The problem

After I made a fresh install of the steam client using the latest .deb file from http://media.steampowered.com/client/installer/steam.deb (downloaded today 2014-03-31), the steam client crashed due to an assertion in mesa. The crash dump was successfully uploaded.

Here are the steps I took to reproduce this behaviour:

zed@light:~/Downloads$ gdebi steam_latest.deb 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree        
Reading state information... Done
Building data structures... Done 
Building data structures... Done 

Launcher for the Steam software distribution service
 Steam is a software distribution service with an online store, automated
 installation, automatic updates, achievements, SteamCloud synchronized
 savegame and screenshot functionality, and many social features.
Need to be root to install packages
zed@light:~/Downloads$ sudo gdebi steam_latest.deb 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree        
Reading state information... Done
Building data structures... Done 
Building data structures... Done 

Launcher for the Steam software distribution service
 Steam is a software distribution service with an online store, automated
 installation, automatic updates, achievements, SteamCloud synchronized
 savegame and screenshot functionality, and many social features.
Do you want to install the software package? [y/N]:y
Selecting previously unselected package steam-launcher.
(Reading database ... 168140 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack steam_latest.deb ...
Unpacking steam-launcher (1.0.0.47) ...
Setting up steam-launcher (1.0.0.47) ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.22-1) ...
Processing triggers for mime-support (3.54) ...
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme (0.13-1) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.6.6-1) ...
zed@light:~/Downloads$ ste
steam      steamdeps  stest      
zed@light:~/Downloads$ steam
Running Steam on debian  32-bit
STEAM_RUNTIME is enabled automatically
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(0_client)
Gen6+ requires Kernel 3.6 or later.
steam: ../../../../src/mesa/main/context.c:1549: _mesa_make_current: Assertion `newCtx->Version > 0' failed.
ILocalize::AddFile() failed to load file "public/steambootstrapper_english.txt".
[2014-03-31 19:22:30] Startup - updater built Feb 10 2014 16:03:16
Uploading dump (out-of-process) [proxy '']
/tmp/dumps/crash_20140331192230_1.dmp
/home/zed/.local/share/Steam/steam.sh: line 755:  9484 Aborted                 $STEAM_DEBUGGER "$STEAMROOT/$PLATFORM/$STEAMEXE" "$@"
mv: cannot stat ‘/home/zed/.steam/registry.vdf’: No such file or directory
Installing bootstrap /home/zed/.local/share/Steam/bootstrap.tar.xz
Reset complete!
Restarting Steam by request...
Running Steam on debian  32-bit
STEAM_RUNTIME has been set by the user to: /home/zed/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(0_client)
Gen6+ requires Kernel 3.6 or later.
steam: ../../../../src/mesa/main/context.c:1549: _mesa_make_current: Assertion `newCtx->Version > 0' failed.
ILocalize::AddFile() failed to load file "public/steambootstrapper_english.txt".
[2014-03-31 19:22:31] Startup - updater built Feb 10 2014 16:03:16
Uploading dump (out-of-process) [proxy '']
/tmp/dumps/crash_20140331192231_1.dmp
/home/zed/.local/share/Steam/steam.sh: line 755:  9611 Aborted                 $STEAM_DEBUGGER "$STEAMROOT/$PLATFORM/$STEAMEXE" "$@"
Finished uploading minidump (out-of-process): success = yes
response: CrashID=bp-d54370f3-8a8f-4d80-ae80-3ccdc2140331
Finished uploading minidump (out-of-process): success = yes
response: CrashID=bp-e2046b32-d793-4a88-a72b-c22742140331

There is a related issue (#2703) which has the same problem where the user reported that after reinstalling the graphic card drivers the problem was solved. I tried this but the problem kept occuring (hence this opening a new issue).

System specs

• OS: Linux 3.2 x86, Debian (jessie/sid)
• CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2400S
• GPU: Integrated Graphics Controller 2000, i915

lshw output

zed@light:~$ sudo lshw -c video
  *-display               
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 2
       bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
       version: 09
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
       resources: irq:49 memory:fe000000-fe3fffff memory:e0000000-efffffff ioport:f000(size=64)

lld output

zed@light:~$ ldd .local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam
        linux-gate.so.1 (0xb7790000)
        libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6 (0xb7636000)
        librt.so.1 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/librt.so.1 (0xb762d000)
        libm.so.6 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libm.so.6 (0xb75e6000)
        libdl.so.2 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libdl.so.2 (0xb75e1000)
        libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 (0xb74f8000)
        libpthread.so.0 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libpthread.so.0 (0xb74dc000)
        libc.so.6 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libc.so.6 (0xb7331000)
        libxcb.so.1 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libxcb.so.1 (0xb730e000)
        /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xb7791000)
        libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 (0xb72f2000)
        libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libXau.so.6 (0xb72ee000)
        libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libXdmcp.so.6 (0xb72e8000)

mesa related packages installed

zed@light:~$ dpkg --list | grep mesa
ii  libegl1-mesa:i386                    10.1.0-4                       i386         free implementation of the EGL API -- runtime
ii  libegl1-mesa-dev                     10.1.0-4                       i386         free implementation of the EGL API -- development files
ii  libegl1-mesa-drivers:i386            10.1.0-4                       i386         free implementation of the EGL API -- hardware drivers
ii  libgl1-mesa-dev                      10.1.0-4                       i386         free implementation of the OpenGL API -- GLX development files
ii  libgl1-mesa-dri:i386                 10.1.0-4                       i386         free implementation of the OpenGL API -- DRI modules
ii  libgl1-mesa-glx:i386                 10.1.0-4                       i386         free implementation of the OpenGL API -- GLX runtime
ii  libglapi-mesa:i386                   10.1.0-4                       i386         free implementation of the GL API -- shared library
ii  libglu1-mesa:i386                    9.0.0-2                        i386         Mesa OpenGL utility library (GLU)
ii  libglu1-mesa-dev                     9.0.0-2                        i386         Mesa OpenGL utility library -- development files
ii  libopenvg1-mesa:i386                 10.1.0-4                       i386         free implementation of the OpenVG API -- runtime
ii  libwayland-egl1-mesa:i386            10.1.0-4                       i386         implementation of the Wayland EGL platform -- runtime
ii  mesa-common-dev                      10.1.0-4                       i386         Developer documentation for Mesa

Sorry if I missed something, just ask if you need more information