This has started happening to me too.
Steam client version (build number): 1769025840
Distribution: Debian 13 with KDE Plasma
Opted into Steam client beta?: Nope
Have you checked for system updates?: Yes
GPU: RTX 4080
Funny that the devs don't even answer even if its just the most basic bug. Is everything okay with valve?
I just ran into this a few minutes ago while playing Cookie Clicker through Proton Experimental in Linux Mint 22.3. Before the leak started, I noticed the client appeared to be restarting itself, because Steam popped up its client window seemingly out of nowhere. I noticed some slowdown from swapping, but thought nothing of it. Continued doing other things for a while, then it got much worse as the client continued to leak memory with impunity.
I had to use the Magic SysRq to turn off keyboard raw mode via Alt+SysRq+r, switch to a console via Alt+SysRq+F1, and manually call OOM killer via Alt+SysRq+f. Doing so killed steamwebhelper.
This was all I needed to do to get control of the system enough to continue recovering. I closed my game while steamwebhelper relaunched itself again. When it did, I closed it by exiting through the system tray icon.
This hung after a few seconds. I was doing things in Emacs at the time, so I used proced (like top, htop, or system monitor) to send TERM to steam's processes. This terminated some of them. Needed to KILL the remaining ones, and that took care of everything. Nasty!
This is one of many reasons why my desktop Linux systems always have all Magic SysRq features enabled over the years.
*Edit for clarity
proton experimentalx1 2026-02
My system information
Issue Description:
Sometimes when i download a game, my RAM usage just goes up until my 32GB are full and my system gets slow as fuck. Seems like someone forgot a
free()in some loop. This happened to me while downloading Project Zomboid, Valheim or cs2. Here is some screen recording of how fast it goes up: https://clown.informationsanarchistik.de/index.php/s/TppDEqG6zEKDDAtSteps for reproducing this issue: