Possibly a driver issue?
Not unlikely as I'm just pulling from https://launchpad.net/~oibaf/+archive/graphics-drivers, but Steam is the only app experiencing any kind of issues. Unfortunately I'd just been using the wine version until now (decided I'd finally check out native as L4D2 performance is sort of borderline on Sandybridge through the dx9 wrapper, and I thought this would help), so I can't say whether it broke recently.
Same here.
Uninstalled Steam completely.
$> rm -rf .steam
$> rm -rf .local/share/Steam
Reinstalled Steam via Ubuntu Software Center
$> steam
[..]
[2013-10-09 18:19:45] Downloading update (206.461 of 206.461 KB)...
[2013-10-09 18:19:45] Download Complete.
[2013-10-09 18:19:45] uninstalled manifest found in /home/matze/.local/share/Steam/package/steam_client_ubuntu12 (1).
[2013-10-09 18:19:45] Extracting package...
[2013-10-09 18:19:49] Installing update...
[2013-10-09 18:19:50] Cleaning up...
[2013-10-09 18:19:50] Update complete, launching...
[2013-10-09 18:19:50] Shutdown
Running Steam on ubuntu 13.04 64-bit
STEAM_RUNTIME has been set by the user to: /home/matze/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1380931870_client)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1380931870_client)
unlinked 0 orphaned pipes
removing stale semaphore last operated on by process 5450 with name 0eBlobRegistryMutex_B3A42BE91FDFCFF72613AE741D3BB70D
removing stale semaphore last operated on by process 5450 with name 0eBlobRegistrySignal_B3A42BE91FDFCFF72613AE741D3BB70D
removing stale semaphore last operated on by process 5450 with name 0emSteamEngineInstance
removing stale semaphore last operated on by process 5450 with name 0eSteamEngineLock
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1380931870_client)
[1009/182000:WARNING:proxy_service.cc(958)] PAC support disabled because there is no system implementation
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1380931870_client)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1380931870_client)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1380931870_client)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1380931870_client)
Generating new string page texture 12: 48x256, total string texture memory is 49,15 KB
Generating new string page texture 13: 256x256, total string texture memory is 311,30 KB
Generating new string page texture 14: 128x256, total string texture memory is 442,37 KB
Generating new string page texture 15: 384x256, total string texture memory is 835,58 KB
Nothing is happening anymore. Process is sleeping, the window is completely unresponsive.
Closing as upstream support for Ubuntu 13.04 has been discontinued. If you are still experiencing this issue with an up to date system, please open a new issue report.
Nothing extracted yet.
Can't interact with the Steam client at all after starting; using latest version (.39).
Using Sandybridge graphics with Mesa 9.2.
Windows version works perfectly through wine :)
I get the following output trying to run from shell.
$ steam
Running Steam on ubuntu 13.04 64-bit
STEAM_RUNTIME is enabled automatically
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1370553818_client)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1370553818_client)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1370553818_client)
unlinked 0 orphaned pipes
removing stale semaphore last operated on by process 21138 with name 0eBlobRegistryMutex_9A3F652E66124A18FA18DC13C72CCBB3
removing stale semaphore last operated on by process 21138 with name 0eBlobRegistrySignal_9A3F652E66124A18FA18DC13C72CCBB3
removing stale semaphore last operated on by process 21138 with name 0emSteamEngineInstance
removing stale semaphore last operated on by process 21138 with name 0eSteamEngineLock
Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "overlay-scrollbar"
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1370553818_client)
[0611/145247:WARNING:proxy_service.cc(646)] PAC support disabled because there is no system implementation
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1370553818_client)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1370553818_client)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1370553818_client)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1370553818_client)
(steam:23177): GLib-GIO-WARNING **: g_simple_async_result_complete() called from wrong context!
(steam:23177): GLib-GIO-WARNING **: g_simple_async_result_complete() called from wrong context!
Generating new string page texture 12: 48x256, total string texture memory is 49.15 KB
Generating new string page texture 13: 256x256, total string texture memory is 311.30 KB
Generating new string page texture 14: 128x256, total string texture memory is 442.37 KB
Generating new string page texture 15: 384x256, total string texture memory is 835.58 KB
(steam:23177): GLib-GIO-WARNING **: g_simple_async_result_complete() called from wrong context!
(steam:23177): GLib-GIO-WARNING **: g_simple_async_result_complete() called from wrong context!