Issue resolved.
Cause:
This happened because I restored an old Steam backup using the legacy path:
~/.steam/debian-installation/
However, after reinstalling Steam on the current Debian version, I discovered that Steam now uses:
~/.local/share/Steam/
instead.
The mismatch between the old backup location and the current Steam installation path caused the issue.
Fix:
I reinstalled Steam from scratch and used the correct path (~/.local/share/Steam/). After that, Steam worked normally again, including Offline Mode.
Closing the issue.
Side note that ~/.steam/debian-installation/ is not a legacy path. Valve's Steam package has always defaulted to ~/.local/share/Steam since the Steam for Linux client was introduced. The ~/.steam/debian-installation/ folder layout historically comes from distro-modified packaging by Debian package maintainers and a transition between the distro-modified and Valve-provided folder layouts is generally considered unsupported.
Ah,
Okay, thanks for the notes.
Nothing extracted yet.
Your system information
tar -zcvf ~/Desktop/steam-logs.tar.gz ~/.steam/steam/logsand attachedPlease describe your issue in as much detail as possible:
Expected behavior:
Steam should launch normally in Offline Mode and display the main interface when no internet connection is available.
Actual behavior:
Steam gets stuck indefinitely on the splash screen when starting without an internet connection. The main interface never appears, and the process must be terminated manually.
Steam launches normally when an internet connection is available.
Technical observations:
Detailed technical information and error messages are included in the attached file. Steam Logs and additional technical observations are attached as
steam-report.tar.gz
.
Steps for reproducing this issue: