The best practice would probably be to refuse to let steam run as root unless a specific over-ride is given or never allow it to happen at all.
please
sudo rm -rf /home/kentos/.local/share/Steam && sudo rm -rf /home/kentos/.steam
then run steam as a regular user.
Didn't fix it, getting the same crash. It must either be a file somewhere else or a problem unrelated to what I originally conjectured.
I looked through that crash output again and noticed:
/tmp/dumps/crash_20130209153253_1.dmp
I think that very file was the one that was write protected (due to a root login at one point). The tmp folder was owned by root, and I could write to it I guess.
I decided to let a reboot clean out that /tmp folder and after starting steam as a normal user again, I get what must be an Ubuntu MessageBox telling me there's a program problem and suggesting I report it. Then there's a crash report dialogue message that says:
"Sorry, the application jockey-gtk has closed unexpectedly."
If you notice further problems, try restarting the computer.
Clicking show details gives me this block of text:
But now I'm actually able to continue on in steam for a change (so that /tmp/dump resource... does steam own that or Ubuntu? If you can't catch the write exception from within steam then I can try to follow up with Ubuntu).
Good idea to check for root execution.
That solution is perfect scottlu and clever, especially considering I think I was noticing a UI bug that seems to have only occurred when I was using gksu to run steam.
There is (was) a bug in Steam, where the /tmp/dumps directory isn't writable by everyone. Can you please do this from the command line (as the root user):
su
cd /tmp
chmod 777 dumps
Now get out of root, and run steam. Now assuming your Steam is still crashing, it will be able to create crash dumps, that we'll then be able to look at to see what is causing the crash.
thanks.
My test laptop is indisposed at the moment, but I can say that since things worked after a reboot that your chmod 777 trick will also bypass the issue.
Would you like me to look for a crash dump to get you when the laptop becomes available? I'm not sure it is creating crashes anymore now that I'm avoiding gsku (but there might be crash dumps from when it recommend that I go into the Ubuntu drivers dialog).
I put in a change to force it to 777 that'll be in the next update. Since it worked for you after reboot (and deleting of tmp contents) I'm going to close this bug. Thanks for reporting it.
Nothing extracted yet.
I'm on Ubuntu 12.04 32bit, using an ATI 7970m GPU, with an Intel Core i7-3610QM Processor. I have a hunch that this is happening because when I first installed, I used gksu to run steam and some file somewhere got chowned to root and now there's no way to unchown it. Maybe you should write a specefic catch for problems where you don't have read/write privledges and output the file which needs to be chowned before it will work.
kentos@tuvok:~$ steam
Running Steam on ubuntu 12.04 32-bit
STEAM_RUNTIME is enabled automatically
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1360439662_client)
Looks like steam didn't shutdown cleanly, scheduling immediate update check
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1360439662_client)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1360439662_client)
unlinked 0 orphaned pipes
removing stale semaphore last operated on by process 4526 with name 0eBlobRegistryMutex_ABFB79862C8CCBF4FA540446DAE5C9D7
removing stale semaphore last operated on by process 4526 with name 0eBlobRegistrySignal_ABFB79862C8CCBF4FA540446DAE5C9D7
removing stale semaphore last operated on by process 4526 with name 0emSteamEngineInstance
removing stale semaphore last operated on by process 4526 with name 0eSteamEngineLock
GLib-GIO-Message: Using the 'memory' GSettings backend. Your settings will not be saved or shared with other applications.
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1360439662_client)
[0209/153241:WARNING:proxy_service.cc(646)] PAC support disabled because there is no system implementation
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1360439662_client)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1360439662_client)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1360439662_client)
Generating new string page texture 7: 128x256, total string texture memory is 131.07 KB
Generating new string page texture 8: 256x256, total string texture memory is 393.22 KB
Generating new string page texture 9: 48x256, total string texture memory is 442.37 KB
Generating new string page texture 10: 64x256, total string texture memory is 507.90 KB
Generating new string page texture 11: 16x256, total string texture memory is 524.29 KB
Generating new string page texture 12: 24x256, total string texture memory is 548.86 KB
Generating new string page texture 13: 32x256, total string texture memory is 581.63 KB
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1360439662_client)
Generating new string page texture 21: 384x256, total string texture memory is 974.85 KB
Generating new string page texture 24: 256x256, total string texture memory is 1.24 MB
Uploading dump (in-process) [proxy '']
/tmp/dumps/crash_20130209153253_1.dmp
success = no
error: Failed to open/read local data from file/application
/home/kentos/.local/share/Steam/steam.sh: line 561: 4662 Segmentation fault (core dumped) $STEAM_DEBUGGER "$STEAMROOT/$PLATFORM/$STEAMEXE" "$@"
kentos@tuvok:~$