it also happens with me since today
I'm glad to be of help
after switching back to the "Recommended driver" instead of the most recent one (from 580 to the recomended one, 535) seems to fix it for me (my gpu is a gtx 1050 3gb)
Solved it for me too, thanks man!! I won't close it though
after switching back to the "Recommended driver" instead of the most recent one (from 580 to the recomended one, 535) seems to fix it for me (my gpu is a gtx 1050 3gb)
Whilst I would switch to 535 as you did, I tried switching to the recommended driver first, which is the latest 580, since I have a 3080 Laptop GPU, and Mint still crashes anyways, so it seems to be an issue with modern drivers
Yeah, could you do a new issue? Seems to be the open kernel drivers maybe
If the issue is a regression in the video driver, that should be reported to your video driver vendor.
The solution, for me, was a regression to 535 propietary non open kernel nvidia drivers. The new Steam Launcher update got my Linux Mint crashing when trying to open it.
Also had the same trouble, then I tried run this command steam --reset and it runs well. But after I tried running steam again without it. It causes the same problem again. Any ideas why???
it opened on wayland but not on x11 , weird
Same for me - Linux Mint 22.3
NVIDIA Driver - 595.84
Will Try to Downgrade to 535 and see if its fixed.
Same for me - Linux Mint 22.3 NVIDIA Driver - 595.84
Will Try to Downgrade to 535 and see if its fixed.
It didn't help, I downgraded to 580 - still lagged out.
I am going back to Linux Mint 21.3 which had, If I recall correctly, 535 drivers and never this issue
Drivers didnt fix anything (actually, you cannot install 535 drivers its transient now to 580 which means when you install 535 it still installs 580)
when you lauch steam from the linux panel - it does not run command steam but runs STEAM_FRAME_FORCE_CLOSE=1 steam
and I tried to launch it - and it got segmentation fault
lulz@lulz:~$ STEAM_FRAME_FORCE_CLOSE=1 steam
steam.sh[133237]: Running Steam on linuxmint 21.3 64-bit
steam.sh[133237]: STEAM_RUNTIME is enabled automatically
setup.sh[133277]: Steam runtime environment up-to-date!
steam.sh[133237]: Steam client's requirements are satisfied
CProcessEnvironmentManager is ready, 5 preallocated environment variables.
[2026-08-23 13:12:17] Startup - updater built Aug 3 2026 19:41:02
[2026-08-23 13:12:17] Startup - Steam Client launched with: '/home/lulz/.steam/debian-installation/ubuntu12_32/steam' '-srt-logger-opened' '-nominidumps' '-nobreakpad'
08/23 13:12:17 minidumps folder is set to /tmp/dumps
08/23 13:12:17 Init: Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1785799196)/tid(133353)
CProcessEnvironmentManager is ready, 5 preallocated environment variables.
[2026-08-23 13:12:17] Process started with command-line: '/home/lulz/.steam/debian-installation/ubuntu12_32/steam' '-child-update-ui' '-child-update-ui-socket' '8' '-srt-logger-opened' '-nominidumps' '-nobreakpad'
08/23 13:12:17 minidumps folder is set to /tmp/dumps
[2026-08-23 13:12:17] Using update UI: console
08/23 13:12:17 Init: Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(0)/tid(133355)
[2026-08-23 13:12:17] Create window
[2026-08-23 13:12:17] Loading cached metrics from disk (/home/lulz/.steam/debian-installation/package/steam_client_metrics.bin)
[2026-08-23 13:12:17] Using the following download hosts for Public, Realm steamglobal
[2026-08-23 13:12:17] 1. https://client-update.fastly.steamstatic.com, /, Realm 'steamglobal', weight was 900, source = 'update_hosts_cached.vdf'
[2026-08-23 13:12:17] 2. https://client-update.akamai.steamstatic.com, /, Realm 'steamglobal', weight was 400, source = 'update_hosts_cached.vdf'
[2026-08-23 13:12:17] 3. https://client-update.steamstatic.com, /, Realm 'steamglobal', weight was 1, source = 'baked in'
[2026-08-23 13:12:17] Verifying installation...
[2026-08-23 13:12:17] Verifying file sizes only
[2026-08-23 13:12:17] Set percent complete: 0
[2026-08-23 13:12:17] Set percent complete: -1
[2026-08-23 13:12:17] Set status message: Verifying installation...
[----] Verifying installation...
[2026-08-23 13:12:17] Verification complete
UpdateUI: skip show logo
[2026-08-23 13:12:17] Destroy window
Steam logging initialized: directory: /home/lulz/.steam/debian-installation/logs
[2026-08-23 13:12:17] ProcessNextMessage: socket disconnected
[2026-08-23 13:12:17] No more messages are expected - exiting
XOpenIM() failed, LANG = en_US.UTF-8
XOpenIM() failed, LANG = en_US.UTF-8XRRGetOutputInfo Workaround: initialized with override: 0 real: 0xf63089c0
XRRGetCrtcInfo Workaround: initialized with override: 0 real: 0xf63071f0
/usr/share/themes/Mint-Y-Dark-Aqua/gtk-2.0/main.rc:1053: error: unexpected identifier 'direction', expected character '}'
crash_20260823131217_4.dmp[133364]: Uploading dump (out-of-process)
/tmp/dumps/crash_20260823131217_4.dmp
/home/lulz/.steam/debian-installation/steam.sh: line 966: 133353 Segmentation fault (core dumped) "$STEAMROOT/$STEAMEXEPATH" "$@"
lulz@lulz:~$ crash_20260823131217_4.dmp[133364]: Finished uploading minidump (out-of-process): success = yes
crash_20260823131217_4.dmp[133364]: response: CrashID=bp-eb14370e-35ce-4cd0-9cf7-0ee9b2260823
crash_20260823131217_4.dmp[133364]: file ''/tmp/dumps/crash_20260823131217_4.dmp'', upload yes: ''CrashID=bp-eb14370e-35ce-4cd0-9cf7-0ee9b2260823''
Specifically
/usr/share/themes/Mint-Y-Dark-Aqua/gtk-2.0/main.rc:1053:
error: unexpected identifier 'direction', expected character '}'
I think this problem is related to https://github.com/valvesoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/13269
Nothing extracted yet.
Your system information
Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:
Steam won't launch, crashes my desktop environment (X11) and causes me to logout on Linux Mint since yesterday, for me. When i open it through the launcher, when i open it through terminal, it opens usual and displays this:
For me, it is either an issue with the new nvidia driver or the new update or both, because when i decided to switch off the gpu display and display everything with the IGPU it functioned again, although i changed to the latest driver and it kept happening.
If you would like a video, i can link you yo this post from a redditor that is experiencing my same issue: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1qlhxww/comment/o1gds3q/?context=3
Steps for reproducing this issue: