Happens for me too on gentoo. Almost always the language settings are lost, a little less often Steam does not remember that I was logged in.

Same problem here, I found that reboot doesn't matter, I mean you can just close the client and start it again two or three times and it will ask for username and password. My other settings are still there except sometimes custom skin is replaced with default skin and then I have to select it again and restart the client.
Nothing helped, deleting every trace of steam and then installing it again... same happens.

I think this issue may be related to the one I just opened because of symptoms and apparition date, but mine seems to be time-based. I can reboot the client and the computer several times without Steam forgetting about my account.

#5035

Same problem on Antergos (Arch Linux based). It keeps asking for credentials every day since a very recent update.

Version: built Jun 8 2017, at 04:34:18

Could be unrelated but,
In the file ~/.local/share/steam/logs/configstore_log.txt I see a lot of the following (every minute!). Why?

[2017-06-25 17:05:48] Flushed store 'userlocal' to '/home/user/.local/share/Steam/userdata/8691024/config/localconfig.vdf'
[2017-06-25 17:05:49] Flushed store 'userlocal' to '/home/user/.local/share/Steam/userdata/8691024/config/localconfig.vdf'
[2017-06-25 17:05:52] Flushed store 'userlocal' to '/home/user/.local/share/Steam/userdata/8691024/config/localconfig.vdf'
[2017-06-25 17:06:00] Flushed store 'userlocal' to '/home/user/.local/share/Steam/userdata/8691024/config/localconfig.vdf'
[2017-06-25 17:06:04] Flushed store 'install' to '/home/user/.local/share/Steam/config/config.vdf'
[2017-06-25 17:06:34] Flushed store 'install' to '/home/user/.local/share/Steam/config/config.vdf'
[2017-06-25 17:07:04] Flushed store 'install' to '/home/user/.local/share/Steam/config/config.vdf'
[2017-06-25 17:07:34] Flushed store 'install' to '/home/user/.local/share/Steam/config/config.vdf'
[2017-06-25 17:08:04] Flushed store 'install' to '/home/user/.local/share/Steam/config/config.vdf'
[2017-06-25 17:08:35] Flushed store 'install' to '/home/user/.local/share/Steam/config/config.vdf'

Same problem here on gentoo. I'm currently trying to reinstall steam from scratch, keeping the steamapps directory.

Same on void, though only since switching to the beta client for me.

I think it's stopped doing it for me since yesterday (I noticed Steam updated itself quickly too).

Edit: actually still happening, every time I reboot, I have to enter credentials again.

For me it still happens, every day.

I noticed same problem some time ago and it still exists. Also I noticed another problem (Steam Client cant create desktop icons) that may be related to credentials and settings issue (maybe its general problem with permissions in linux?).

same problem, but not every time I start the steam. on Ubuntu 17.04

I have been fighting over this for about a week (since my last reinstall of steam) and today i had the illumination... i am not sure is a stable solution but it seem to work (or i was just lucky... 2 restarts now without the problem).
I am using ubuntu 16.04.
This was the first time i was asked credentials after i activated the ubuntu auto-login.

If you set the "auto-login" in Ubuntu for your user (in my case to allow Wake on Lan to load steam and connect via broadcasting from the couch) the Keyring (where Linux stores passwords) is not activated as it needs to be unlocked by a password that is not asked at login. (e.g. chrome asks me to insert the kezring password at the first browser use every session or it does not load my personal info).

So i thought that maybe steam needs keyring activated as well to store the credentials and i opened it before logging in steam.
it seemed to work.

Will let you know if was not a stable fix

Disabling autologin (in Plasma Desktop) doesn't fix the trouble for me.

No wonder steam linux market-share is at 0.74% , this is ridiculous.
Had to do re-login this morning, few hours later I relaunched the client and it asked for login details again.
Pretty obvious that something introduced in the last update is causing this, revert it already ffs !
pfft..

I seem to have the same problem with Steam on Ubuntu 16.04:

Frequently requires re-logins and affects the language settings.
As an addition to the main bug report: For me the language used in the client after logging in again (the first time after the last Steam session with the correct language setting (in my case: German)) is still this previously selected one but in the settings it is set to "English (Englisch)" which then is applied when I shut down Steam and start it again.

I hope this bug is fixed soon, already (unsuccessfully) reinstalled Steam and only kept the config and the steamapps folders. Really not a pleasure to use it this way!

Edit: Apart from the time-span it requires for the login to "time-out" the issue #5035 seems to target the same problem

In the meantime I hit this issue on every boot on my Arch installation.
It wouldn't be that bad but the two factor authorization is double annoying.

Same problem on Arch x64 here. Every N reboot, Steam doesn't remember that I'm logged in, deletes my settings and my skin.

@kisak-valve Possibly found a FIX here (more a workaround than a fix I should say).

I had the same issue since several months, Steam client resets to english (instead of french for me) and forgets credentials. I tried every solutions so far, provided on this GitHub or on Steam community forums. Tried everything. Only one thing worked, and since 5 days I never met this issue again:

In your Steam settings, enable In-Home Streaming and Family Sharing, even if you don't use it. You can login and change your language before or after tweaking these settings, looks like it doesn't matter, but if one way doesn't work try the other one. I always uncheck these options because I never use them, but since I enabled them again everything works as intended. Seems to work for other people with the same issue. I'm on Steam Beta by the way, didn't try with the stable client. Please tell me if it worked for you too in reply here or on my profile' comments http://steamcommunity.com/id/darthwound/

Interesting. I had indeed disabled in-home streaming and family sharing too. Will see if this workaround works.

Having this problem too. Ubuntu Gnome 17.04 (Basic: Ubuntu 17.04. 64Bit).

It seems that the workaround @DarthWound mentioned worked, after rebooting, it didn't ask for creds again, however (could be totally unrelated) my CPU was pegged at 100% until I quit the Steam client and restarted it.
Side note, the Steam client on Linux is very ressource hungry and keeps using between 6% and 12% of my CPU cycles. That's more than the xorg client itself. Ugh.

In your Steam settings, enable In-Home Streaming and Family Sharing, even if you don't use it.

That doesn't seem to fix it for me.

I thought I was the only one as I didn't see anyone discuss it anywhere, like r/linux_gaming. I've had this for about a month and it's ridiculous that such annoying problem has not been fixed. I know it's not a support forum but I want to let the developers know that there are many who face this bug. I'm on Ubuntu Mate 17.04 btw.

I think it may be same cause as in other bug where Steam cant create desktop icons.
Someone traced Steam for this, and discovered that Steam is trying to create icons in / and of course has no permission for that.
Maybe the same is with credentials?
Im guessing, but for me both problems appeared in one moment.

Only having In-Home Streaming and Family Sharing enabled by itself did not work for me, however going into the Steam Guard settings and telling it to log out all other sessions did, so that might be something to try for you all who are still having trouble. I did so from my phone to make sure all sessions on my computers were terminated, but I'm not sure if that makes any difference.

@kisak-valve: I didn't have any update (beta branch) when I was tweaking my settings.

@amikot: I don't think so, credentials/language/other are stored in registry.vdf in your ~/.steam folder. And this file reverts to default when this bug happens.

@Roliga: Maybe, I have no other device registered, didn't have time to sign in with my new phone bought recently.

UPDATE: Since yesterday Steam goes back to english instead of french sometimes, but fortunately it keeps my credentials and autologin, so the most annoying issue doesn't happen anymore for now.

Family Sharing trick did not work for me...

@DarthWound ....what was your last setting modification?
I still getting both problems: credentials and language lossing

@ekkia nothing except Family Sharing and In-Home Streaming.

My Steam client for OS-X misbehaves the same way for quite some time as well. Seems to be a more general issue with the Steam client ...

Could the new behavior be a change in the steam beta client, instead of a settings change?

@kisak-valve I don't think so, using main channel, never touched beta, also affected by the client not remembering credentials. For a good few weeks/months already.

If that information is helpful: I use my account between multiple computers as well and Steam Guard + mobile authenticator are on.

Chiming back to say that the @DarthWound workaround doesn't actually work, just had the issue again the last two days.

Well, sad to read that :( must be something else. But since I did that I never encountered this issue again at all. A few times (2 or 3) Steam reverted to english but I remember that I had the same issue on Windows last year when I still had a dual-boot. But it never asked for my password again, and it was 12 days ago now.

Did you try what Roliga said here? https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/5030#issuecomment-325670188

@DarthWound Yes, I've tried logging out all devices, but to no avail.

@kisak-valve I have this problem too on Gentoo ~amd64. Randomly logout after sometimes closing and lunching steam. And also it change my language on English in settings, but after first lunch, when I should login again, Library and Setting menu still use my old language, but in settings already selected english and Steam overlay pop-up window use English language too. After next lunch if I don't change language, all will be on English.

I have the same problem!

This has happened to me a few times ~3 times over the past few months. I've been running Xubuntu 17.04 and 17.10

this bugs does not appear anymore since I updated my Ubuntu to 17.10 version

Edit: the bug is back :/

I still have this issue on Mageia5x64 and Ubuntu 17.04x64 and I get it every day.

i have this issue too except for me it's if i open steam more than once a day it does it

I suffer from this issue too. (Arch linux)

Suffering from this issue as well, Xubuntu 16.04

Nice to hear I'm not alone.

Happens to me too, on both Debian 8 (oldstable) and 9 (stable) on AMD64

I haven't noticed a specific pattern - the client just loses my credentials/settings every few startups.

This is very annoying considering my Mobile Authenticator setup (I don't own a cellphone, for starters)

I have noticed that after suspending to RAM and resuming, the Steam client loses connection to the steamcommunity.com, and when click on new messages, profile, community feed, market, etc. the client says "verifying" and always results in and errror "There was an error communicating with the Steam servers. Please try again later."

Have to quit and restart the Steam client to regain access to these. Note that the credentials are not necessarily asked for by the client then.
It could be related?

@kisak-valve Do you have any idea what is going wrong? Or may be you need some more info from us(logs, sysinfo)? I had got this problem for a long time before, but I didn't know about this place for issue. The biggest problem is using Mobile Authenticator at every authentication procedure when steam lose our credentials.

the only unusual thing i can find in my logs is
[2017-09-15 17:40:47] [0,0] LogOff()

context with setsteamid number anonymized cuz idk what it is and i don't want to risk it

[2017-09-15 17:40:41] Log session started
[2017-09-15 17:40:41] [0,0] SetSteamID( [U:1:0] )
[2017-09-15 17:40:47] [0,0] LogOff()
[2017-09-15 17:40:59] [0,0] SetSteamID( [U:1:########] )
[2017-09-15 17:40:59] [0,0] SetSteamID( [U:1:########] )
[2017-09-15 17:40:59] [0,0] Server says 50% of connections should be websockets, we rolled 36 - using WebSockets as default.

this was found in connection_log.txt

@kisak-valve : I never had networkmanager here, my network setup is fixed manually, and I'm having this issue on two systems with two different Steam accounts.

It's a very annoying bug, what are doing Valve devs?

@legluondunet please do not add noise. Plus, kisak already answered your question.

It looks like I have some other info about this bug: I'm not fully sure, but as I remember after begining of this bug my CS:GO always starts with English language(I check at Steam for this game selected my native language) and only param "-language " helps me with it.

PS: The last time I try to join steam beta in settings menu, and steam beta has this problems too for me(also tried some streaming and sharing as read at this, and it doesn't work for me).

I've been having this issue on fedora; it's unclear what the pattern is. It asks me to login a good 80% of the time, and started happening a few weeks ago, so is clearly related to a relatively recent update. I don't use the NetworkManager service (and that seems unlikely to be related). It often asks me several times in a row on consecutive days, but then I can go a week without being asked despite (or perhaps even because of?) starting the client less frequently.

Since a few days, the issue seems to be gone for me...

@kisak-valve Yes. i am running ifup and wicked on two different machines and i am having this issue. Opensuse 42.3 (wicked) and Debian (ifup i presume).

@Git-Jiro happened to me yesterday. I played some Rimworld at 10am, shut down and went out for a couple of hours, came back at 1pm and had to sign in again.

@Mirppc ifup is a cli tool used to bring an interface up and isn't the network manager itself. You're probably using either network or NetworkManager; looks like the latter is the default in most versions of debian: https://wiki.debian.org/NetworkManager

Happens here as well - Steam Client Beta KDE Neon (Ubuntu 16.04). After any type of extended shutdown will have to log in again. Closing and restarting the Steam client (without rebooting) does not seem to cause the bug reliably.

Also, and perhaps possibly related, I will occasionally get a "not connected" status message at the bottom of Steam (where the download / status messages are). However I have a wired connection so the PC is never actually off-line. So maybe, as hinted above, the bug has something to do with Steam losing connection to the internet even though the computer is connected, and on reboot it is re-asking for credentials?

@giftig i know for a fact on two of my wired only OPENSUSE machines i am running Wicked. Mainly because that is the default for new Opensuse install unless you are on a laptop. Otherwise you have to go into YAST and change that, which messes with the hostname making steam unable to find X.

@Mirppc: yes, I believe you re: Wicked, but on debian you are most likely running network or NetworkManager unless you've directly swapped to something else. I was merely pointing out that ifup is not a network managing service, it's a cli tool to handle the interfaces.

I running dhcpcd on arch linux and have this issue too.

I've now had this issue for well over 3 months across different distros and DEs. Centos 7, Fedora 26, Arch and Ubuntu. On Mate, XFCE, KDE Plasma, Gnome and LXQt.

Same on here: Fedora, Arch and Ubuntu.

Same here on latest SteamOS on my Alienware Steam Machine and on my Notebook with Ubuntu Mate 17.10 64 bit with latest Updates.

Some new info: sometimes I get this bug without reboot. Seems it happened if i play too long in steam games and after close steam for a long time(for example 8+ hours when i go to sleep without shutdown my laptop).

Oddly i can concur with @PenguiN560 , i too have experienced the issue in the same Xorg session. It doesnt even have to be 8 hours. if steam refuses to load any of the pages (storefront games discussion etc) this is usually resolved by restarting steam.

Recently every restart of the Steam client requires one to re enter their credentials.

I have "fixed" this (as stated by someone in another similar issue) by making my ~/.steam/registry.vdf read only after a sucessful login.

@HellishINC

The trick making registry.vdf read-only is often seen in forums and even here on this Github, and it works for some people, but there's one issue if you do this: installed' games informations are written in this file, if it's read-only then you'll have to do some stuff manually and may have issues with updates.

However if you really want to use modifications on this file as a workaround, maybe you could create a script writing the correct settings (using sed and tools like that) for the following lines each time you're quitting Steam client:

"language"		"pirate"
"AutoLoginUser"		"blackbeard"
"RememberPassword"		"1"

I haven't had any issues with updates as of yet. I believe the issues only occurred if you logged out while an update was in progress. Then it would "forget" and start over again.

Either way, this is only a temporary workaround, though knowing Valve, it might just end up being permanent.

Four months without fixing that annoying bug. Looks like Valve has dropped Linux support

maybe you could create a script writing the correct settings (using sed and tools like that) for the following lines each time you're quitting Steam client:

I think it will not work because registry.vdf is ok before starting steam and go broken after steam was started with getting this issue.

But I have some new info about this issue: if you replace broken registry.vdf with your old normal registry.vdf and restart steam with this issue, all will be ok, and you don't need to enter your credentials after restarting.

Yesterday, I started the Steam client as normal (didn't ask for creds), then quit the client after a while.

Waited a few hours, then started the client again and it asked for credentials. I didn't proceed and canceled / quit the client.

Waited a few more hours (had work to do). Then started the client again, and it magically auto-logged in without asking for creds. :hushed:

Following up on what @glubsy experienced:

After a reboot I started the Steam client which then was asking for credentials (it showed the screen with the options "create new account" and "login to an existing account"). I then closed the client without logging in and opened it directly afterwards which resulted in the "Connecting Steam account ..." screen and me being logged in successfully.

I rebooted afterwards but couldn't reproduce the problem and as a result couldn't try if the workaround still worked. I will post an update when the problem occurs the next time.

(side note: I'm running the steam client build 'Oct 11 2017, at 10:57:57' on Ubuntu 17.04)

Edit: Also worked the second time (after multiple reboots)

I can confirm, started Steam client and it asked me to login, then I closed it without doing anything and started it again, it didn't ask me to login.
Interesting, I'm sure I tried that months before and this "trick" didn't work then.

Can also confirm. When launch steam and see asking about login and password - simple closing it and start again help. Worth to add I trying this solution sometime ago and won't work but now is fine.

Confirm, restarting steam with this issue now can solve this problem.

Restarting Steam works for me too

yes but with restarting steam back to english language...

@AngryPenguinPL see https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Command_Line_Options#Command-line_parameters_3, steam -language "german" will force the needed language.

So this sounds like an intermittent failure to retrieve the stored credentials and auto login. Has anyone checked if it coincides with steam self-updating? Perhaps loading the credentials is being missed in case of an update happening, which might explain the behaviour of it working after restarting the client again, and being more likely to fail after a long gaming session or restart. That's assuming it consistently works after the client restart, of course.

It doesn't seem to be intermittent. It has been happening nearly 100% for me. The close-then-reopen also seems to work every time. I've looked at the state of ~/.steam/registry.vdf before opening steam and it looks correct before steam opens. After steam opens, and the login prompt appears, the files has been overridden with other values.

My guess is that steam checks the modified time of the registry.vdf file when it starts. If the modified time of the file is older than some value (~10-20 hours) it prompts for login again. However, opening steam also writes to the file, which updates the modified time to the current time. So by closing steam and re-opening it the modified time is current enough that is proceeds with the auto-login.

I guess one way to confirm would be to write a script that does touch ~/.steam/registry.vdf before running steam to see if that fixes the problem. It's also possible that it's not using the file modified time at all, but storing the "last start" time somewhere else, and using that instead of the file modified time.

For me, when i started posting on here the issue was consistent. Closing Steam and starting it again would not resolve it.

Since the October Steam update it is now more intermittent. Then again i suffer from issue #5000 . That may help me in this instance.

Wow, I'm not having this issue alone. Same happens on Arch Linux, if it's necessary.

I was having this issue too earlier on, however its not been happening to me in a while, only when taking long breaks does it ask for a password again.

same here...

Like when launching it for the first time that it asks you for credentials.

--
Noticed when It happens If I close the client and then relaunch it again, it connects with my account right away, always.

I am still having this issue. Login info is still being forgotten.

This issue was resolved for me, but now it has come back. :disappointed:

This issue was resolved for me, but now it has come back. 😞

same here lol, had this happen from a day to another, spoke to soon

I have the same issue on Fedora 26

Strange little update. It is now effecting my Mac. O_O!!!

It sucks valve cares so little about Linux that this still isn't fixed. Maybe if you put the source code for the linux client on github it would get fixed within the next year.

@h633537 several things:

1. You adding noise doesn't help anyone
2. You can see that kisak-valve has recently been active on this thread, so clearly it has attention
3. This is a minor inconvenience with an easy workaround. How highly do you seriously expect this to be prioritised?
4. Steam's own platform is a homespun linux distro, so valve clearly care more than most about linux
5. Why would you expect a profitable organisation to publish the source code of their proprietary software? The steam client isn't intended to be forked and reused, it's a DRM system.
6. Your impressive github contributions lead me to suspect that you would most likely not be the one to fix this bug on behalf of valve.

Hello! :)
I have a very similar problem with Steam auto-login, loosing its credentials, mostly after a Steam update. I am using Steam with Beta Tests on Manjaro Linux (Arch). However, if I shut down the login/create a new acc window and re-open Steam launcher again, it "magically" remembers the data and signs in as nothing happened.
I am curious if someone has experienced something similar.

Yes, we have, see replies starting from October 12th.

The "close window and restart steam" trick no longer works. Welp, going back to the read-only solution.

@HellishINC still works for me. Is this across all of your distros?

Trick worked for me until one day it didn't (tried it maybe 20 times in a row), I gave up so I logged in and now the trick works again.

This issue is really bizarre, one thing I'm sure of... if this bug was happening on Windows it would be solved within 24hrs.

"Minor inconvenience with an easy workaround" ... jesus .... multi-million organization can't save fkin username and a password somewhere and load it back for almost a year now, spectacular, what an achievement !!

I can confirm that this is effecting at least my debian, opensuse MacOS AND Windows 7 instances. Ticking the remember me doesn't seem to matter so i have to keep my two factor authentication thingy near by at all times.

Same issue here on macOS Sierra: Pretty much every time I relaunch the steam client I need to type my credentials again. Must have been this way as far as I can remember, only that until recently I didn't use the client daily so I didn't bother...

Having a good backup of registry.vdf is a Good Enough™ workaround for me, for the cases where closing the "new login" dialog is not enough, restoring from the backup restores everything.

Still, really annoying and completely unpredictable issue!

Exact same problem, Mint 18.3 login and language

I had the exact same issue on Maui Linux 17.06 (based on Kubuntu 16.04), and I believe I have found a permanent workaround/solution that does not involve changing permissions.

Whenever I launched Steam from the GUI, it would always ask for my username and password.
The shortcuts placed on the GUI execute the following command:
/usr/games/steam %U
But you can also launch steam from a terminal with the simple steam command.
When launched from the terminal, Steam did not ask for my credentials, just logged in automatically.

I edited the Steam shortcut to execute the steam command instead of the default one: this way autologin works when launching Steam from the GUI.

running via CLI doesn't resolve the issue here @GitHungarian . i have to use the command from issue #5000 otherwise some of my games will not work properly. Good idea though.

@Mirppc: you can also add STEAM_RUNTIME_PREFER_HOST_LIBRARIES=0 to the shortcuts, or even the LD_PRELOAD environment variable.

I experienced several known issues (no desktop shortcuts for games, non responsive tray icon, etc.) with Steam on unsupported distros (Fedora, OpenSUSE TW & Leap), and on the KDE Plasma desktop. I used both the above solutions at some point, but ever since I switched to Kubuntu & Co. I only had this login issue, which seems quite common for people using KDE Plasma.

Just thought I would add my two cents so it might help somebody.

@GitHungarian I mentioned above, it is effecting my Mac as well so i think the sign in thing is a bit more sinister than just an unsupported distro issue.

Thanks for the tip on the shortcuts. i will continue doing it via CLI as the output in the terminal makes it a bit easier for me to debug any potential issues. You input will be noted and kept in the back of my human/reptilian brain for later use.

I always use only CLI steam lunch method, but also had this issue. Atm this issue happens hardly ever, and restarting steam usually solve it.

PS: Gentoo x64 with Plasma 5 without STEAM_RUNTIME(but also had this issue with using STEAM_RUNTIME libraries)

I have the same problem on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, so this is not a distro specific problem
it's weird, sometimes it will remember the username, sometimes it won't remember anything, it might depend on whether I tick the box or not, but I can't remember

I've grown accustomed to these shenanigans by Valve, they happen in everything they do. Shamefully unprofessional and bad coding from such a high value company, there's tons of indie devs who do million times better. They claim there's no money to spend on teams working on community suggestions and requests; yet rake in heaps of cash from case e-gambling in many games.

Can we please keep the bug report about just that, reporting bugs? We don't need to hear your opinion on Valve. Yes, it's frustrating but annoying everyone in this issue isn't doing anyone any favors.

It's known that this isn't distro specific and is a client issue and that using native or built in libs has no effect.

I didn't had this bug prior to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS with Unity. But with Ubuntu 17.10 on Gnome, I am experiencing this problem as well. It's a bit inconsistent tho. If I close the program correctly before shutting down the computer it logs in fine after restart.

However when I click shutdown on gnome with steam still open. Steam panics and wants to shut down, while gnome is still giving me the option to cancel the shutdown. Other programs still stay open and aren't bothered by this. If I click cancel steam will already have Shutdown. Starting it back up will cause the login screen (but not always).
If I clicked shutdown and restart back. Steam will have lost the password (but not always).

Also I am suspecting Steam Cloud Sync to cause this, I have disabled it now and it appears to work fine. But we will see about that later.

Just a FYI - Steam always behaved bad when network changed, so if you for some reason have a different IP or mac address across boots/logins, it's likely that's the cause.

I can easily trigger this by just enabling my IPv4 work VPN.

Seem fixed on Arch Linux (GNOME 3 DE)

Definitely isn't for at least the VPN usage I mentioned above, I use Arch(Cinnamon DE).

@DrQwertySilence but not on KDE

Steam always hates it when something via networking changes especialy when the hostname changes. But alas this isnt a KDE or Gnome thing. I saw this same issue hit a friend running Gnome 3 on Ubuntu.

The Issue seems sporadic which is making it hard at least for me to generate enough information to post a decent report update.

on linux steam also seems to hate if ur graphics drivers change, like if u switch from nvidia 375 to 389 or whatever steam client resets it's settings for no reason that i can understand

interesting, i didnt have that issue using the Nvidia installer from Nvidia. Would not suprise me. Thanks.

Never had that problem when updating drivers on AMD hardware either. Of course seeing as how the nvidia driver is a proprietary blob, it might do something unwanted.

The only oddness i could come up with is the GLX stuff being installed with the Nvidia driver causing something to blerp with Steam. Beyond that the Drivers, either Nvidia Propritary, AMD Pro, AMD Mesa, Nouveau, Intel or other should not effect sign in credentials.

same problem.

volvo pls fix. (or open source, so we can)

Happend to me yesterday after updating the Nvidia driver (gnome + Arch)

Can someone who got affected link me their Steam profile along with the date they know for sure that their cached credentials got lost? (without having logged to another machine at the same time)

@Plagman https://steamcommunity.com/id/jPlatte Just started Steam a few minutes ago and it asked me to log in. Last time I used Steam was 1-2 days ago.

Why do you need someone's profile name @Plagman ? This sounds suspicious.

@jplatte you used Steam on the same machine 1-2 days ago and had cached credentials, and didn't use it on any other machine in the meantime?

@Mirppc I'm comparing the information to our records on this end to see why the cached credentials were rejected and try to infer what changed. I'm not able to access these records if I don't know what account the report corresponds to.

@Plagman are you sure that it's the server rejecting the credentials? It sounds like the workaround of closing steam (when it prompts for login) and opening it again (without entering any new login/password) fixes the issue for most people (https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/5030#issuecomment-337262487, https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/5030#issuecomment-336846860, https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/5030#issuecomment-336801084, https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/5030#issuecomment-336649264, https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/5030#issuecomment-336625255, https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/5030#issuecomment-336455500).

Since the issue can be fixed without re-entering any login/password it seems unlikely (to me) that the stored credentials are the problem.

Doesn't it seem like the client is checking some value for "last started", when the value is "too old" it prompts for login. Starting steam again refreshes that value and uses the stored credentials. Just a hypothesis.

you know, @Plagman might be right. This issue effects logging in via the browser as well as the remember me checkbox is utterly useless.. Redeemed some games from humble and each game required me to relog in via chrome and use the Steam Guard every time.

Never had any issues with the website login nor the mobile app.

The latest steam update fixed this problem for me.

OS: Debian 9
Steam Client Info:

• Built: Dec 12
• Steam API: v017

Are you sure?? Not for me with same OS.

@ekkia Yeah. Tested it a few times. I received the update yesterday. If the issue reproduces itself, I'll report here.

Still effecting Opensuse and Mac OS :( Even with the latest update from the 14th.

The issue still happens after 4-5 auto logins. The client completely forgets and shows me the "create new account or login" screen.

The issue still persist, but closing steam and running it again helps.

I tried @GitHungarian suggestion (running only "steam" on terminal) and it worked. I was asking for my login then I closed it and ran it in terminal and it logged on just fine. I tried closing it and running it via the default shortcut just after and it did log in normally so it may fix your issue and may be worth giving it a try.

Mine started doing it when it updated just yesterday but people are having this issue for a long time so I don't know how it is relatable. Maybe steam updating is ruining the config files somehow?

I'm running mint 18.3

Anyone here having the problem with xfce? I swapped from plasma due to multihead issues and haven't experienced the problem in 4+ days.

I mainly run XFCE. and i experience the issue @HellishINC .

Sadly I too also just got the issue. Was hoping for the best.

The same happens on Fedora 27 x86_64 on 2 computers.

I confirm the issue is still there, running Xfce in Debian (unstable)

Same problem here, i'm using Debian 9 stable with xfce.

A workaround that seems to have gotten it for me, at least temporarily is by removing the ./steam/registry.vdf.bak file. I did a quick comparison between the registry.vdf and the registry.vdf.bak files and the backup file didn't contain my login info. Maybe a better option would be to open steam, then in a terminal run:
cp -i ~/.steam/registry.vdf ~/.steam/registry.vdf.bak
That should copy your current configuration, with your login user saved to the backup file, and hopefully when steam refreshes itself from the backup file it will grab the autologin user as well.

Dear Valve! This really waits for a triage? With more than a hundred meetoos and comments?

I noticed something. If steam starts up and it didn't login. Just close it and start it up again. Somehow it magically finds your login information and logs in fine. This might also explain why it is so hard for the valve devs to figure out this issue.

I noticed something

This has been mentioned on the thread a number of times:
(https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/5030#issuecomment-337262487, https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/5030#issuecomment-336846860, https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/5030#issuecomment-336801084, https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/5030#issuecomment-336649264, https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/5030#issuecomment-336625255, https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/5030#issuecomment-336455500, https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/5030#issuecomment-351593166)

This might also explain why it is so hard for the valve devs to figure out this issue.

That should actually help them.
But I doubt that anyone is looking at this.
Simple fact is that if this is open source it would be solved within hours.

@ZamieltheHunter I think you're on the right track here. I checked these files after I launched and logged in, and the registry.vdf contains the correct info. The .old file (which seems to be how my client is doing the .bak) is a zero-length file. After I shut down, registry.vdf is changed to no longer contain the info. There seems to be some bug here that's writing that file on shutdown and omitting the login info there.

I made a copy of that file while it was running and had the login info in it. After shutting down and confirming the current registry doesn't have the info, I copied the backup to there. Then relaunched. The client ignores the file that's there and starts fresh again. I haven't found what is handling that file, but there's a bug there.

EDIT: I just "fixed" the issue, or at least hacked around it. First, make a copy of registry.vdf while the client is running and after you log in. The file should contain your login, and importantly:

"RememberPassword" "1"

Shut down steam completely. Go into your steam dir and copy your copied version over the current registry.vdf. Now, remove write permission for that file (chmod -w registry.vdf or with your GUI file browser). Yeah, it might break something down the road but I didn't see any problem. Until Valve fixes the problem in their binary, we'll just have to live with that risk. I didn't notice anything broken when I did this. After that, you can launch steam normally and it ought to just log right in. It does for me now.

Making the file read only is a known "fix" but it also introduces issues. registry.vdf is also the file that keeps track of updates. As long as you don't log off with any in processes updates, you'll be fine. If you logout with a ongoing update, it won't be able to write that intro registry.vdf and lose all progress on relaunch.

Sure, that's why I called it a hack. I figure it's going to cause some problems, but I'd rather lose my progress on a download than have to two-factor auth every single time I launch the client. They really need to look at how they are doing the writes to that file. They aren't even backing it up correctly, the .old file is zero length. I suspect they aren't reading the state of the existing file before writing the new one. Either that, or they need to get rid of this Windows-style registry crap and write it as a regular file, and preferably not mix state with settings like they are doing.

I can also confirm this is happening to me too. On Linux Mint 18. Don't know where to find the Steam version at the moment, all I know is that it's the latest as of posting this.

@Walaryne well after 50+ "meetoo"s (and plenty of votes and emoticon reactions) this is not quite surprising. :-/

@grinapo Yeah, I get that, but I'm just adding my voice to the issue, all I can do is assume it helps the issue get more attention.

Surely there're not that many references to that file registry.vdf which seems to be casuing this problem, AFAIK it's only used on startup and shutdown, should be fairly easy to see what is causing that file to be 0 length on shutdown, which then brings this issue.

@cbacott Well, it might be not an issue to you but don't forget that Steam is used globally and many countries don't have the speeds or "unlimited" data. It's important to note the caveats so that anyone new to the thread will know what to expect.

Imagine having to redownload a 50gB game with a speed of 200kBps. Just thinking about it gives me a headache.

@HellishINC I'm not being adversarial here. I know this isn't a "fix". The reason I said this is that it narrows the actual cause of the issue to exactly that file, including documentation on how it was changed at various times, to help the Steam Devs locate their bug. It also allows those who hit this thread to implement a temporary work-around for the issue, with the caveat that it will cause this other problem.

Just trying to be helpful here.

EDIT: workaround fails

Hi! Posible simple workaround in Debian Stretch (and maybe in others):

I realized that I had installed the steam client from the package that provides steam's web (debian_latest.deb). I removed it and installed the debian steam:i386 package from Stretch sources.
Since this change I have not had these problem again.
Please, note that debian_latest.deb installs all config files and games in /home/your_user/.local/share/Steam/ .... and steam:i386 installs all in /home/your_user/.steam

No way...the problem stills here.

Just a wild guess but maybe this behaviour is trigged when Steam is still running and the system is shutting down.
Even though the user interface is closed relatively fast, Steam needs a lot of time until all of it's processes are properly ended (you can still see the tray). Maybe the shutdown kills the running Steam processes that is why credentials are asked on the next start.

Lastly I watched that Steam is completely closed until I shutdown and haven't had the issue for a long time.

@dietrmat sorry but that's not it, i quit steam without shutting my computer down all the time and even without rebooting it still does this

@ask-compu confirming.

@HellishINC it doesnt always do it if i start it back up within a few hours of quitting steam, but usually after a few days it does, i don't reboot my computer for months

I doesn't have this issue on Fedora 27 x86_64 anymore. I'm not sure why it disappeared and how, but it's gone.

@Zlopez it is off and on here with Opensuse , MacOS and Ubuntu. one machine might be fine while another not so much. I keep my two factor thing nearby,

This only happens on one of my computers running Mac OS X, the other has never had a problem with it. Very strange issue.

This workaround fixed it for me in LM18.3 XFCE:

First, set the right language, after that switch to the Steam directory with the command
cd .steam
and then with the command
chmod a-w registry.vdf
the file are deprived of the write permissions.

What I notice lately:

• Everything works fine for a few startups.
• Then, the client logon is successful yet suddenly language reverts to English for the store and community pages (at this stage, Steam will explicitly set the language to "english" on registry.vdf!).
• After that, on the next startup it will forget my credentials, despite having autologon enabled! Sometimes I get an empty registry.vdf, sometimes it's only missing my username.

My current workaround is to always carry a backup of registry.vdf from the last good startup, and when store reverts to English, I close the client, restore from backups, and start it again. Haven't tried setting the file read-only.

Hi all, what a "fine" thread!
"Meetoo", : )
Mint 18.2/64, steam v017

For developers/fixers: when i ran steam from terminal, i've seen multiple error messages regarding config files...

On the other hand, you could see this as a feature. Nobody is going to steal your credentials if even steam doesn't know them 😉.

@thomas15v Sounds great... until you get reminded of the fact that the use of the Mobile Authenticator is now mandatory, and not all of us even want to OWN a smartphone, much less being forced to use one just to play our games (for which we've paid some good money). My current authenticator setup (WinAuth) is good, except for when I boot to Linux, when I get reminded of the sad fact there are no decent authenticators for Linux, hence I'm forced to keep a Win7 system/VM lying around just to generate the auth code.

Things used to be far simpler years ago, instead of this (in)security theater we get everywhere (because everybody and his dog now pretends to be a freakin' bank!). Steam for Linux "forced credentials amnesia" bug/regression doesn't help at all.

I did something a little bit different because my Tablet ran a version of Android that the Steam App doesnt support. I used an X86 build of android in Virtual machine to do my Authentication. It was not portable but it worked and was a lot less heavy than running a windows VM. Now ChromeOS supports Android Apps so i could see having that running on an older cheat laptop instead. It would be neat to test this out.

@dilworks @Mirppc I did the same thing. I installed Android Studio for Linux which includes the ability to create and manage Android VMs, and just installed the Steam app on a VM.

Note: Running Xubuntu, and for whatever reason I think a few packages were needed to get the Android Studio ADV tool to function and grails to quit whining.

I confirm the issue is still there, running Xfce in Arch

I have not had this issue now for about a month and a half. I stopped using Linux-Steam-Integration from the solus project and instead went with steam-native. Been smooth sailing since then on Arch. Can't really say if it's related or just luck but here's hoping I haven't jinxed myself.

I have the issue running Debian 9, KDE

i can help, but i need some more info. gimme:
the output of dmesg, terminal: dmesg >filethatyousendme

then, we can talk. no security issues about learning about your hardware,
is there?

Private person for free..

2018-03-28 1:19 GMT+02:00 Leandro Ortega [email protected]:

I have the issue running Debian 9, KDE

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dmesg will give you no useful output, i have checked over and over again. running steam from command line will be more useful than dmesg. @csiga77

steam | tee .log would be more useful or in my case STEAM_RUNTIME_PREFER_HOST_LIBRARIES=0 steam | tee .log

Well, since I haven't had the issue in quite some time I'll post my "log" so that others can compare.

https://gist.github.com/HellishINC/4717055a4c499c485b169c56f718db30

Please keep in mind I'm running steam-native-runtime + steam-fonts on Arch.

I was able to reproduce it three times. I was playing something and my gpu crashed(overheated?) and gpu drivers restarted the gpu. New login and session, and viola, steam lost credentials and language settings. 3/3 as far.

I haven't played games in MONTHS (my life sucks, blah blah blah). All I do is to open the client, let it there doing NOTHING for hours, then close it.

Repeat it 3-4 times, and watch it lose its language settings, then credentials.

Playing games doesn't seem to impact this in any way.

same for me

i updated steam on ubuntu 16.04 and seems to be fixed issue about keeping settings

I experienced this issue when I was on 16.04. I did a clean install of 17.04 and the problem went away. I updated to 17.10 and 18.04 without issue. It always remembered my password from that point on. That was system No. 1.

I then did a clean install of 18.04 on system No. 2 and it is forgetting my password almost daily.

UPDATE: 06/27/2018 - Hasn't done it in about a week, but prior to that it was almost every day. Not sure what has changed...

I've started seeing this issue again but it seems to be only once a week or so now. Volvo plis.

Issue still present after upgrading to Ubutnu 18.04. I noticed that the bug often appeared after setting the interface in a language other than english (français).

"However, if I shut down the login/create a new acc window and re-open Steam launcher again, it "magically" remembers the data and signs in as nothing happened."
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/5030#issuecomment-343657490

This suggest that the problem is with reading that file after fresh start.

Fixed now for me. Tested on OpenMandriva Lx3 and Mageia5/6. Sometimes just reset language to english but this is not a big issue.

This bug has more than one year and I confirm it is still an issue in the last beta Steam version. It loosed several times my credentials in one week...

Ubuntu 18.04 64 bits

It started for me a few days ago. A few weeks ago I tried to fix a bug in a program related to multiple languages, so my computer has Japanese support even though my brain doesn't. The weird part is that the Japanese support had no effect on this bug until recently, so I'm not really sure if it's related in my case.

At the same time, LastPass has started forgetting to stay logged in too, and it happens every time Steam fails to start correctly. This suggests that the problem isn't Steam's fault.

When starting Steam from the terminal, the only thing that looks like an error is:
html_chrome.cpp (394) : Assertion Failed: CefCrashReportingEnabled()

Ubuntu 18.04, vanilla GNOME (no auto-login)

It started doing it again for me too since yesterday. The workaround consisting in closing the login window, and restarting the Steam clent doesn't work anymore it seems. :(

I did not make a single change to my system.

Still here after Update to Neon/Ubuntu 18.04, pls fix that, its high time. Such al little bugger. I dont want to set insert_filename_i_forgot to readonly! after every update.

For me this issue gone long time ago. Last time I see it few months ago. Use two PC, one with OpenMandriva Lx3, second with Mageia.

Maybe this bug is related to "Don't save account credentials on this computer" check box?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/2g9wo6/steam_keeps_forgetting_my_login_details/

I have this problem as well.

Your system information
Steam client version (build number or date): Steam API v018 package version: 1540334245
Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Ubuntu 18.10
Opted into Steam client beta?: Yes
Have you checked for system updates?: Yes

Just happened yesterday after the steam beta client update. It was the first time it happened in a while, and I've had many updates where it did not happen.

I didn't saw this issue till I started using Steam in Flatpak.

I didn't saw this issue till I started using Steam in Flatpak.

Good to know! I am experiencing it with the official steam installer and repo. Sort of glad we aren't the only ones ?? :smiley:

I still see the issue from time to time. It's just so old that I've kind of stopped bothering (ie reporting) and just get it out of the way.

Seems as though we're destined to just live with it.

I still see the issue frequently enough i have stopped testing to see if it is fixed and just use the workaround. I hope this gets fixed in a way that it never shows it's ruely head again but i have stopped holding my breath.

same here, openSUSE Leap 15.0, none of the workarounds help.
Additional detauil, my ~ is on nfs - game library is not

Or try run: sudo chmod +x /home/user/.local/share/Steam/userdata/166793472/config
So try to go the steam folder and find the folder config, then run sudo chmod 777 config/

... I really do not see the point in those.

Same here on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS with steam-client build Nov 10 2018.

In my error, Steam could no access that folder, using chmod 777 or chmod +x will give the permission to read and write.

chmod 777 and chmod +x are not the same,

1. chmod 777 makes everything read,write, and execute
2. chmod +x adds executable to the existing permissions

2 years and still not fixed. What is going on? This is a basic feature.

+1
I just went to open Steam to play Fallout Shelter in my lunch break. Instead, because I left my phone elsewhere (Steam Guard), I'm on github adding a "me too" to this bug.

In my case, it seems to stay logged in fine for about a month. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Haven't noticed any patterns like distro updates or Steam updates that might relate. It just dies randomly.

I have to toss a +1 in on this one as well. I've tried all the workarounds here, and reinstalling my steam client to no avail. Currently I'm not opted into the beta, but I've switched in and out over the past couple of months, and to make matters worse, I'm attempting to temporarily convert my desktop into a living room gaming PC, so any time that the PC boots up, the Big Picture mode when using the -tenfoot parameter fails, as it does not even ask for credentials while in this state.

No solution here, just some sidenotes, which actually make me absolutely not understand why this isn't actually fixed since it seems to be a trivial problem.

Steam client seems to do the following:

• before start I have prepared an old registry.vdf, it's containing the main key HKCU, and contains everything including login info
• steam client starts
• around upgrade check it completely overwrites the file with a 146 byte long empty config, containing HKLM main key and SteamPID + TempAppCmdLine keys
• within half a second it removes the file completely
• after about 500ms later the file gets re-created from the defaults, HKCU main key and all the installed apps, but no steam PID or else
• after 30ms language=english gets appended
• then the UI starts and asks for user credentials (since it was removed)
• saves user credentials (AutoLoginUser and RememberPassword)
• after 3 seconds the client appends various uninteresting stuff there, then starts.

Then, we are about to leave.

• appends HKLM key to the file, with SteamPid=0
• in 200ms it completely overwrites the file with an empty HKLM key and, surprise, SteamPID=whatever. We've seen that above.
• almost immediately completely removes the file.
• then, as usual, re-creates the file from scratch from defaults, HKCU main key.
• append language, as above
• appends HKLM key at the end
• exits.

So, basically, the client keeps overwriting registry.vdf, first probably because it messes up its own registry keys, or don't handle the format other parts of itself have created, then removed the file completely (probably due to the same reason: missing keys) then recreates it from the defaults.

Recreating from defaults mean that most of the settings are forgotten, including stuff like login, hiDPI settings and plenty of other settings.

Preventing this is tricky: start the client, do all the settings, leave the setting window but do not let the client to restart, save registry.vdf at that point and/or make it immutable (chattr +i registry.vdf). Obviously anything changes you have to re-do the whole thing.

What I don't see why this isn't fixed since it's obvious to see where the problem could be: anything touching the file, or possibly detecting bad/missing keys and trigger regeneration may be the reason. It is fixed when the registry isn't touched/changed at all.

No solution here

But a workaround that works for me.
To be very clear, this window pops up every day the first time I'm trying to login :

I simply close this window, wait a few seconds, and start steam again.
And it magically logs in to my account.

No solution here

But a workaround that works for me.
To be very clear, this window pops up every day the first time I'm trying to login :

I simply close this window, wait a few seconds, and start steam again.
And it magically logs in to my account.

that workaround works for me only one out of five times...

@ Valve: fix it, now. you MAKE MONEY WITH THIS CRAP.

Still no workaround, but since the mobile auth is not responding to this login, Im gonna presume that it's probably got something to do with it.

Yet another "same".
System details:

OS: KDE neon User Edition 5.14 x86_64 
Kernel: 4.15.0-43-generic
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1400 (8) @ 3.200GHz 
GPU: AMD Radeon R7 360 
Memory: 7970MiB 

Actual working workaround:

• Log in on a Windows installation (or Wine? untested) with Remember Password
• Copy C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\config\config.vdf to ~/.local/share/Steam/config/config.vdf

May or may not need to set config.vdf/registry.vdf readonly or immutable. I didn't. Probably needs your registry.vdf to contain the AutoLoginUser / RememberPassword entries but that's always persisted fine for me.

How long have you had this "working"? I seriously doubt that is an actual fix but more of a lucky coincedence. It can go months without breaking (I haven't had this issue since about october).

As for setting the file to read only, yes, that does work (as has been previously mentioned multiple times) but it introduces issues with game downloads / updates should you shut down steam while one is in progress (ie: any downloaded data will be ingored and require redownloading).

How long have you had this "working"?

Credential storing has never worked for me and my steps makes it work. I don't care if it stops working after a couple months.

Could this be related?

I have another computer which is running the same linux dstribution, and which never shows this problem...

The only difference is that on that computer ~/.steam is on the local harddisk. On the one that keeps failing ~/.steam is from NFS.

Also, the one that keeps failing to store credentials also fails to update steam: https://gyazo.com/432c68b82fa26539e38e0f2f0609f42a

The one that works ok: https://gyazo.com/c9f9fed1d934741370174ec858cd2d21

Could this be related?

I have another computer which is running the same linux dstribution, and which never shows this problem...

The only difference is that on that computer ~/.steam is on the local harddisk. On the one that keeps failing ~/.steam is from NFS.

Also, the one that keeps failing to store credentials also fails to update steam: https://gyazo.com/432c68b82fa26539e38e0f2f0609f42a

The one that works ok: https://gyazo.com/c9f9fed1d934741370174ec858cd2d21

Nice thought, but I've had the issue on and off with multiple systems always using local storage. This system was doing it originally, but hasn't presented the problem in 3 or more months. What changed? Dunno.

Happened to me today, so I closed it and reopened and it logged me in. It probably wont work for everyone but in some cases might help.

It happened a few days ago. I tried reopening numerous times, but it did not help. I relented and put my credentials in again. And now it has been fine for a few days.

Could this be related?
I have another computer which is running the same linux dstribution, and which never shows this problem...
The only difference is that on that computer ~/.steam is on the local harddisk. On the one that keeps failing ~/.steam is from NFS.
Also, the one that keeps failing to store credentials also fails to update steam: https://gyazo.com/432c68b82fa26539e38e0f2f0609f42a
The one that works ok: https://gyazo.com/c9f9fed1d934741370174ec858cd2d21

Nice thought, but I've had the issue on and off with multiple systems always using local storage. This system was doing it originally, but hasn't presented the problem in 3 or more months. What changed? Dunno.

All I know is that I have two computers running steam on linux. One's a laptop using local storage, and so far I have had no problems with that one. The other has my user's home from nfs, and it fails to remember my login all the time, and it also fails to properly update the client.

I see this sometimes on Linux Mint 19--sometimes a bunch of times in a row, sometimes not for a while.

It hadn't occurred to me until just now that those times might have been (after) when my internet connection was interrupted. Could you confirm whether that would cause the client to "forget" my credentials?

If so, could you make this behaviour optional? :)

I started having this issue when I replaced my password recently. I was also using it at a friend's place for a day the day after I did the replacement.

It's unbelievable this issue hasn't been patched within 2 years, or at least give an idea on how to fix.

Valve, what are you doing????

@EramsorGR well we know what the issue is: The steam client is somehow deleting or resetting the registry.vdf file in the .steam folder. Setting it to 222 or 333 via chmod might fix the issue (it did for me). But since this iirc doesn't work with everyone, there might be several issues with the Mobile auth.

I set it to 444 via chmod for the .vdf file. Tried rebooting 2 times, logged in first try. I use the Mobile Auth (Steam Guard) so I guess if the token expires I will need to relogin or just enter the code.
It's a hotfix I guess.

I had to delete both legacydepotdata.vdf and registry.vdf from ~/.steam to fix this on my end. It would reset settings such as which skin to use, so beware, but since then it could save login properly on my end.

The files were probably corrupted somehow.

Setting ~/.steam/registry.vdf to 444 did seem to work for me. What consequences could it have in the future?

444 is read for owner, group and everyone else, and write denied for everyone (including the owner). 400 or 440 might be a better choice.
Obvious first consequence is that any user on the system can read (and copy) that file.
Another would be that eventually Steam will consider the contents invalid and won't be able to update it. Change back to 660 or similar if that happens.

I see. This starts happening again after there's an update and Steam updates itself. If there are no updates, Steam can auto-login just fine, until the next update that is. In which case I'll have to delete registry.vdf again cause it's already as good as being corrupted, at least from how I have to keep on entering my password again and again.

My registry.vdf was 777 and I'm still seeing this behaviour (saves fine until a Steam client update, at which point it forgets.)

Same issue for me.
You can bypass it by hardcoding the username and password if you're willing to do so:

steam -login username password

But that's not a very good solution and isn't really secure, too, so be careful with it.

Meet this issue recently after enabling steam guard. Cannot understand why?

And if I understand correctly, this issue has been over 2 years???

@Sraw maybe try this to solve the issue:
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/3059#issuecomment-504666060

@Ishidres You have luck, I have nothing :( It just doesn't work.

Have you tried each of the steps which I explained?

@Ishidres exactly. It might because I am using the steam guard?

Was this maybe fixed with 07/08/2019 beta client update??

The Client Beta has just been updated with the following changes:

General
Improved reliability of registry saving on Linux and macOS

Congratulations everyone. Confirmed that the latest(07/09) beta client doesn't solve this issue.

After the latest update this method, which I mentioned above, doesn't seem to work anymore, too.
Feels like valve actually tries to force Linux users to manually login on purpose... :confused:

Easy everyone. Bug that lasted that long likely have multiple places that need fixing. This was probably just one place that needed fixing.

Easy everyone. Bug that lasted that long likely have multiple places that need fixing. This was probably just one place that needed fixing.

Oddly it has not affected me for quite a while, and as mentioned by many the problem seems very sporadic and random. I agree. Bugs like this can be very hard to fix. We should be grateful they are at least trying to solve the issue.

GG.

On Wed, 10 Jul 2019, 14:10 nightsky30, [email protected] wrote:

Easy everyone. Bug that lasted that long likely have multiple places that
need fixing. This was probably just one place that needed fixing.

Oddly it has not affected me for quite a while, and as mentioned by many
the problem seems very sporadic and random. I agree. Bugs like this can be
very hard to fix. We should be grateful they are at least trying to solve
the issue.

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It looks like that if you upgrade to the latest beta version. And then reboot your computer. It will work. Well, at least on my computer.

If it works for you too, give this comment a "Laugh" so others can confirm.

I see. This starts happening again after there's an update and Steam updates itself. If there are no updates, Steam can auto-login just fine, until the next update that is. In which case I'll have to delete registry.vdf again cause it's already as good as being corrupted, at least from how I have to keep on entering my password again and again.

I don't have to do this again with the latest update (but I had to with the update before it), so I guess it has been fixed on my end.

Try to also delete registry.vdf (or possibly even legacydepotdata.vdf) to initiate a clean login without having to re-download all of your games.

UPDATE: It borks again, and there wasn't even any update. This is so shit.

Also happens to me after the todays updane and even chmod -w registry.vdf doesnt fix it.
@BobbyWibowo

The problem is that Steam tries to move any existing registry.vdf if present thus effectively forgetting any such settings on start (previously it just tried to write the defaults to that file on every start)

As a workaround for the auto-login, you must both make the registry.vdf read only and forbid file creation/deletion in its directory (~/.steam). However, you must re-enable both when you want to change settings (eg. language) BUT you MUST make sure that steam can't write to directory ~/.steam and file ~/.steam/registry.vdf when it starts (disabling the access during restart prompt works)

TL; DR: It appears that Steam started to work around the workaround with making ~/.steam/registry.vdf read only in the attempt of forgetting user settings in each start

Thanks @Ziktofel that actually did it.

I've crated a ~/.steam/registry.vdf file with only very basic content:

"Registry"
{
	"HKCU"
	{
		"Software"
		{
			"Valve"
			{
				"Steam"
				{
					"language"		"english"
					"AutoLoginUser"		"USERNAME"
					"RememberPassword"		"1"
					"SourceModInstallPath"		"/home/USERNAME/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/sourcemods"
					"AlreadyRetriedOfflineMode"		"0"
				}
			}
		}
	}
}

Then I set the directory and registry.vdf user rights to read-only for myself and to no-access for groups and everyone.

Update:

chmod 444 ~/.steam/registry.vdf
chmod 544 ~/.steam

works for me! Thanks for the solution! :)

@Ziktofel but why are they trying to make life harder for people ?

Since this is essentially the issue I'm having, I'll document my experience here.
I rebuilt my computer in spring this year; when I did, I switched to GNU/Linux on my PC from my aging Windows 7 installation. When I boot, about 90% of the time everything is fine; but the rest of the time, I'll experience a total system freeze/hard lockup. First, my input stops responding, then my screen stops receiving video, lastly all of my input/USB devices stop receiving power. With my system refusing to accept input, I'm forced to reboot. I've examined my system logs in journalctl, but nothing seems amiss, & I've found no evident trigger. Sometimes I don't even get a chance to login with this occurring at SDDM's prompt.

Each time this event occurs, I need to relogin to Steam because it forgets my credentials. I don't want to blame any software until I have some clues as to why this happens. The specificity of my issue has made finding any similar cases nigh impossible. Hopefully someone here can share their experience of this issue.

Since this is essentially the issue I'm having, I'll document my experience here.
I rebuilt my computer in spring this year; when I did, I switched to GNU/Linux on my PC from my aging Windows 7 installation. When I boot, about 90% of the time everything is fine; but the rest of the time, I'll experience a total system freeze/hard lockup. First, my input stops responding, then my screen stops receiving video, lastly all of my input/USB devices stop receiving power. With my system refusing to accept input, I'm forced to reboot. I've examined my system logs in journalctl, but nothing seems amiss, & I've found no evident trigger. Sometimes I don't even get a chance to login with this occurring at SDDM's prompt. Each time this event occurs, I need to relogin to Steam because it forgets my credentials. I don't want to blame any software until I have some clues as to why this happens. The specificity of my issue has made finding any similar cases nigh impossible. Hopefully someone here can share their experience.

I am pretty sure that this is kinda unrelated, cause that seems like a hardware issue to me, eg a bad (and/or aging) PSU

I am pretty sure that this is kinda unrelated, cause that seems like a hardware issue to me, eg a bad (and/or aging) PSU

All of my components are brand new (e.g., EVGA 80+ Gold PSU). This happened before I started overclocking, so that is unrelated as well. I know my system is fully stable for >5 hours under max load (mprime -t or compilation workloads are perfectly stable). The issue occurs immediately on or before login. It doesn't occur after having been booted up successfully.

You're probably right that this isn't directly related to others' issues here; but when my system locks up, it'd be nice for Steam not to corrupt its registry.vdf. When Windows has a BSOD does Steam forget your login credentials? My point being, it shouldn't happen ever ideally.

I just logged in again and made the registry.vdf read only. I'll edit this to inform whether it happens again.

So, I installed the steam client on a new laptop running Debian Sid, and noticed that this bug wasn't affecting it. Today, I migrated my primary workstation machine to Debian Bullseye, and installed Steam. Also wasn't affected by this bug. I then recreated my standard symlink for ~/.steam as ~/steam, and that was what triggered this issue for me. I tested several times after that, unlinking and confirming it auto-logged in with no symlink to .steam, then as soon as I created any symlink to that directory, it refused to retain my login info.

This is bizarre behaviour to me, since the symlink isn't how I'm launching steam, but if any symlink is present pointing to the default dir, it suddenly refuses to retain my login info. Maybe that helps the devs somewhat.

Can confirm that deleting the symlink I made for convenience worked for me as well, but what the heck is this kind of app behaviour?

Further testing, I can make a symlink to ~/.steam that is named anything other than (case insensitive) "steam" and it seems to work fine, ie it retains it's login info. It only seems to trigger if the symlink is in $HOME and is named any variation of case of the word "STEAM". Even naming it "nosteam" retains the info, so I suspect they are checking for the existence of the dir "~/steam", rather than any kind of regexp. You can also put a symlink named "steam" or any variation in a subdir like ~/Games/Steam and it's fine.

TL;DR: As a workaround, try renaming your steam convenience symlink to anything other than "steam", or put it in a subdir rather than $HOME.

I tried what you explained above, @cbacott, but additionally first deleted ~/.steampath (symlink pointing to ~/.steam/sdk32/steam which doesn't exist though) and ~/.steampid and then renamed the Steam folder ~/some/folder/.steam which links to ~/.steam to anything else not containing "steam" (e.g. ".my_games") and linked it to ~/.steam again.

It actually logged me in without asking for credentials. Afterwards I tried renaming .my_games to .steam and it still automatically logged me in. :thinking:

Either it's because of removing ~/.steampid or ~/.steampath or the renaming sort of reset a variable in Steam which prevented it from automatically logging in?

Can anyone reproduce the procedure above?

@Ishidres I'm a bit confused, you renamed the symlink .my_games which pointed at ~/.steam, to .steam? That won't work as you already have a directory named that, unless it then put the symlink in .steam and thus you have the symlink ~/.steam/.my_games. If this is the case, the launcher still doesn't see a ~/steam thus it works.

I'm sorry if it's a bit confusing to explain.

Before:

• my steam folder is stored under /home/ishidres/local/.steam.
• to make steam use this folder instead of saving in my home directory, I put a symlink called .steam in /home/ishidres which points to /home/ishidres/local/.steam

After:

• I deleted ~/.steampath and ~/.steampid (no ideas what these files do)
• I renamed /home/ishidres/local/.steam to /home/ishidres/local/.my_games
• I linked /home/ishidres/.steam back to /home/ishidres/local/.my_games

Restarting steam afterwards auto-logged me in which means I didn't have to enter any credentials! :tada:

Afterwards I renamed /home/ishidres/local/.my_games back to /home/ishidres/local/.steam and fixed the symlink at /home/ishidres/.steam to point to the correct folder location, however, Steam would still automatically log me in, when restarting.

This why I assume either

• deleting ~/.steampath and ~/.steampid fixed the issue
• or renaming /home/ishidres/.steam twice (.steam -> .my_games -> .steam) sort of fixed it

Since I don't know which one of above could have fixed it I wonder if anyone could reproduce what I described above.

Deleting ~/steam and ~/steamapps which where both convenience links fixed it for me. I also deleted ~/.steam which was recreated with correct user rights after launching Steam.

I had Steam installed under /home/tim/ProgramData/Steam. For me the following fixed it:

Stop/exit Steam if it's running, then:

cd ~
mv ProgramData/Steam ProgramData/Valve # could probably be anything that doesn't have 'steam' in the folder name
rm ~/.local/share/Steam && ln -s /home/tim/ProgramData/Valve/ ~/.local/share/Steam
rm ~/.steam && ln -s /home/tim/ProgramData/Valve/ ~/.steam

Then start steam and it should all be fixed

Nothing here is worked for me. And I have just tested with steam window version in dual boots, it have the same problem too.

The autologin setting and auth ticket are stored across ~/.steam/registry.vdf and ~/.steam/steam/config/config.vdf. If you are affected by this problem, consider sending me those files directly (don't post them publicly).

There are a lot of ways the autologin could fail, unfortunately the reports here are not providing much information to narrow down.

It seems most users affected by this have made modifications to the default steam folder setups, which is not a great thing to do in general.

Firstly, everyone should remember the general rule: "Don't give your password to anyone".While I don't think TTimo is acting in bad faith, you should consider it before sending the file.

Secondly, there are many different issues at play here:

For me for example, steam didn't approve of my ~/steam directory and thus overwrote the registry.vdf.

Nothing here is worked for me. And I have just tested with steam window version in dual boots, it ha[s] the same problem too.

Obviously doesn't have anything to do with linux, it might be user error or another bug.

I had Steam installed under /home/tim/ProgramData/Steam. For me the following fixed it:

Stop/exit Steam if it's running, then:

cd ~
mv ProgramData/Steam ProgramData/Valve # could probably be anything that doesn't have 'steam' in the folder name
rm ~/.local/share/Steam && ln -s /home/tim/ProgramData/Valve/ ~/.local/share/Steam
rm ~/.steam && ln -s /home/tim/ProgramData/Valve/ ~/.steam

Then start steam and it should all be fixed

Also has a directory called "steam" in ~/ . So I'd assume it's the same issue.

I didn't reproduce this bug for months! Is it finally gone or fixed? Ubuntu 19.10)

Same here, I have not experienced this problem for a few months now (Arch Linux).

Me neither (Linux Mint 19.3)

it hits off an on on opensuse. luckly it has not been an issue for about 5 months or more. I just dont trust that it wont rear it's ugly head agian.

Its still an issue for me on Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS, but on Kubuntu it doesnt happen

Can it be related to a VPN usage?

No.. Least not historically.

@Qik000 - my comment https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/5030#issuecomment-571232998 still applies. Feel free to find and edit out things that might look like your password hashes.

@Qik000 - my comment [#5030 (comment)](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/5030#issuecomment-571232998) still applies. Feel free to find and edit out things that might look like your password hashes.

I sent You an email

@Qik000 thank you! Your config files look fine and should be triggering the auto login paths.

When the problem happens - depending on how easy to reproduce - do you see the 'Connecting Steam account' dialog at all (the dialog that would normally do auto login), or does the 'Steam Login' dialog (with the 'Account name' and 'Password' fields) show up right away?

In any case - the Steam client does not verbose very well the auto login. I've added a few debug lines that will help diagnose if this continues to be a problem (that will be in a future steam beta client update).

Hi, on my laptop on which autologin works it just shows "connecying to account" and connects.On my pc it shows the dialog "create new account | login into an existing account", the same one You get after first opening Steam. Also it forgets the language setting on top of failing autologin, sorry i forgot to mention that.
null

I got new beta client update today and it's now automatically logging in properly!

I'm also experiencing this issue, on both my desktop and my notebook. I'm running Arch on both. My notebook is a fresh installation too, with nothing changed from the default config in the client (to rule that out).

The auto-login has worked in the past but then stopped working from one day to another. Unfortunately, I couldn't tell when exactly.

do you see the 'Connecting Steam account' dialog at all (the dialog that would normally do auto login)

This is the case for me, it seems to attempt the auto-login (displaying my username), but then the login mask comes up after all and I have to both enter my password and verify again with Steam Guard.

I've been trying to delete the registry.vdf and then re-activate the auto-login, but that doesn't work for me.

I'm usually running a VPN 24/7 if that could be related in some way. Though, I'm always using the same endpoint, so I'd imagine after the first login it would remember the location instead of thinking it's a new one (and purposefully not using the auto-login because of that). Temporarily disabling the VPN didn't resolve the issue either.

It's not a huge dealbreaker for me, but I'd like to see the issue resolved as well, of course.

@mserajnik can you provide a log of the steam client startup, since last time we looked at this I added some verbose to the auto login process which might help narrow down where the client decides to give up with it's attempt.

The symlink of ~/.steam to ~/steam was my culprit as well, THANK YOU!

This is still an issue on Ubuntu 18.04.1, tested with the latest steam version

can not reproduce this bug for several months now on Ubuntu 20.04.

It doesnt happen to me on Kubntu 20.04 and Debian 10, only on 18.04.1

doesn't happen to me on kubuntu 18.04

Ubuntu 18.04 is still supported by Valve? Should be replace by 20.04 now.

Ubuntu 18.04 is still supported by Valve? Should be replace by 20.04 now.

18.04 is an LTS release supported until something like 2024 (i dont remember exactly)

Ubuntu 18.04 is still supported by Valve? Should be replace by 20.04 now.

Both 16.04 and 18.04 are LTS releases and still are supported by Canonical.

Haven't had it happen to me in months, but today this bug popped up again in a weird way. Steam detected that something was wrong with my login and gave me this popup:

.

For the record I didn't change my credentials.

EDIT: I am on ubuntu 20.04

Further testing, I can make a symlink to ~/.steam that is named anything other than (case insensitive) "steam" and it seems to work fine, ie it retains it's login info. It only seems to trigger if the symlink is in $HOME and is named any variation of case of the word "STEAM". Even naming it "nosteam" retains the info, so I suspect they are checking for the existence of the dir "~/steam", rather than any kind of regexp. You can also put a symlink named "steam" or any variation in a subdir like ~/Games/Steam and it's fine.

Oh wow, this finally led me to figure out what was causing my issue: I had a separate zfs dataset mounted to ~/.local/share/Steam, and Steam apparently didn't like 'steam' being in the name of the dataset. What the hell?

I can confirm the login issue when there's a ~/steam symlink , removing the symlink solved the issue for me

What the heck why was this closed im still getting this issue

@TimestaticYT what Linux distribution are you using? What filesystem you choose for the main partition?

@legluondunet Im using Manjaro Gnome on Kernel 5.12 and my filesystem is ext4

Edit: Seems like the issue went away after a wwhile of leaving steam open. The issue was apperantly that i closed steam too fast

Deleting the ~/steam symlink fixed it for me! Thanks

For me, I opened the ~/.steam/registry.vdf and changed
"RememberPassword" "0"
to
"RememberPassword" "1"

Then I saved the file and now Steam working as how it should

I never had a ~/steam symlink. Editing value manually in ~/.steam/registry.vdf solved the issue.

It's either regression in recent months or a different issue with same result but this thread is what Google finds so I'm commenting here.