steam-launcher upon being removed leaves behind a file that causes annoying popups on login

steamclosed Distro Family: UbuntuValve-provided steam package

ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux#5566 · opened 2018-07-12 by immerrr · updated 2025-10-04 · 5 comments · github

Iimmerrr 2018-07-12 github

Your system information

Steam client version (build number or date): steam-launcher 1.0.0.54
Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Ubuntu 16.04
Opted into Steam client beta?: Not sure (pkg deleted)
Have you checked for system updates?: Yes

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

I have not too much free space on home partition, and not too much time to play, so let me start that it's quite inconvenient to have a fresh installation of steam client to take ~1.5Gb, but that's not the problem.
The problem is that those files are left behind when steam-launcher package is removed. And in addition to those files, one extra file is created at

/var/lib/update-notifier/user.d/steam-install-notify

that's not removed with the package and that bugs the user right after every login notifying them to

Start Steam to complete installation of the Steam for the current user.

which is impossible because the package is already deleted.

Steps for reproducing this issue:

wget http://repo.steampowered.com/steam/archive/precise/steam_latest.deb
`sudo dpkg -i steam_latest.deb; sudo apt-get install -y -f
sudo apt-get -y purge steam-launcher
Notice the files left behind.

MMy1 2024-04-03 github

deb -> control.tar.gz -> postinst

#!/bin/sh -e
# postinst script for steam
#
# see: dh_installdeb(1)

# Trigger an update to let our new udev rules be immediately effective without
# requiring a system reboot.
# Usually `--reload-rules` is unnecessary, but it doesn't do any harm.
udevadm control --reload-rules || true
udevadm trigger --action=change --sysname-match=uinput || true
udevadm trigger --action=change --subsystem-match=usb --attr-match=idVendor=28de || true
udevadm trigger --action=change --subsystem-match=hidraw || true

# popup update notification for the user to run Steam and complete the per-user install
PACKAGE=steam
UPDATENOTIFIERDIR=/var/lib/update-notifier/user.d
if [ -d $UPDATENOTIFIERDIR ] ; then
    cat >$UPDATENOTIFIERDIR/$PACKAGE-install-notify <<__EOF__
Name: Steam Installer
Priority: Medium
Command: /usr/bin/$PACKAGE
DontShowAfterReboot: False
ButtonText: Start Steam
DisplayIf: test ! -x ~/.steam/$PACKAGE/ubuntu12_32/steam
OnlyAdminUsers: False
Description: 
 Start Steam to complete installation of the Steam for the current user.
__EOF__
fi

# Automatically added by dh_installdeb
dpkg-maintscript-helper rm_conffile /etc/apt/sources.list.d/steam.list 1:1.0.0.76~ steam-launcher -- "$@"
# End automatically added section
# Automatically added by dh_installdeb
dpkg-maintscript-helper rm_conffile /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/steam.gpg 1:1.0.0.76~ steam-launcher -- "$@"
# End automatically added section

maybe something like if this file exists, delete it into postrm.

Ssmcv 2025-08-19 github

maybe something like if this file exists, delete it into postrm.

The beta package 1.0.0.84 behaves as suggested (but in the prerm). This version will be promoted from beta to stable after it has had some more testing.

Ssmcv 2025-08-27 github

This version will be promoted from beta to stable after it has had some more testing

Now done.

MMy1 2025-08-27 github

oh cool, thx.

Kkisak-valve maintainer 2025-10-04 github

Closing per the last handful of comments.

Nothing extracted yet.