I can confirm the same issue on Arch Linux with KWin and Wayland. It's also easy to reproduce: just open a game, minimize it, and restore it quickly multiple times. The game window will freeze in less than 15 seconds. This does not happen with proton-ge.
Disabling steam overlay fixes it.
Looks like this now happens on the stable branch after today's update
I'm having the same issue on Fedora 43, with NVIDIA 580 prop drivers and Sway on Wayland; observed while playing Borderlands 2. Started Oct 13. Gets fixed by disabling the overlay. Issue persists regardless of Proton Experimental, Stable, or 7.*.
Same issue here after the October 13 stable update. Arch Linux, Hyprland/Wayland, NVIDIA GTX 1070 with driver 580.178.04. Warframe freezes with DirectX 11 under both Proton Experimental and Proton 11.0-2e. Disabling the Steam overlay for Warframe stops the freezes. My freeze happened about 35 seconds after launching.
Same issue as OP with a similar system configuration (Kubuntu 26.04.1, AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT). The problem happens regardless of the game and whether it's a native title or running under Proton (issue happens across all Proton versions). Disabling the Steam overlay globally works around the issue for now. I'm on the Steam stable channel.
This drove me mad to find the cause but here we are, I have the same issue on CachyOS / RX 9070XT / Gnome 51.
Reproduced with Arc raiders by alt tabbing 2 ou 3 times in a row
Repro: Launch a game that resizes its window, then Super+click (Hyprland's move/drag bind) on it repeatedly. After about 6 clicks the game freezes. Some games (Black Desert, Witcher 3 Remastered) need more toggling between windows states first, reason for that is that they float. I use Super+D (maximize: window fills the screen but isn't true fullscreen) and Super+F (true fullscreen). The freeze is immediate, no crash.
So the trigger seems to be rapid window state/size changes (move, maximize, fullscreen, minimize/restore), not Super+click specifically.
Findings
This lines up with the other reports (KWin, Sway, Wayland) and happens on AMD like the original report, so it doesn't look specific to one compositor or GPU vendor.
System info
steam 1.0.0.87-3 (package), tested on both stable and betaSame issue, but with THE FINALS it happens on every launch with no alt-tabbing: the game hangs on the first loading screen (audio keeps playing) until Unreal's hang watchdog kills it. Started right after the client update landed on Oct 15 (client 1791918634). Disabling the overlay for that game fixed it immediately.
The UE minidumps show the vkd3d-proton present thread stuck inside vkQueuePresentKHR during the boot menu, with every other thread idle, which lines up with the overlay's present hook. The game possibly resizes or recreates its swapchain while booting, which would match the window-resize trigger others are describing.
CachyOS, KDE Plasma (KWin Wayland, 6.7.5 at first failure, 6.8.0 now), RTX 4090, NVIDIA 615.78.08 (open modules), Proton Experimental 11.0-20261014. ARC Raiders on the same setup ran ~4.5h with the overlay on without hanging.
I've been able to reproduce this in Deadlock without alt tabbing or changing window states (second and third clip of the video) which it seems most of the reports are about. I commented on the Deadlock forum here.
I'm also getting this, this happens regardless of the renderer (DX11 or Vulkan), I say after around 3 minutes, if I tab out and then back in, right after tabbing in, there's a high chance it freezes and enters this state without crashing or closing.
I can also reproduce this without tabbing out and back in, by spamming ESC or ESC and click (to close the ESC menu). It seems to me like it might be some frame perfect interval with the ESC menu closing that causes it? As I seem to have found the right interval to trigger it perfectly every time on first attempt, but that doesn't explain why I can reproduce it without ever opening the ESC menu via alt tabbing.
It seems to be a problem with the Steam overlay, as disabling it completely fixes the issue. Possibly the changes from the 10-13 Steam Client update? Also if you haven't opened the overlay in a play session yet and you freeze, if you open the overlay for the first time it will unfreeze you but it will not unfreeze you after the first open.
I even managed to make it happen on the black logo screen upon initial boot.
It appears to just be the rendering that freezes because if I move while frozen and then use the overlay to unfreeze myself my character has moved.
EDIT: You can also reproduce the freeze via the Tab menu just like the ESC menu. Either by spamming tab or hitting the right interval of pressing tab and letting go.
EDIT 2: I can also reproduce it via the ping circle menu and the buy menu so I'm gonna assume it's something to do with the showing and/or hiding the cursor or ui elements showing and/or hiding. I do notice that there is a slight microstutter whenever ANY menu like this gets hidden, maybe something is happening on that frame of the microstutter.
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/04a75681-c7f9-49ac-98de-b4efede335e7
reaping pid: 187918 -- gameoverlayui
reaping pid: 187929 -- gameoverlayui
reaping pid: 187950 -- gameoverlayui
reaping pid: 187962 -- gameoverlayui
reaping pid: 188056 -- gameoverlayui
reaping pid: 188062 -- gameoverlayui
I'm hoping the reproduction without alt-tab might assist in finding the cause.
This is looking like the same issue as #13682, per https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/13682#issuecomment-6228104496, please opt into Steam's client beta and retest.
Closing in favor of the older issue report.
please opt into Steam's client beta and retest.
Still not fixed.
With the Steam overlay's Vulkan layer active, Valheim's picture freezes after alt-tabbing out and back but it only manifests after a a few minutes.
The above descriptions of 5 to 15 minutes align.
Game audio continues and the rest of the desktop works normally.
Valheim is the native Linux build (app 892970), running through XWayland in exclusive fullscreen with _NET_WM_BYPASS_COMPOSITOR=1, using the Vulkan renderer.
Isolation tests (each over a long session with frequent alt-tabs):
Workaround: VK_LOADER_LAYERS_DISABLE=VK_LAYER_VALVE_steam_overlay_64 %command% -force-vulkan
I've even tried entirely differrent copy of OS to no avail, because it's using the same damn steam update.
Notably not affected: RX 9070 (non GRE non XT), same distribution
Affected:
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT
Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Kubuntu 26.04
Steam client version: Steam Beta Update 1792192922
Also non-beta, whatever is the newest one.
I've identified two games that reliably hang something quickly
PEAK when steam overlay is activated in game.
And Mechwarrior 5 mercenaries when spamming TAB/ESC to enter starmap.
PEAK reproduction steps:
Launch game in vulcan graphics mode.
In menu, try steam overlay. It works fine.
Launch new run.
Walk out of the elevator.
Enter steam overlay now manually, or via clicking the blue console in front of you.
The screen will pretty reliably go fully black in 2 tries tops. Also there's loads of screen tearing while loading the overlay.
If I keep steam overlay on, but don't iteract with it, at some point whole game will hang up, presumably because one of my friends did something on steam.
Mechwarrior 5:
Involved my save file, which is lost to time.
Launch game
Load into coop, with my save file - just after mission end.
Click spacebar to end the mission oficially.
You get called to bridge - walk there, talk to the girl.
Spam the physical map table, or TAB, ESC buttons.
Particularly spam the starmap tab on top.
It will hang up reliably.
With steam overlay disabled, this does not happen.
Adjusted steps:
Place my save folder in equivealment of
/mnt/GAMES/SteamLib/steamapps/compatdata/784080/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Local/MW5Mercs/Saved/SaveGames/
Click coop
load campaign - ''Is it steam overlay" save file.
Start spamming TAB ESC and switching menus between starmap and battlemech workshop.
It will hang up in less than a minute.
Also, I've found some concerning log files in MW5 (ue4 engine game) in cef3.log, but PC with RX 9070 also spams those errors, and that one works fine.
[1017/131131.563:ERROR:angle_platform_impl.cc(36)] rx::SwapChain11::reset(566): Could not create additional swap chains or offscreen surfaces, HRESULT: 0x80004001
[1017/131131.563:ERROR:gl_surface_egl.cc(796)] eglCreateWindowSurface failed with error EGL_BAD_ALLOC
chatbots suggested that it's due to embedded chrome framework, which MW5 does use some kind of browser, and to try :
dxgi.deferSurfaceCreation = True
inside dxvk.conf next to shipping exe- but no, game still hangs up.
Also swapping to DX12 via -dx12 but it didn't help, and the game ran worse overall.
Also proton version didn't matter.
I'm gonna wait and see, then maybe try rolling back steam updates.
67B74AD54EA07737BEFD9C8C13FAB4A4.zip
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/d0140f35-5bff-4d07-89b0-f2625511f790
same issue here on fedora 44 + sway 1.11, rtx 3080 (nvidia open 615.71.09). with the overlay on, some games freeze and some give a black screen on launch. turning the overlay off fixes both, and it never happened on plasma on the same machine. the overlay helper (gameoverlayui) is stuck in a futex wait when it happens, and it's about 50% of launches for me, not every time.
i narrowed it down to which monitor the game opens on. it only happens when the game opens on the monitor xwayland lists first (xrandr --listmonitors, monitor 0). on any other monitor i got 0 wedges in about 50 launches, and when i changed the order so a different output was first, that output started wedging instead. resolution, refresh rate, env vars, explicit sync and the primary flag made no difference. workaround: xrandr --output --primary so the monitor the game opens on isn't first. i got 10/10 clean launches with that vs about 50% black screens before. might be related to #13682 too, same helper stops responding.
16. This is looking like the same issue as [#13682](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/13682), per [#13682 (comment)](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/13682#issuecomment-6228104496), please opt into Steam's client beta and retest.
Closing in favor of the older issue report.
I will note this bug was fixed for me after the beta update, might be a separate issue for the other recent comments.
proton experimentalx4 2026-10proton 11.0-2ex1 2026-100x80004001x1 2026-10
Your system information
Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:
Games hang after playing for varying periods of time, especially after tabbing out. Game I noticed this with was Overwatch.
This issue does not occur on the Stable branch, and occurs whether or not the steamrt3 client is used. Also appears to not occur if the Steam overlay is disabled.
Steps for reproducing this issue: