protonscr

Can't Play Some Games from Steam

steamopen 3rd party gameDistro Family: Arch
ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux#12441 · opened 2025-11-11 by BrownTurtleBear · updated 2025-11-14 · 7 comments · github
BBrownTurtleBear 2025-11-11 github

Your system information

  • Steam client version (build number or date): 1759461205
  • Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Arch Linux running KDE Plasma
  • Opted into Steam client beta?: No
  • Have you checked for system updates?: Yes
  • Steam Logs: [generate by running this command in a terminal tar -zcvf ~/Desktop/steam-logs.tar.gz [~/.steam/steam/logs]]

steam-logs.tar.gz

  • GPU: AMD Radeon Vega 10

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

I am trying to run the game Liftoff (410340) and Shapez 2 (2162800). However Whenever I try to run the game it does not run. Both games are native to linux. For Liftoff I can run the game just by running the .86_64 file from the terminal. However I cannot play the game since it gives me the Steam not Initilised error. This is the logs I recieve from the terminal when steam is ran through the terminal and after I click play on liftoff.

chdir "/home/tspc/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Liftoff"
Game Recording - would start recording game 410340, but recording for this game is disabled
Adding process 10552 for gameID 410340
ERROR: ld.so: object '/home/tspc/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/gameoverlayrenderer.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32): ignored.
ERROR: ld.so: object '/home/tspc/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/gameoverlayrenderer.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32): ignored.
ERROR: ld.so: object '/home/tspc/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/gameoverlayrenderer.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64): ignored.
pid 10553 != 10552, skipping destruction (fork without exec?)
WARNING: discarding _NET_WM_PID 7 as invalid for X11 window - use specialized XCB_X11_TO_PID function!
Game Recording - game stopped [gameid=410340]
Removing process 10552 for gameID 410340

For other games like Lethal Company (1966720) and Baldur's gate 3 (1086940) the game runs perfectly fine. (Though Baldur's Gate 3 is experiencing graphics card issue where the screen freezes and makes the screen turn pink and colorful.)

I've tried turning off steam overlay. and reinstalling the games.

Steps for reproducing this issue:

  1. Select Liftoff or Shapez 2 from library
  2. Play the game
  3. Wait for the game to not open. The play button will turn blue saying running... for a little bit but turn back to green and play without any errors.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/6ef63bc8-a628-4c01-8620-fd5a7d36178e

Kkisak-valve maintainer 2025-11-11 github

Hello @BrownTurtleBear, in general, issues with Linux native games should be reported to and evaluated by the game's dev(s). Having written that, I'm not seeing an obvious hint in Steam's logs.

Can you see if you can find a relevant Unity3D Player.log somewhere near ~/.config/unity3d? Also, please copy the contents of Steam Runtime Diagnostics from Steam (Steam -> Help -> Steam Runtime Diagnostics) and put it in a gist, then include a link to the gist in this issue report.

RRedouane64 2025-11-11 github

I have the same issue with SnowRunner on Ubuntu 24.04 and Steam log the same errors. the game starts with black screen and then exits with those errors logged. The game worked fine before on same OS, this error appeared after a did new fresh OS install.

@kisak-valve I added my steam runtime diagnostics result in this gist: Steam Runtime Diag Gist

why it is loading 32bit on x86_64 system?

Kkisak-valve maintainer 2025-11-11 github

Hello @Redouane64, your issue is unrelated to the issue reported here.

Skimming over your runtime diagnostics, the Vulkan render paths of the NVIDIA proprietary driver is broken in your Steam inside Snap container environment. https://gist.github.com/Redouane64/21778947c003f37dc0892077184db07d#file-steam-runtime-diagnostics-json-L88-L102 / https://gist.github.com/Redouane64/21778947c003f37dc0892077184db07d#file-steam-runtime-diagnostics-json-L301-L315

That's something for you to figure out between yourself and the Snap package maintainers.

BBrownTurtleBear 2025-11-12 github

@kisak-valve Thanks for the help!

This is the Player.log for liftoff
Player.log

I could not find one for Shapez 2

Steam Runtime Diagnostics
https://gist.github.com/BrownTurtleBear/dadf691b474471762617c2612e935ae7

Kkisak-valve maintainer 2025-11-12 github

The short version of Player.log is that the game loads Steamworks.NET to check what DLC you have and falls over with [S_API FAIL] SteamAPI_Init() failed; no appID found. and says it's quitting the game because that didn't work.

That at least narrows the scope of the issue. I think the next step of troubleshooting would be to set Liftoff's launch options to env > ~/game_environment.txt #%command%, tell Steam to run the game once, which will return to the play button almost instantly, then review that generated list of environment variables for anything that shouldn't be public and share it here. In particular, I think we're looking for the environment the game is run in to include SteamAppId=410340, SteamGameId=410340, and SteamOverlayGameId=410340.

The log also hints that you can try to workaround this by manually telling that sub-component what appID of the game is by making steam_appid.txt beside the game's binary with 410340 in it similar to https://steamcommunity.com/app/410340/discussions/0/4511003584756950856/.

BBrownTurtleBear 2025-11-12 github

This is the game_environment.txt
game_environment.txt

I tried to put the steam_appid.txt file into the /home/tspc/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Liftoff/ directory and /Liftoff/Liftoff_Data directory but it didnt work. When I searched my whole pc for a steam_appid.txt file it could only find three all for baldur's gate 3. They are in the bin directory for the game but I couldnt find an equlivant folder for liftoff

BBrownTurtleBear 2025-11-14 github

@kisak-valve
Could you please have another look at this?

Nothing extracted yet.