protonscr

Error 0 during background update check preventing client from loading

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ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux#12699 · opened 2026-02-02 by Shrubner · updated 2026-08-30 · 3 comments · github
SShrubner 2026-02-02 github

Your system information

  • Steam client version (build number or date): 1769025840, Wed, Jan 21 9:12 AM UTC -08:00
  • Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Ubuntu 22.04
  • Opted into Steam client beta?: No
  • Have you checked for system updates?: Yes
  • GPU: Nvidia

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

When either attempting to open Steam or in the background while it is open, Steam is unable to connect to its update download hosts. If steam is already open this doesn't cause issues, but if I close it and attempt to reload the client it hangs while checking for an update (after successfully logging in), preventing me from accessing the client of even playing in offline mode. The only bypass I have succeeded with is a lucky login attempt after a restart, after which it continues to happen regardless of restart, and a full reinstall of everything but the steamapps folder (I was able to keep my games doing this). After installation the issue continues. The issue also seems to prevent game saves uploading to the cloud.

What I noticed is that during the reinstall the client checks a different URL for updates:

Downloading manifest: http://media.steampowered.com/client/steam_client_ubuntu12

So somehow this URL succeeds at connecting when the others fail. Unfortunately the client doesn't check this specific URL after installation. For example it only checks https://client-update.steamstatic.com/steam_client_ubuntu12 when doing background update loops.

I have scoured the internet to see if there is a way to force it to check specific URL's during the update loop but have come up empty so far. I'm not a power user though so maybe there is a way to do this.

If it matters I am connected to my internet via wifi, and my internet is via a 5G home internet router (remote location).

I have seen other people with the same issue but it was never resolved for them or their fixes did not work for me. I am hoping my identification of a manifest URL that does work may help me find a solution.

Things I have tried:

  • Installing and enabling nscd
  • linking resolv.conf with the systemd-resolved resolv.conf
  • Downloading the flatpak version of Steam (runs into a similar issue where it suggests I am not connected to the internet)

Steps for reproducing this issue:

  1. Run steam
  2. As part of the loading process, and after login, the client hangs (spinning circle loading page for the client). Not frozen though.
  3. Client will do the following for a few select URLs and then stops trying (I am not willing to quit steam unless necessary so I'm posting the background loop, but the output is essentially the same):
[2026-02-02 05:09:43] Downloading manifest: https://client-update.steamstatic.com/steam_client_ubuntu12
[2026-02-02 05:09:43] Manifest download: send request
[2026-02-02 05:09:44] Manifest download: waiting for download to finish
[2026-02-02 05:09:52] Manifest download: finished
[2026-02-02 05:09:52] Download failed: http error 0 (client-update.steamstatic.com/steam_client_ubuntu12)
[2026-02-02 05:09:52] DownloadManifest - exhausted list of download hosts
[2026-02-02 05:09:52] failed to load manifest from buffer.
[2026-02-02 05:09:52] Failed to load manifest
[2026-02-02 05:09:52] Error: Download failed: http error 0
[2026-02-02 05:09:52] Saving metrics to disk (/home/user/.steam/debian-installation/package/steam_client_metrics.bin)
  1. Client does not crash or close, just remains spinning.
Kkisak-valve maintainer 2026-02-02 github

Hello @Shrubner, it might be interesting to look through the workarounds on #4378.

SShrubner 2026-02-03 github

Hello @Shrubner, it might be interesting to look through the workarounds on [#4378](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/4378).

Thank you. Unfortunately I did try those solutions to no success unless it also requires a restart. I'm trying to put that off as it locks me out of Steam.

OOkiCow 2026-08-30 github

Hitting the identical http error 0 on client-update.steamstatic.com (Arch Linux, Steam 1.0.0.87-3). Wanted to share some diagnostics that point fairly clearly at this being a server-side issue rather than local network config.

Ruled out locally:

  • DNS resolves correctly to real Fastly IPs
  • Local firewall (nftables) is disabled/inactive on this machine
  • No local proxy/filtering process running
  • Reproduces identically across 3 independent networks: home LAN, mobile hotspot, and hotspot+VPN
  • SteamCMD fails identically (steam_cmd_linux manifest, same host, same error) — not GUI-specific

Decisive test: the same live Fastly edge IP (199.232.211.52) that instantly serves cdn.steamstatic.com (HTTP 200) refuses the TLS handshake entirely when the SNI is client-update.steamstatic.com — connection accepted, ClientHello sent, zero bytes ever returned (SSL routines::unexpected eof while reading), reproducible regardless of TLS version, cipher/curve selection, or ClientHello size. Tried this against every Fastly IP range in their published list — same result everywhere. This isn't "some CDN nodes are dead, others work" (the classic 2016-era client-download.steampowered.com rotation issue in #4378) — no Fastly edge currently has a working TLS/service config for this specific hostname, regardless of which one you hit.

Also worth noting: the bootstrap log shows only one baked-in download host with no cached fallback list (update_hosts_cached.vdf missing), so there's no failover when this one host is down — DownloadManifest - exhausted list of download hosts after a single attempt.

Windows Steam on the same hardware works fine, which suggests the Linux/SteamCMD bootstrapper's baked-in default host differs from other platforms, and this Linux-specific one currently has no live backend on Fastly's side.

Upstream links