx Kernel: 6.14.0-32-generic arch: x86_64 bits: 64
Desktop: Cinnamon v: 6.4.8 Distro: Linux Mint 22.2 Zara
Machine:
Type: Desktop System: Micro-Star product: MS-7D75 v: 2.0
serial:
Mobo: Micro-Star model: PRO B650-A WIFI (MS-7D75) v: 2.0
serial: UEFI: American Megatrends LLC. v: A.60
date: 06/24/2025
Graphics:
Device-1: AMD driver: amdgpu v: kernel
Device-2: AMD driver: amdgpu v: kernel
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.11 with: Xwayland v: 23.2.6 driver: X:
loaded: amdgpu unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,radeon,vesa dri: radeonsi
gpu: amdgpu resolution: 3840x2160~60Hz
API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: kms_swrast,radeonsi,swrast
platforms: gbm,x11,surfaceless,device
API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: amd mesa
v: 25.0.7-0ubuntu0.24.04.2 renderer: AMD Radeon Graphics (radeonsi gfx1201
LLVM 20.1.2 DRM 3.61 6.14.0-32-generic)
Nothing extracted yet.
Your system information
Steam's UI won't open if launched from applications menu on Ubuntu 24.04 if using Wayland display server protocol. Issue was noticed AFTER I have already successfully signed in, so not sure if sign in screens and updating Steam screens are affected. The only part of the UI that opened up was "restoring your session" spinner when you initially open the app. Main screens (Store, Library, Friends,...) don't open. Pretty sure the problem is also present if you install Steam via Snap as that installation also wasn't working but I didn't troubleshoot why. Not sure if it affects any other distributions on Wayland, such as Fedora for example.
I believe
xdg-openis not working properly (I didn't check if it might be unsupported on Wayland), because if I removesteam.desktopfile from my~/.local/share/applications, then everything works as it should, because it reverts back to "Install Steam" application entry from/usr/share/applications, where the line telling the system to interpret the file usingxdg-open(the line is:#!/usr/bin/env xdg-open) is not present.Workaround for those affected by this issue (paste these lines into the terminal):
This will copy over the "Install Steam" application entry (which, as described above, works without problems) from your root applications folder and rename it to "Steam" to avoid confusion. Don't worry, this won't try to reinstall Steam every time you open up the app.
Steps for reproducing this issue: