steam client crashing in host libopenal.so.1 on gentoo when starting voice capture
Hello @Darkbloodking00, how is libunwind getting involved here? In a quick check, that doesn't look like a normal dependency of OpenAL or Gentoo's packaging of the library.
I suspect this problem was seen in https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/8930 already. We fixed a few things on the Steam client side back then.
Which version of OpenAL did Gentoo update to? I'd assume the crashes started with that update, it should probably be debugged from that angle.
@Darkbloodking00 please provide the following:
- A crash ID for an uploaded crash report of the steam client.
- A runtime report of the system when steam runtime is enabled and we prefer the newer host OpenAL lib (e.g. attempting voice chat will crash). (Help -> Steam Runtime Diagnostic).
Hello @Darkbloodking00, how is libunwind getting involved here? In a quick check, that doesn't look like a normal dependency of OpenAL or Gentoo's packaging of the library.
Hi, I don't know why did GDB picked up libunwind, also checked it in my tests too but it's not contributing to the crash.
I just followed Gentoo devs suggestions to debug the issue, had no prior experience on using gdb, strace or ftrace.
It's a bit strange for this to come up now. 1.23.1 has been the latest on Gentoo since May 2023, even on stable. Perhaps they just didn't have it installed before?
Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/11014#issuecomment-2187272283
It's the libopenal.so.1.23.1 library that's on latest right now. Let me prepare the reports too.
/var/log/emerge.log should tell you when this was installed and whether it was upgraded from an earlier version.
/var/log/emerge.log should tell you when this was installed and whether it was upgraded from an earlier version.
I don't think we need that information since I'm experiencing this issue for months from my old laptop to my current desktop PC. So even If I provide my emerge logs I had this issue from the start and it wouldn't give us useful informations.
Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/11014#issuecomment-2187272283
@TTimo Here are the reports:
1- CrashID=bp-1ed35ccd-0d0a-4e3a-88ca-a8954224062
2-Steam Runtime Diagnostic - https://gist.github.com/Darkbloodking00/5e7fd469e65cd9a0445b2111c56dda4f
1- CrashID=bp-1ed35ccd-0d0a-4e3a-88ca-a8954224062
I can't find this on our servers. What is uploaded recently? (less than a week?)
Can you provide the .dmp directly instead? (You should be able to attach it)
1- CrashID=bp-1ed35ccd-0d0a-4e3a-88ca-a8954224062
I can't find this on our servers. What is uploaded recently? (less than a week?) Can you provide the .dmp directly instead? (You should be able to attach it)
1-Yes, it's recently uploaded.
2-Here: GitHub actually doesn't allow me to attach dmp file type and as you can see in the screenshot several dmp files are generated during the crash, I uploaded all of them to a temporary repo: https://github.com/Darkbloodking00/dumps
CrashID if you ever need it: CrashID=bp-e9f55225-0402-427e-a114-d55112240626
Thanks. The other two asserts are unrelated to the crash, and the crash itself doesn't really bring up anything we didn't already know.
Our QA attempted to reproduce this on a Gentoo system, we have the same libopenal 1.23.1 and pipewire but no crash. So unfortunately I don't expect quick progress on this until new information is available.
It may be unrelated, but I just had another Gentoo user file a bug to say that ye olde UT2004 crashes with sound enabled. It also uses OpenAL. It works fine for me though.
Thanks. The other two asserts are unrelated to the crash, and the crash itself doesn't really bring up anything we didn't already know.
Our QA attempted to reproduce this on a Gentoo system, we have the same libopenal 1.23.1 and pipewire but no crash. So unfortunately I don't expect quick progress on this until new information is available.
Ah I see, that's unfortunate, thanks for your help. I'll try to pinpoint the issue.
It may be unrelated, but I just had another Gentoo user file a bug to say that ye olde UT2004 crashes with sound enabled. It also uses OpenAL. It works fine for me though.
Hmm, let me check the bug, I hope the issue is only related to library.
The issue is resolved on its own after a fresh reinstall respecting the system's standards a bit more. So it turned out to be a problem on my side, tho' I still don't know how I managed to break it. Thanks for everyone's help.
Your system information
Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:
The issue is mainly caused by Steam Voice API's incompatibility with newer versions of OpenAL. Since Steam client mixes its runtime libraries with system libraries for better compatibility and performance this can cause issues for rolling release distros like Gentoo Linux and Arch Linux. I used gdb on Steam for debugging. Since required libopenal.so.1.19.1 library is so old for current toolchains and libraries I couldn't compile it by myself, I copied it to my system from Steam Runtimes to resolve the crash instead. I want to report this as a bug, I know some libraries aren't mixed intentionally while launching the Steam Client, either libopenal.so.1.19.1 too should be included as one or please update your proprietary libraries to comply with newer versions of OpenAL that are already shipped with the new LTS version of Ubuntu you officially support.
Expected behaviour: Being able to voice chat in multiplayer games that utilize Steam Voice API.
Undesired behaviour: Instant crashing of Steam client and the game right after pressing voice chat button.
What didn't work for resolving the problem: Trying different versions of pipewire, switching pipewire to pulseaudio, running steam with runtime, running steam without runtime, trying entirely different hardwares on gentoo linux, running the games in borderless windowed full screen, installing game libraries using esteam tool for gentoo, switching to wayland, using different kernel versions, trying different versions of mesa and libsdl2, etc.
What resolves the issue: Using flatpak version of the Steam or copying libopenal.so.1.19.1 from Steam Runtime to /usr/lib
Steps for reproducing this issue:
GDB output at the end:
https://gist.github.com/Darkbloodking00/536d0f855fa74a9d2a19f23bc9a1a93b
Video:
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/assets/71722525/cf73f4ea-065d-481f-a968-f9bdea2e35f4