protonscr

Steam crashes on launch: "steam-runtime-launcher-service: not found" and "Segmentation fault"

steamopen runtime
ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux#13475 · opened 2026-08-01 by oleblancpellerin · updated 2026-08-03 · 2 comments · github
Ooleblancpellerin 2026-08-01 github

Your system information

  • Steam client version (build number or date): 1785187029
  • updater built Jul 24 2026 22:38:23
  • Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Garuda Linux Broadwing (Based on Arch Linux)
  • Kernel: 7.1.5-zen1-2-zen
  • Window Manager: dwm
  • Shell: fish
  • Opted into Steam client beta?: No
  • Have you checked for system updates?: Yes
  • Steam Logs: steam-logs.tar.gz
  • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090

All attachments (for quick reference)

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

Expected:
When launching Steam, it does not crash and launches correctly

What happened:
This morning (1 Aug 2026 ~07:00 EDT), Steam crashed when launching it.
However, yesterday (31 Jul 2026 ~17:00 EDT), Steam did not crash and launched normally.

Steps for reproducing this issue:

  1. Open a terminal (mine is st)
  2. Execute steam-native
  3. Steam crashes with: (full output steam-native.stderr.log)
[...]
Steam Runtime Launch Service: starting steam-runtime-launcher-service
Steam Runtime Launch Service: steam-runtime-launcher-service is running pid 144619
sh: line 1: exec: steam-runtime-launcher-service: not found
/home/djeezuss/.local/share/Steam/steam.sh: line 966: 144435 Segmentation fault         (core dumped) "$STEAMROOT/$STEAMEXEPATH" "$@"
  1. Execute steam
  2. Steam crashes with: (full output steam.stderr.log)
[...]
Steam Runtime Launch Service: starting steam-runtime-launcher-service
Steam Runtime Launch Service: steam-runtime-launcher-service is running pid 142851
bus_name=com.steampowered.PressureVessel.LaunchAlongsideSteam
/home/djeezuss/.local/share/Steam/steam.sh: line 966: 142662 Segmentation fault         (core dumped) "$STEAMROOT/$STEAMEXEPATH" "$@"

More Information

Also, I uncommented these lines at the top of /home/djeezuss/.local/share/Steam/steam.sh:

# verbose
export PS4='${LINENO}: '
set -x

Then ran STEAM_DEBUG=1 steam-native. Here is its output: steam-native-debug-stderr-log

While searching the logs, I noticed that the error sh: line 1: exec: steam-runtime-launcher-service: not found started happening before this morning. So it made me believe that this error might not responsible for Steam crashing and that they may be two different issues. On that note, since a few days ago, whenever there's a Steam notification, like the one that appears for achievements, I only see a black rectangle instead. Would that be related to the steam-runtime-launcher-service issue?
Is it possible that the steam-runtime-launcher-service and the Segmentation fault are different, unrelated issues? If that is the case, I don't mind splitting this GitHub Issue into two if someone tells me to.

Regardless, to help troubleshooting, I wanted to gather more information about steam-runtime-launcher-service, so I also ran these commands and their outputs and added comments to explain my thought process.
I didn't look for anything regarding the segfault because I did not know how I could also do the same for it. The best I can think of is uploading my /home/djeezuss/.local/share/Steam/steam.sh as an attachment.

Ooleblancpellerin 2026-08-01 github

I just tried to run with a debugger (DEBUGGER=gdb steam-native), I got this: DEBUGGER=gdb steam-native
It seams that it's /home/djeezuss/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/libaudio.so that's segfaulting, and this file was last modified on 24 Jul 19:43 EDT

 ╭─djeezuss@djeezuss in ~ took 0s
 ╰─λ ls -la /home/djeezuss/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/libaudio.so
.rwxr-xr-x 846k djeezuss 24 Jul 19:43 /home/djeezuss/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/libaudio.so

 ╭─djeezuss@djeezuss in ~ took 0s
 ╰─λ sha256sum /home/djeezuss/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/libaudio.so
3355a1719af7d4f9b509c30df557aded73117cf9f886a51606e3c8a7da22512e  /home/djeezuss/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/libaudio.so

 ╭─djeezuss@djeezuss in ~ took 0s
 ╰─λ md5sum /home/djeezuss/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/libaudio.so
fee38590c398db8dd424f5b5c19929b2  /home/djeezuss/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/libaudio.so
Ssmcv 2026-08-03 github

steam-native

Arch Linux's steam-native is specifically not supported by Valve. It attempts to turn off the compatibility libraries that Steam uses to run on multiple Linux distros, which frequently breaks Steam. You might have noticed the message steam.sh[218509]: STEAM_RUNTIME is disabled by the user (this is unsupported) or similar.

In some older Arch-based distros, the thing that Valve provides is identified as something more like Steam (runtime).

As its name suggests, steam-runtime-launcher-service is one of the components that is provided by the Steam Runtime. I would not be surprised if the unsupported code path that attempts to disable the Steam Runtime results in steam-runtime-launcher-service not being found in the PATH.

It seams that it's /home/djeezuss/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/libaudio.so that's segfaulting

This crash seems like a possible duplicate of #13174.

Is it possible that the steam-runtime-launcher-service and the Segmentation fault are different, unrelated issues?

Yes, if the segfault is in libaudio.so then that seems likely. steam-runtime-launcher-service isn't related to audio.

Nothing extracted yet.