protonscr

Clicking on Steam Client Window Bar (e.g. to move window) causes Gnome to Crash

steamopen Window managerDistro Family: Ubuntu
ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux#11706 · opened 2025-01-27 by dnaod · updated 2025-06-25 · 5 comments · github
Ddnaod 2025-01-27 github

Your system information

  • Steam Beta Branch: Stable Client
  • Steam Version: 1737514353
  • Steam Client Build Date: Tue, Jan 21 6:35 PM UTC -08:00
  • Steam Web Build Date: Tue, Jan 21 5:41 PM UTC -08:00
  • Steam API Version: SteamClient021
  • Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Ubuntu 24.10 (Vanilla Gnome)
  • Opted into Steam client beta?: No (but Beta has the same behaviour)
  • Have you checked for system updates?: Yes
  • Steam Logs: steam-logs.tar.gz
  • GPU: Nvidia 1070ti using X11
  • More computer info below

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

If the Steam Client window is not in focus, clicking anywhere on the red highlighted area in the screenshot below will cause Gnome to display a standard error along the lines of "A problem has occurred and the system can't recover. Please logout and try again."

Image

You would click on that area if you wanted to bring the window to the forefront or move the window on the screen. I would expect Gnome not to crash and the window to be moveable as per normal Gnome WM decorated windows.

Clicking anywhere else on the Steam client window does not cause this issue.

This issue is 100% reproducible on my system. I'm unclear when it started as it's taken me weeks to track down that this is a Steam issue and can occur when Steam is the only app opened immediately upon login. It is possible that this started when I added a second (portrait) monitor to my system but I can't confirm. This occurs when Steam is on my main (landscape) monitor.

Image

Steps for reproducing this issue:

  1. Open the Steam client on Linux
  2. Click anywhere on the red shaded area in my screenshot as if you were going to move the window
  3. Gnome will crash and you will be forced to logout

More Computer Information:

Manufacturer: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
Model: SABERTOOTH Z87
Form Factor: Desktop
No Touch Input Detected
Processor Information:
CPU Vendor: GenuineIntel
CPU Brand: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770K CPU @ 3.50GHz
CPU Family: 0x6
CPU Model: 0x3c
CPU Stepping: 0x3
CPU Type: 0x0
Speed: 3900 MHz
8 logical processors
4 physical processors
Hyper-threading: Supported
FCMOV: Supported
SSE2: Supported
SSE3: Supported
SSSE3: Supported
SSE4a: Unsupported
SSE41: Supported
SSE42: Supported
AES: Supported
AVX: Supported
AVX2: Supported
AVX512F: Unsupported
AVX512PF: Unsupported
AVX512ER: Unsupported
AVX512CD: Unsupported
AVX512VNNI: Unsupported
SHA: Unsupported
CMPXCHG16B: Supported
LAHF/SAHF: Supported
PrefetchW: Unsupported
BMI1: Supported
BMI2: Supported
F16C: Supported
FMA: Supported
Operating System Version:
Ubuntu 24.10 (64 bit)
Kernel Name: Linux
Kernel Version: 6.11.0-13-generic
X Server Vendor: The X.Org Foundation
X Server Release: 12101013
X Window Manager: GNOME Shell
Steam Runtime Version: steam-runtime_0.20241127.109674
Client Information:
Version: 1737514353
Browser GPU Acceleration Status: Enabled
Browser Canvas: Enabled
Browser Canvas out-of-process rasterization: Enabled
Browser Direct Rendering Display Compositor: Disabled
Browser Compositing: Enabled
Browser Multiple Raster Threads: Enabled
Browser OpenGL: Enabled
Browser Rasterization: Enabled
Browser Raw Draw: Disabled
Browser Skia Graphite: Disabled
Browser Video Decode: Enabled
Browser Video Encode: Disabled
Browser Vulkan: Disabled
Browser WebGL: Enabled
Browser WebGL2: Enabled
Browser WebGPU: Disabled
Browser WebNN: Disabled
Video Card:
Driver: NVIDIA Corporation NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti/PCIe/SSE2
Driver Version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 550.144.03
Desktop Color Depth: 24 bits per pixel
Monitor Refresh Rate: 143 Hz
VendorID: 0x10de
DeviceID: 0x1b82
Revision Not Detected
Number of Monitors: 2
Number of Logical Video Cards: 1
Primary Display Resolution: 2560 x 1440
Desktop Resolution: 3760 x 1920
Primary Display Size: 23.54" x 13.23" (26.97" diag), 59.8cm x 33.6cm (68.5cm diag)
Primary Bus: PCI Express 16x
Primary VRAM: 8192 MB
Supported MSAA Modes: 2x 4x 8x 16x
Sound card:
Audio device: Realtek ALC1150
Memory:
RAM: 32031 Mb
VR Hardware:
VR Headset: None detected
Miscellaneous:
UI Language: English
LANG: en_CA.UTF-8
Total Hard Disk Space Available: 841356 MB
Largest Free Hard Disk Block: 244188 MB
Storage:
Number of SSDs: 4
SSD sizes: 1000G,500G,0B,0B
Number of HDDs: 0
Number of removable drives: 0

Kkisak-valve maintainer 2025-01-27 github

Hello @dnaod, you should report this issue to the GNOME dev(s) and/or your distro's package maintainers for the GNOME desktop environment.

Ddnaod 2025-02-02 github

Gnome (GDK specifically) closed the issue immediately and asked me to file a bug with Valve.
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/7304

Wwillhansen 2025-04-22 github

I have encountered possibly the same error

KKeisori 2025-06-24 github

Any workarounds to avoid this? Having it happen as well using the Steam snap on Ubuntu 24.04. Interesting that valve pointed to gnome, gnome kicked you back to valve

Ddnaod 2025-06-25 github

@Keisori This problem went away for me after upgrade to Ubuntu 25.04. TBH, I think the underlying issue is still in the Steam client, but Gnome seems to be handling the error more gracefully and not crashing anymore.

The reason I say that is that using the title bar to move the window still fails 50-ish% of the time. You try to drag it and nothing happens. But Gnome no longer crashes. And simply grabbing it again to resize or drag usually works.

Nothing extracted yet.