I am experiencing a similar problem. I am on Fedora Rawhide (again with bleeding edge software), and steam spews _xgeWireToEvents by the millions, to the point where user_stdout.txt fills the /tmp partition completely. This causes some applications (bash) to stop working as they can no longer acquire space for temp files. In addition, since /tmp is on a tmpfs, it eats up the swap space. At the same time as these errors were being spammed, dota started freezing after a few minutes in-game (not in menus as far as I can tell). I suspect this is because it is running into speed issues with swap utilization. I have 4 gb ram, but when running dota, I frequently have 2gb of swap usage.

Hardware: http://ur1.ca/hpbqu
Installed Packages: http://ur1.ca/hpbsv
General Info: http://ur1.ca/hpbtg

Edit: After sticking /tmp/dumps on its own tmpfs limited to 256 mb, the crash still occured. The file was 77mb at that point, far below the 1.9 gb it had gotten to in the past. However, it was still 99% full of _xgeWireToEvent errors.

Has there been any work on this? I am still getting these errors, and dota2 continually crashes, and has caused 2 abandons. Running dota without the steam overlay seems to prolong the time before it crashes, but it always does. I have been unable to finish a game since these errors began. It is disconcerting that there has been no official response to this issue, despite it breaking one of your flagship games.

Well, the workaround is: Build libXext from git master (for 32 bit if necessary) and replace the version in the steam runtime in ~/.local/share/Steam/???? somewhere (not sure where exactly, I already deleted it. But it should be in ~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/lib/i386-linux-gnu/).

Or basically, apply this patch before compiling the stable version:

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/lib/libXext/patch/?id=11aad96bd689d54156064d2e81213dc827a689d1

This is a patched 32 bit libXext.so I built on archlinux. If you trust me you can try if it works, but I don't know if it will work on other distributions with other library versions: http://haagch.frickel.club/libXext.so.6.4.0

The proper fix is just valve updating libxext...

I tried replacing the default library with the one you provided, and the error messages stopped, however the behavior was still the same (crash after 5-10 minutes). I also tested out tf2 with and without the library and it displayed the same sort of behavior that dota did. I will try building from source and seeing how that works.

Ok, so I built libXext from source (applying the patch), and experienced the same issues as with the library you provided. There were no errors, but the games still crashed. I have experimented, and determined that this affects all source engine games. I do not know how much this affects non-source engine games run through steam.

You first said that you had problems with the games because your /tmp filesystem was filled up with a log of these messages.

If you don't have these messages anymore, is it really this issue anymore or is it filled with something else or does it crash because of something else?

I found that /tmp being full was not causing the errors. The patch you suggested seems to only stick a band-aid over the problem, and not be an actual fix. Either steam is still having problems with libXext or it is coming from something else. If it is coming from something else, there is nothing in the logs to point to.

Edit: After sticking /tmp/dumps on its own tmpfs limited to 256 mb, the crash still occured. The file was 77mb at that point, far below the 1.9 gb it had gotten to in the past. However, it was still 99% full of _xgeWireToEvent errors.

Ok, I've experimented more with various source-engine games:

• The game may crash at any point, but it is especially prone to do so when accessing menus.
• This chance appears to be highest at the beginning, (i.e. load a map, click something, crash) or increase as time goes on (play for 5-10 minutes with no issue, open console/options/buy menu, crash)
• When the game crashes, if you switch to another virtual terminal and then switch back, it will display some past point in time (instead of a black screen on the screen which it froze on).
• If you alt-tab before trying to switch terminals, it will display what would have been displayed if you had alt-tabbed
• You cannot interact with the virtual terminal the game is running on at all when it freezes (alt-tab does nothing), however this may be a side-effect of the source engine grabbing the mouse, which (during normal operation), means that you have to be in a menu to alt-tab.
• Sometimes the game crashes even when you haven't done anything interesting in the past fram or so (like click a button or be in a menu)
• There is never anything in the logs prior to the freezes happening, it appears to be normal, then "hl2.sh: line 67: 4835 Killed" (because I killed it)

Plagman: make of that what you will, if you need any other info (crashdumps, etc), I can provide them. It does appear that crashdumps are sometime generated from source engine games, even when they are killed.

7 days ago the libXext 1.3.3 release was tagged. It includes the commit that removes the warning message. http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/lib/libXext/log/

I have determined that my issues are probably not related to libXext and are only reproducable in sourc engine games. I await valve for a fix, but it seems that this is fine.

This issue is very annoying. I'm having it on my installation on Debian Jessie. I'm working around it by manually replacing the libXext.so.6.4.0 for i386 and amd64 using the archlinux's 1.3.3 builds, but every time there's a steam update, I have to do it all again, or else my log will fill my "/" in minutes.

Please steam, update the runtime with libXext 1.3.3.

Can we be given a generalized way for unofficially supported distros to settle issues with the steam runtime? It could be as simple as a call to a (optional) shell script just after steam finishes extracting the steam runtime in an update cycle and have the distro packaging ship what they need to take care of their users. This would give a place for say ... Arch package maintainers to remove libgcc_s.so.1 from the steam folders so mesa can work without users repeatedly and manually removing it.

It probably would need a disclaimer that valve does not provide support for the contents of that file.

This is also happening with me.
Ubuntu 14.10 64bits
xorg-edgers ppa
Intel HD 4000 + NVIDIA 730M (Optimus)

Any workarounds?

Also happening to me.
Xubuntu 14.10 64bits
stock installation.
Intel HD 4600

I am getting this error in the ~/.cache/upstart/startxfce4.log and in /tmp/dumps/"user"_stdout.txt so the files grows up to some GB.

Any fix?

Upgrading to libXext 1.3.3 will solve the problem. Please take a look here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1369113

Upgrading LibXext removed the error messages, but Steam games still do not work.

To upgrade libXext to the latest (libXext 1.3.3), try to use this command :D
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:paulo-miguel-dias/mesa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Try to run your Steam after that.. Hope it works for you :)

That doesn't work, I still hav ethe problem even with v1.3.3

[root@gapevine sean]# dnf info libXext
Installed Packages
Name : libXext
Arch : i686
Epoch : 0
Version : 1.3.3
Release : 2.fc21
Size : 87 k
Repo : @System
Summary : X.Org X11 libXext runtime library
URL : http://www.x.org
License : MIT
Description : X.Org X11 libXext runtime library

Name : libXext
Arch : x86_64
Epoch : 0
Version : 1.3.3
Release : 2.fc21
Size : 84 k
Repo : @System
Summary : X.Org X11 libXext runtime library
URL : http://www.x.org
License : MIT
Description : X.Org X11 libXext runtime library

Any error message available after upgrading libXext 1.3.3 , and opening steam ?

Fedora 21 Workstation folks here, it seems at least me and multiple friends on a clean Gnome 3 install gets their /tmp filled by Steam spamming this line: _xgeWireToEvent: Unknown extension 147, this should never happen.
This is not cool, it forces people to reboot and it's sometimes hard to diagnose, causing random things to freeze as their tempfiles cannot grow anymore.

The next beta update for the Steam Client should address this. Thanks!

@Plagman No, thank YOU! :heart:

Same issue as @xarinatan. I suspect that Steam also prevents my laptop from resuming after suspend (black screen with only a cursor), since it only happens after launching and closing Steam, although I do not know whether it is caused or correlated to the present issue.

Details:
OS: Fedora 21
Memory: 2.9 GiB
Processor: Intel® Pentium(R) Dual CPU T2390 @ 1.86GHz × 2
OS Type: 64-bit
Graphics: Intel® 965GM
GNOME: Version 3.14.2
Disk: 36.0 GB

uname -r output:
3.17.7-300.fc21.x86_64

Steam package: steam-1.0.0.49-2.fc21.i686

I can't believe this is not fixed yet! The message spam has a great impact on performance.
Steam uses its own libXext (windows thinking...) so basically it is not enough to update the OS libXext, you also have to overwrite the steam libXext library... both i386 and amd64.... each time steam is updated!

Please, update the steam libXext library to version 1.3.3.

Can you try opting into the client Beta? This should be fixed there.

@diego-XA You mean, updating the Fedora libXext or the Steam libXext?

Fedora's libXext is updated:

64-bit package: libXext-1.3.3-2.fc21.x86_64
32-bit package: libXext-1.3.3-2.fc21.i686

@Plagman Would opting for the Beta be reversible? Could it bring other issues? When will the fix reach the Stable release? These three questions are preventing me from upgrading.

Yes, you can switch back and forth in the Steam client settings.

@Plagman It's still not fixed! I forgot to mention back. I am in the steam beta, it does not fix the issue. Is there anything about my system you want to know that might help diagnosing it?

[alex@chlorine ~]$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-2367M CPU @ 1.40GHz
[some output omitted]

[alex@chlorine ~]$ yum info libXext
Loaded plugins: langpacks
Installed Packages
Name : libXext
Arch : i686 / x86_64
Version : 1.3.3
Release : 2.fc21
[some output omitted]

I will double-check the bits on our end and come back to you if I need more information.

Looks like there was indeed a mix-up and the bits weren't pushed to Beta as previously thought. I will update the bug when they are.

@Plagman Would opting for the Beta be reversible?
Yes, you simply go to options and toggle «Participate».

Could it bring other issues?
Yes and likely will. As long as it's reversible, you still have the
choice any time.

When will the fix reach the Stable release?
No answer to that. But you still can confirm or not, has it been fixed
in beta, and report here.

Thank you @Plagman and @Plaque-fcc for your support and information.

Not sure if this helps, but I upgraded to Ubuntu 14.10 and got this message and problems following it.
I then formatted my / (kept /home) and installed 14.04 again. The message disappeared and everything worked flawless (so far)

Having the same issue w/ Fedora 21. Have subscribed to Steam Beta, still seeing the journalctl messages.

@Plagman has the fix been pushed yet?

The fix will be in the next Beta Steam client release, I will update the bug when it goes out.

@Plagman I've had a few updates in the mean time on the beta channel, but they haven't fixed it yet.

@Plagman The latest Steam beta update seems to fix the issue for me! I've left my laptop running with Steam open all night and there's no excessive log spam or /tmp filling so far. I'll get back here if that changes, but so far so good :+1:

Thanks for the confirmation!

Thanks for the fix! It was really a pain to come back to a completely filled up /tmp partition every now and then, causing lots of programs to behave erratically. I've also had a much better battery life the past two days.