Steam login dialog can be resized too small
The window isn't resizable at all (xprop should show that the resize action is not present). What window manager are you using? It shouldn't let you resize the window.
If this is the same issue I experienced, the problem is that the login window starts off being too small, and cannot be resized (easily) because it's not resizable.
I experienced this problem on Ubuntu 12.04 with Fluxbox as my window manager. The dialog for creating a new account didn't seem to have this problem, but I had already created an account on the web so I needed to use the login dialog. I found a similar issue reported here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/221410/discussions/1/846939071083162041/
Like the person who reported that issue, I was able to work around it by finding a way to force resizing of a window (in Fluxbox it's right-click and drag).
Having the window start at its minimum size seems like a window manager issue as we've never seen that behavior and the window is not created with a minimum size. Do you have have a good way to try a different window manager?
Yes, I have verified that this doesn't happen in Gnome Classic. The first time I tried it again in Fluxbox the window was of the correct size (possibly because the previous size had been remembered), but when I quit and tried again it was tiny again.
I realise that this is related to the window manager, but what is different about this specific window? Shouldn't the minimum size be large enough to include all the window contents? Are the minimum sizes of the other dialog windows larger?
(Any other Fluxbox users reading this: that's ALT + right-click drag; sorry.)
I don't know what the bug in Fluxbox is so it's hard to say what about the window is causing the problem. Note also that the window is not resizable, it's authored to a particular size, so the minimum size isn't even really relevant (which is part of the reason the minimum size is not correct as it has not been used).
This problem appears in more than one window manager, so it doesn't seem likely that it's a bug specific to Fluxbox -- rather that the Unity environment provides some kind of default behaviour which the client relies on, but which is not present in some other window managers.
My partner is experiencing something similar in Gnome Shell (like the person who reported the issue in the link I posted); I will find out if it's the exact same problem and how reproducible it is. I can potentially also test this behaviour in a variety of other window managers; I have a couple installed.
Another window which I have sometimes seen shrink down to a tiny size is the window which reports that the client is connecting to my account (after I log in, before the main window is displayed) -- but this does not happen consistently.
It's possible that the client is doing something wrong but there isn't much unusual going on here. The window is created and set to a particular size with regular X calls.
Note also that Unity is not the only window manager where things work, I would say the majority do work.
Now that I have started the client lots of times in a row, it seems that the problem is intermittent -- if I resize the window, it shrinks upon the subsequent launch of the client most of the time, but sometimes it remembers the previous size, and sometimes it goes back to the full size if it was previously small.
I thought it had something to do with whether the window has focus when it's created, but I haven't found a reproducible pattern yet. It seems completely random, except that whatever it does it seems to do several times in a row before switching to the other thing. I've mostly launched the client from the commandline using a quakelike terminal which is always on top, but it seems to make no difference if I use a normal terminal or a menu.
If the window shrinks, I can briefly see it appear at the correct size in the middle of my screen before it is resized and moved.
This isn't a terribly urgent bug, since I can just resize the window (and am likely to stay logged in most of the time), so I don't expect it to be prioritised -- but I am curious as to what could be causing it. I hope that other people will eventually reproduce it and be able to provide more information.
Sorry for the slow update. I'm using Compiz with Unity in Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS. I was resizing the window using Alt+middle mouse button out of force of habit -- I almost never resize windows using the corners anymore because Alt+drag is so much easier. I believe Compiz is honoring the WM_SIZE_HINTS property for this:
WM_NORMAL_HINTS(WM_SIZE_HINTS):
program specified minimum size: 128 by 66
This should no longer occur, closing.
This is still an issue, at least with WindowMaker. xprop shows _NET_WM_ACTION_RESIZE in the _NET_WM_ALLOWED_ACTIONS array and it lets me resize the window down to 5x5, though as soon as the resize operation is complete, the window resizes itself to 128x66. After resizing it bigger, it still has _NET_WM_ACTION_RESIZE allowed, but now has a WM_NORMAL_HINTS that specifies both minimum and maximum size of 717x510, preventing further resizes of the window.
Metacity lets me try to resize it once, but then it gets stuck in an infinite loop of resizing the window. Interestingly, once it's stuck in this state, xprop does not show _NET_WM_ACTION_RESIZE anymore.
In summary, _NET_WM_ALLOWED_ACTIONS and/or WM_NORMAL_HINTS seem to be incorrectly specified when the window is first mapped, and change in surprising ways in response to resize events.
Problem still occurs, in my case Ubuntu 14.04 with Gnome Shell
Same issue for me, arch linux gnome 3
Guess they are just going to ignore this in classic Valve fashion.
Incase someone needs a shitty workaround you can launch with -bigpicture to be able to login then restart and it should auto login.
It just happened to me today, thanks @robclancy for the shitty workaround.
Using Ubuntu 14.04, Unity, dual monitor.
Steps to reproduce:
-drag window between 2 workspaces
-resize
-change password
-close window
-launch. Now window is too small to use
Happened today to me. Ubuntu 14.04.5 + Mate. Thanks to @robclancy's workaround I managed to login, but some other windows are still 128x66, for example dialog from steam update agent or 'about' window.
Same issue on Ubuntu 14.04, fixed thanks to @robclancy.
Happening to me right now on Gentoo Linux amd64 in KDE/KWin every time username/password window appears in Steam Beta. Identical to @aaronp24, in 2019.
Nothing extracted yet.
According to xprop, the Steam login dialog has a minimum size of 128 by 66 pixels. This too small to use any of the UI elements. The minimum should probably be the default of 420x352.