protonscr

Shortcut causes boot loop

steamclosed
ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux#11820 · opened 2025-03-13 by brucetony · updated 2025-03-13 · 2 comments · github
Bbrucetony 2025-03-13 github

Your system information

  • Steam client version (build number or date): 1.0.0.82-1.fc41
  • Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Fedora (GNOME)
  • Opted into Steam client beta?: Yes (both stable and beta tested)
  • Have you checked for system updates?: Yes
  • Steam Logs: steam-logs.tar.gz
  • GPU: Nvidia/Intel/AMD: AMD Radeon 6700XT

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

I am unable to start steam using the gnome tray shortcut or via the Activities/Start Menu shortcut. When either of these are pressed, I see a the "Loading User Data" window for about 1-2 seconds before it flickers and disappears, but the main Steam window never appears and it looks like it is stuck in a boot loop. I can open and run steam just fine if I execute either steam or /usr/bin/steam from the terminal, but the shortcuts do not work properly. I tested this as well in KDE Plasma, and the same problem occurs.

Steps for reproducing this issue:

  1. Install Steam sudo dnf install steam
  2. Click on the shortcut in the Activities/Start Menu
  3. Stuck in boot loop
Bbrucetony 2025-03-13 github

Other things I tried that failed:

  • Removing ~/.local/share/Steam and letting it rebuild it
  • Manually changing the configuration option in /usr/share/applications/steam.desktop to PrefersNonDefaultGPU=false
  • Reinstalling steam and removing all dependencies

One workaround I found that works is to disable GPU accelerated rendering in the Interface panel of the Settings menu. Once I did that, the shortcut works again. I am using Wayland, but as mentioned in the issue, I also noticed this crashing behavior in KDE. I just don't understand why running the same command manually in the terminal from steam.desktop works, but not the shortcut itself

Edit: Though I had made that edit and thought I applied it, it didn't work. I have now copied /usr/share/applications/steam.desktop to ~/.local/share/applications and changed it to PrefersNonDefaultGPU=false, updated the desktop database, and now it works.

This is apparently a Wayland problem, and since I didn't see this problem before I upgraded my motherboard, my guess is that Steam was trying to use the integrated graphics for hardware acceleration (my previous motherboard didn't have integrated graphics), but by disabling this setting, it now uses my discrete GPU.

Kkisak-valve maintainer 2025-03-13 github

Duplicate of #9383.

Nothing extracted yet.