Quick update on this issue. I tested it with my GTX 1070 and the bug disappears. I also have a r7-240 if that is required for testing. But I'd also like to mention I installed all the correct packages required for both graphics cards, and games functioned as expected with both configurations.

I'm having similar issues on my laptop. Many elements in Steam take a second or so to react to my input. I am, however, opted-in to the Steam Client beta.

Specs:

• CPU: Intel Core i7 4650U (something like that)
• GPU: Intel HD 5000 (Mesa 20.1.2)
• RAM: 8GB
• Storage: 512GB SSD
• Display: 1440p
• OS: Fedora 32 Workstation (GNOME 3.36 Wayland)
• Kernel: Linux 5.7.6

Quick update on this issue. I tested it with my GTX 1070 and the bug disappears. I also have a r7-240 if that is required for testing. But I'd also like to mention I installed all the correct packages required for both graphics cards, and games functioned as expected with both configurations.

Seeing as this is an NVIDIA card I'm curious, do you usually use Wayland with the AMD card? I presume you'd use X.Org when using an NVIDIA card.

Steam Client is based on Chromium renderer, which has disabled hardware acceleration on ALL (?) graphics cards based on Mesa (tested on Vega 10 and RX 5700 XT).
Ouch.

I tested it with wayland on my AMD r7-240, this does appear to be a bug only effecting AMD based graphics cards. Though I only tested it on wayland, that might be the issue instead. I tried xorg, but I couldn't log in with xorg on gnome for some reason.

I tested it with wayland on my AMD r7-240, this does appear to be a bug only effecting AMD based graphics cards.

Did you miss my comment? I'm having similar issues on Intel.

Though I only tested it on wayland, that might be the issue instead. I tried xorg, but I couldn't log in with xorg on gnome for some reason.

I'll try on X.Org. Might be why.

Steam Client is based on Chromium renderer, which has disabled hardware acceleration on ALL (?) graphics cards based on Mesa (tested on Vega 10 and RX 5700 XT).
Ouch.

I had to disable hardware acceleration in Steam on my desktop (which is not affected by this issue in particular) due to web views randomly going black, to this issue does not seem to originate from a lack of hardware acceleration. I have an NVIDIA card there running non-Mesa drivers though.

Did you miss my comment? I'm having similar issues on Intel.

Sorry I misread your HD 5000 assuming it was an ATI Radeon HD 5xxx GPU

Did you miss my comment? I'm having similar issues on Intel.

Sorry I misread your HD 5000 assuming it was an ATI Radeon HD 5xxx GPU

My apologies, I should definitely have clarified that.

Some observations:

• I'm able to reproduce this in GNOME Wayland
• I'm not able to reproduce this in neither GNOME X.Org, Sway, nor Plasma (Wayland).

Sounds like a Mutter Wayland bug, hmm?

Pop_OS! 20.04 user, my system information

I can confirm that Steam is fine on X, but is extremely laggy on Wayland.

I'm unable to reproduce this any more on fully updated Fedora 32.

Same problem here, my Steam UI freezes constantly. It takes few seconds to register clicks.
I tried to disable GPU acceleration, enabled low bandwidth and low performance modes with no effect.
This seems to be problem only on Wayland, Steam works completely normal on Xorg.

Specs:

- CPU: ryzen 7 3700x
- GPU: rx 5700 xt
- GPU drivers: Mesa 20.1.2
- RAM: 16GB
- Storage: 256GB NVMe SSD
- Display: 1080p 144Hz
- OS: openSUSE Tumbleweed (GNOME 3.36.4 Wayland)
- Kernel: 5.7.7
- Steam Beta: No
full_system_info.txt

After a few days, I noticed that the issue was happening intermittently. After some investigation, the issue seems to be related to the "Friends & Chat" popup window:

Here are my findings:

It seems lag in a GNOME Wayland setting is caused by the friends window being open on the same monitor as the main steam window. Closing the friends window by clicking the top-right x, or moving the friends window to a different monitor, or moving the main steam window to a different monitor, instantly makes the main steam window responsive and lag-free again.

The latest steam update might fix this issue, can anyone confirm?

I tested the latest stable and beta Steam, but the issue isn't fixed on my i5-7200U laptop or 3700x+5700XT desktop. Both are running an up-to-date Pop_OS 20.04

I have had this issue as well. I think it has something to do with the new fossilize feature that processes shader pre-caching in the background. I will see a few fossilized_replay processes running in my system monitor, and if I open Steam settings and look under shader pre-caching it will show which games are being processed and the percentage complete. Until it finishes Steam is unusable slow, and it does this almost every time I start Steam. There are options that disable it, which might stop Steam from getting really slow, but I haven't tried that because I think it does help some games a lot if I am patient enough to let it finish.

I have started just letting stay open and not shutdown at night, which seem to help, but if there is a Steam update and it needs to restart I have to wait for a good long while for it to finish pre-caching again.

Edit: Here is my system_info.

I have had this issue as well. I think it has something to do with the new fossilize feature that processes shader pre-caching in the background. I will see a few fossilized_replay processes running in my system monitor, and if I open Steam settings and look under shader pre-caching it will show which games are being processed and the percentage complete. Until it finishes Steam is unusable slow, and it does this almost every time I start Steam.

If this was the case, why would it only happen in XWayland?

I have had this issue as well. I think it has something to do with the new fossilize feature that processes shader pre-caching in the background. I will see a few fossilized_replay processes running in my system monitor, and if I open Steam settings and look under shader pre-caching it will show which games are being processed and the percentage complete. Until it finishes Steam is unusable slow, and it does this almost every time I start Steam.

If this was the case, why would it only happen in XWayland?

Might be different issues. I'm using X.org, not XWayland in my case.

Actually, in my case this my not be an issue for me any more. It seems to be responsive for me even while it is doing the background shader pre-caching now. I think a recent update may have resolved it.

Same issue here.
Fedora 32 on wayland.
Closing the friends window stops the lag.
system_information.txt

Still present on fedora 33 beta

Still present on arch using mesa-git

Just in case it is helpful to the devs, I've made a short video demonstrating the problem:

https://youtu.be/Pp-TYBuqm7w

I have been struggling with this for months with sway on gentoo. I have noticed that the issue impacts the steamvr overlay as well so if you're in VR and somebody messages you the overlay will become unusable and in one case the framerate of the game was halved.

Can confirm Sway on Debian Testing

Just to check are people still getting this issue?

Just to check are people still getting this issue?

Yes.

Still an issue for me as well. On a fresh install of Arch Linux Gnome Wayland with a 5700xt using Mesa
Closing the Friends list instantly cures the problem. Kind of annoying.

Hello, same issue with Ubuntu 20.10 Gnome Wayland. But thanks to @Waddlen for the very efficient workaround ! (Close the "Friends & Chat" popup window)

Upgraded from Fedora 33 to Fedora 34 - I don't have this issue anymore.

Fedora 34 beta + GNOME wayland, issue still present for me.

After a few days, I noticed that the issue was happening intermittently. After some investigation, the issue seems to be related to the "Friends & Chat" popup window:

Here are my findings:
Main Steam Window Location Steam Friends Window Location Lag?
Monitor 1 N/A (closed) No lag
Monitor 2 N/A (closed) No lag
Monitor 1 Monitor 1 Lag
Monitor 1 Monitor 2 No lag
Monitor 2 Monitor 1 No lag
Monitor 2 Monitor 2 Lag

It seems lag in a GNOME Wayland setting is caused by the friends window being open on the same monitor as the main steam window. Closing the friends window by clicking the top-right x, or moving the friends window to a different monitor, or moving the main steam window to a different monitor, instantly makes the main steam window responsive and lag-free again.

Can someone PIN this as an workaround is to move the friends picture into another workspace.

I found that turning off animated avatars in the friends list settings effectively fixes the problem for me
(gear on top-right of Friends List -> Friends List -> Enable Animated Avatars... -> set to OFF)

I can confirm workaround for friends list is working however it will start to lag again when you open chat window.
I also upgraded to Fedora 34 and this bug is still active.

I am Using an Radeon 5700 with mesa Driver on Manjaro. My Desktop is Gnome-Wayland (the only one where i encountered the error)

It is still there.

But i have one more Info:

• I use also an animated Profile Picture.
• when Steam is open and also the Friends Window
  there are 2 Situations:
• The Friends Window is on Top of each other Window or at least some Pixels of it are visible → no Lag
• The Friends Windows is completely covered from any other Window → The Lag is there
  The lag renders steam

unusable :-) but at least now with the Information from this Thread i can still use everything and workaround the Issue.

(even covering the Friends Window completely with the own Main Window triggers the Lag (and in that Lag situation any Steam Window is only movable with the [Meta]+[Left mouseclick - Drag] or with the activity view and dragging the Window to another Activity)

I have tested it now on KDE Plasma Wayland and the Lag was not Triggered.
I have added an hwinfo.txt if that may have relevant information.

hwinfo.txt.tar.gz

Reporting that I experienced this issue today on Fedora 34 from the news and updates popup.
My guess it that it was due to an animation in the picture.
Closing it resolves the issue and steam UI performs normally.

--

I have already disabled animations on the friends list and had that closed. I have been aware of and dealing with the problem coming from there, but this is the first time I have seen it from a store update popup

Issue present in Ubuntu 20 & Gnome 3.36 & Wayland with AMD GPU. The Friends window to another workspace workaround works.

now that ubuntu 21.04 is out, which uses Wayland as default, this problem will now probably affect a much wider range of users (especially since Wayland now seems actually usable).

Anyhow, can confirm the "put Friends on other monitor" works. Disabling animated avatars does NOT.

I've been having this issue on Sway/wayland for about a year now.

It seems that it happens when one of the steam windows is obscured.

Examples:

• Friends window open on another workspace
• Friends window tabbed with main steam window, hidden
• Fullscreen video playing, obscuring the main store window (it used to cause it, but I could not reproduce today).

Disabling animated avatars and frames seems to help. My previous workaround was to put the friends list visible on the second monitor. I wonder if that is somehow related to this:

Currently when any main hardware screen is powered off, the X.Org Server initializes the fake screen to a one second update interval

It certainly looks like the main window is updated at about 1 FPS. If the main window and other windows (such as friends list) share a timer for repaint events, it could be that an obscured window gets such events at a much lower framerate, thereby limiting that of other windows.

That's a theory anyway, I hope this helps somehow.

Operating System Version:
    Description:	Freedesktop.org 20.08.14 (Flatpak runtime) (64 bit)
    Kernel Name:  Linux
    Kernel Version:  5.13.9-zen1-1-zen
    X Server Vendor:  The X.Org Foundation
    X Server Release:  12101002
    X Window Manager:  wlroots wm
    Steam Runtime Version:  steam-runtime_0.20210721.1

Video Card:
    Driver:  AMD AMD Radeon (TM) R9 Fury Series (FIJI, DRM 3.41.0, 5.13.9-zen1-1-zen, LLVM 11.1.0)
    Driver Version:  4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 21.1.4 (git-ac105a8e6e)
    OpenGL Version: 4.6
    Desktop Color Depth: 24 bits per pixel
    Monitor Refresh Rate: 59 Hz
    VendorID:  0x1002
    DeviceID:  0x7300
    Revision Not Detected
    Number of Monitors:  2
    Number of Logical Video Cards:  1
    Primary Display Resolution:  1920 x 1080
    Desktop Resolution: 3000 x 1920
    Primary Display Size: 18.90" x 10.63" (21.65" diag)
                                            48.0cm x 27.0cm (55.0cm diag)
    Primary VRAM: 4096 MB

To (partially) trigger this for me it is enough to
open steam -> right click any game -> settings -> compatibility -> uncheck the checkbox
(the unchecking /fading out alone already feels slow).
Then general navigation in the settings window, but also kind of in the main Steam window is extremely slow (can re-initialize though after unknown time/function call or key/mouse combination)
With some luck this gets auto resolved with the new (Steam Deck) UI

Turing off animated avatars fixed the problem. Now I wont have to sign out and close the friends list to be able to use the steam client. Does not happen on x,org but wayland for me.

Turing off animated avatars fixed the problem. Now I wont have to sign out and close the friends list to be able to use the steam client. Does not happen on x,org but wayland for me.

It doesn't fix it for me. It makes it less bad, but definitely not fixed.

I see this issue on Fedora 34 with AMD's RX480.
If I open any of top menu and then move mouse left and right it is visible stutter and main window loses shadow as if Mutter decide that it lost focus.

still here same issue

I can't even get the window to open. When I right click on the icon in the system tray, it takes over 20 seconds for the menu to pop up, then when I click on any entry in it, nothing happens other than the menu going away, not even the exit Steam entry. The only way I can end steam is to kill the process. This is after it updated today, but I can't tell you that update's version because I CAN'T GET INTO THE THING! ~I can't even get in to stop it from starting minimized to the System Tray to see if it may be responsive from the main window.~ There needs to be a way to back out of updates that trash the program so bad we can't do anything but sit here and curse the devs for this update. Now I'm stuck here until someone figures out what they did to screw it up so bad it won't do anything and fixes it, and I have no idea if leaving this broken thing running will even update itself, let alone notify me that it did.

Operating System: KDE neon 5.22
KDE Plasma Version: 5.22.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.86.0
Qt Version: 5.15.3
Kernel Version: 5.11.0-37-generic (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11
Processors: 16 × AMD Ryzen 7 3800X 8-Core Processor
Memory: 15.6 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT

Well, it seems to have sorted itself out somewhat. After leaving it closed for a few hours and watching some Twitch streams instead of playing my own games, it's now responding properly after starting. Also, ignore that opening to task bar in my previous comment (really wish there was a strikeout char in this editor), there is no setting to start minimized to tray, I'm not sure what I was thinking there. I was probably getting things mixed up in my frustration.

It seems lag in a GNOME Wayland setting is caused by the friends window being open on the same monitor as the main steam window. Closing the friends window by clicking the top-right x, or moving the friends window to a different monitor, or moving the main steam window to a different monitor, instantly makes the main steam window responsive and lag-free again.

I found that turning off animated avatars in the friends list settings effectively fixes the problem for me
(gear on top-right of Friends List -> Friends List -> Enable Animated Avatars... -> set to OFF)

I can confirm that both of these workarounds still work. I upgraded from Ubuntu 21.04 to 21.10 which set Wayland as default again without me noticing and I ran into this issue.

I switched back to X11 and everything works as expected again. Since Wayland has other issues on GNOME as well I'm fine with this workaround for now.

Issue is still persists on Gnome + Wayland. Disabling animated avatars does not solving problem, but closing friends window or moving it to the second screen does help.

OS: Manjaro Gnome Quonos 21.2.1
Gnome version: 41.2

Same issue/solution here when using XWayland. Disabling animated avatars does not fix, moving friends to a different screen does.

OS: Fedora 35
Kernel: 5.14.17-301.fc35.x86_64
GNOME: 41.3
GPU: 6900XT
Mesa: 21.3.3
CPU: 5900X

Displays:
2560x1440@144Hz
2560x1440@120Hz
1920x1080@60Hz

I am having this issue on NixOS (Porcupine 21.11) + GNOME Wayland + 6900XT + 1080/240HZz.

My avatar has an animated border, closing or moving the friends panel to another screen works.

I think we have confirmed that this indeed is a problem, and what the reproducers are. It would be nice if we could stop posting more comments about that we have the issue and leave space for updates and such. I am personally staying subscribed to this just in case it gets fixed or there's some other interesting update, but all the "me too" comments create a lot of unnecessary noise.

Another interesting thing I found is that if focus is not on Steam main window, it can behave normal, for example I focus firefox, then move mouse to Steam window and scroll mouse wheel (but not press any button, just hover), it scrolls smoothly.

This issue is still very present in the latest Steam client release. Using Fedora 35 with Wayland. Usual workarounds are still working.

Fedora 36 + GNOME 42 + Wayland here, disabling Animated Avatars & Animated Avatar Frames on the friends window seems to fix the performance issues for me

Tried this on Fedora 35 with Wayland, seems to have fixed the issues for me too. Thanks for pointing this one out :)

I have the same issue -- Running Debian 11 on a Panasonic FZ-55, on Gnome 3.38.5. Running integrated graphics (Mesa Intel® UHD Graphics 620 (WHL GT2)). Haven't tried using my Radeon Pro WX 4150 (not sure how to switch to it).

EDIT: WTF? Closing my friends panel made it a lot more responsive! Hooray!

Well yea, that's what's been said for 2 years now.

Also: 2 Years?!!!?!!?! Valve I thought you loved Linux. What gives?

It seems lag in a GNOME Wayland setting is caused by the friends window being open on the same monitor as the main steam window. Closing the friends window by clicking the top-right x, or moving the friends window to a different monitor, or moving the main steam window to a different monitor, instantly makes the main steam window responsive and lag-free again.

Intestingly enough, for me it was the opposite. If I put them on separate monitors, focused other windows, and then switched back to steam, it was barely responsive. If I had them on the same monitor, this didn't happen.

Disabling animated avatars in steam friends did indeed seem to fix the issue. Very strange bug.

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/7245#issuecomment-663629964

I have same issue.

Summary
-------

-Computer-
Processor		: AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX with Radeon Graphics
Memory		: 15769MB (3471MB used)
Machine Type		: Notebook
Operating System		: Ubuntu 21.10
User Name		: andrii (Andrii)
Date/Time		: вт, 10-тра-2022 14:12:58 +0300
-Display-
Resolution		: 2560x1440 pixels
OpenGL Renderer		: AMD RENOIR (LLVM 14.0.1, DRM 3.41, 5.13.0-40-generic)
X11 Vendor		: The X.Org Foundation
-Audio Devices-
Audio Adapter		: HDA-Intel - HDA ATI HDMI
Audio Adapter		: HDA-Intel - HD-Audio Generic
Audio Adapter		: HDA-Intel - HD-Audio Generic
-Input Devices-
 Lid Switch
 Power Button
 Sleep Button
 Video Bus
 KYE SYSTEMS CORP. Wired Mouse
 Asus Keyboard
 Asus Wireless Radio Control
 Asus WMI hotkeys
 HDA ATI HDMI HDMI/DP,pcm:3
 HD-Audio Generic HDMI/DP,pcm:3
 ASUE120A:00 04F3:319B Mouse
 ASUE120A:00 04F3:319B Touchpad
 HD-Audio Generic Headset Mic
 HD-Audio Generic Headphone
-Printers-
No printers found

Operating System
----------------

-Version-
Kernel		: Linux 5.13.0-40-generic (x86_64)
Version		: [#45](/issue/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/45)-Ubuntu SMP Tue Mar 29 14:48:14 UTC 2022
C Library		: GNU C Library / (Ubuntu GLIBC 2.34-0ubuntu3.2) 2.34
Distribution		: Ubuntu 21.10
-Current Session-
Computer Name		: Strix-G513QY
User Name		: andrii (Andrii)
Language		: LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8;LC_NUMERIC=uk_UA.UTF-8;LC_TIME=uk_UA.UTF-8;LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8;LC_MONETARY=uk_UA.UTF-8;LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8;LC_PAPER=uk_UA.UTF-8;LC_NAME=uk_UA.UTF-8;LC_ADDRESS=uk_UA.UTF-8;LC_TELEPHONE=uk_UA.UTF-8;LC_MEASUREMENT=uk_UA.UTF-8;LC_IDENTIFICATION=uk_UA.UTF-8 (en_US.UTF-8)
Home Directory		: /home/andrii
-Misc-
Uptime		: 27 minutes
Load Average		: 2,63, 1,36, 0,98
Available entropy in /dev/random		: 3625 bits (healthy)

I'm having similar issues as others. Though, this only happens on Wayland/XWayland.

Xorg was overall stable, but Steam on Xwayland/Wayland is just horrible, and in addition to the slow performance, Steam would occasionally crash and sometimes causes plasmashell to freeze or stutter.

• OS: Fedora 36 Workstation (GNOME 42)
• Desktop mode: Wayland
• Kernel: 5.17.11-300.fc36.x86_64
• NVIDIA driver: 510.68.02 (latest as of writing)
• Steam: "Build 28 May 2022".

It works fine on X11. It is awful on Wayland.

Here are the things I have noted:

• With default Steam settings, you get freezes of several seconds at a time if you try to chat with friends in Steam Chat. The chat input barely even registers. It's absolutely and utterly unusable. The window constantly flickers into a big, black square instead of rendering itself.
• Separating the Steam Chat from the rest of steam, by putting the Main Steam window (store etc) on a different workspace on GNOME, or closing the window entirely, fixes the extreme sluggishness, but the Chat Window still flickers black occasionally.
• Going into friends list settings and disabling "Animated Avatars" reduced the amount of black flickering in the Chat Window.

Conclusion:

• Close or move main steam window to another screen than your chat window/friends list window.
• Disable animated avatars to further reduce the issues Steam has on Wayland.

This is the workaround for now.

It's sad that no progress has been made in 2 years on this ticket. But now that Steam Deck is out I hope for some development on fixing this. :)

Another issue I noticed on Wayland: Steam videos cannot play fullscreen anymore.

• Go into any product page, play the video, and try to fullscreen it: Black screen.
• Paste a youtube link into steam chat, play it and try to fullscreen it: Black screen.

Audio still continues playing. Cursor is still visible. And if you click the black screen, it pauses the video.

Workaround for now: In steam chat, you can drag the corner of the window to resize it without making it fullscreen. This lets you make it large enough to watch decently. Alternatively, copy the URL and watch it in a browser instead.

I have the same issue. No progress since two years..?

I guess it's because Wayland was extremely unpopular until this year (2022). Now that NVIDIA has basically-perfect Wayland support, there's been a huge interest in it and it has finally become the default mode on several distros. And Steam Deck also uses Wayland. So I hope that valve will take this issue seriously since Wayland is finally being used by a lot more people.

Bananaman, i agree that Wayland is getting more and more popular now because more distri are using it as the standard.
But for example it ist no general wayland problem. it seem to depend on the way the specifiv wayland DE is developed.

In general it is now different than it was with X11. With X11 there was a huge codebase shared over all Desktops - the actual X11 server and Libs.
Now with Wayland there is no standard server, but a defined standard Protocol. Every DE and WM has to program mostly all for itself (maybe copy from other and integrate, sometimes use already ready libriaries) and follow that standard protocols so that everything should be compatible.

At least that is how i understand the Wayland Desktops.

That may be explaining why with KDE Plasma → the Wayland version there is working everything fine (to stress it one more Time - also Wayland!)
And on the Gnome - wayland Session is some type of bug. I can't say where exactly, maybe within some gnome parts, maybe within Xwayland, maybe in the Steam client itself. But which is especialy triggered on Gnome-wayland (and maybe other Wayland Desktops, but noch KDE)

Edit:
Also The steamdeck is using Gamescope with the client i think?
From Reddit 10 Month ago:
"Level 1
·
vor 10 Monaten

A valve employee confirmed that SteamOS uses gamescope, a custom Wayland compositor in game mode."

So it isn't even using a Desktop :-) til you explicitly change to the Desktop mode. And what that is using is another story. at least that that is KDE is fact for now.

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/7245#issuecomment-1146363254

i have the same issue on Plasma: works well on x11, but crashes almost all the time on Wayland.
The steam client usually crashes when i connect my xbox controller (a little notification happens but doesn't disapear like it should, and the client freezes after this). It also crashes randomly when processing vulkan shaders (i ticked "process shaders in background", so those freezes happen almost all the time).

I have no logs atm.

A valve employee confirmed that SteamOS uses gamescope, a custom Wayland compositor in game mode."

So it isn't even using a Desktop :-) til you explicitly change to the Desktop mode. And what that is using is another story. at least that that is KDE is fact for now.

Isn't the Arch version of Steam package, programed in 32bit architecture ?
i quote the Archwiki:

multilib contains 32-bit software and libraries that can be used to run and build 32-bit applications on 64-bit installs (e.g. wine, steam, etc).

I don't think it is linked to our problem, yet it's probably not helping...

Get something like this on Plasma Wayland with RX 6600. After the launch steam window is completely unresponsive. If i right-click on steam icon in tray, menu pop-up after several seconds - much longer than usually. X11 works fine

Probably some regression from KDE 5.26. Or maybe mesa 22.2. I've recently updated to manjaro unstable and do not have this problem on laptop with manjaro stable and Vega 7

Yep steam on GNU is dogsh!t, especially with tiling window managers.

Clicking Links = Freezing Entire Steam
Too many Steam windows = 1fps steam mode
Unfocused highlighted windows = spam annoying steam bell noise

Much Cringe Such Fail

I had this laggy problem with steam on Ubuntu 22.04 using X11 with GTX660M as discrete GPU and now I have the same problem in Fedora37 with GPU 3070ti using Wayland. Using library or chat it's so annoyingly laggy, on Ubuntu I had to run it as steam -no-browser with small mode so it won't affect my games.

Later edit: on Fedora 37, I've stopped the animation for the avatars from "Friends" settings and it seems to stop lagging as it was said by someone before.

I'm having similar issues as others. Though, this only happens on Wayland/XWayland.

The issue here seemed to have been fixed for me but came back. I wondered how it could have come back and indeed, I think it's because my Ubuntu box was updated to use Wayland as default.

Aside from disabling animated avatars, I was also able to fix the issue by unfriending everyone with an animated avatar.

Ubuntu 22.04
Gnome 42.5

Disabling animated avatars, or turning off hardware acceleration did not help at all. More often than not, the client would freeze instantly, as it reaches the store frontpage

Fedora 37 (Gnome), basic Steam install from the Software app.
Chat (in overlay or separate) is super laggy and sometimes also misses keystrokes.

As I said previously, I think it is clear how this issue can be reproduced. It would be nice if we could stop posting "me-too" comments so that people subscribed to this issue for actual updates can get to see those without receiving email from people confirming that they too can reproduce this. Granted, if you have something new to add that's great, but most of the comments here only repeat what others already have said.

This issue still isn't fixed. @Waddlen's observations make for a suitable workaround, but this has been an issue for over 2 years, & it's ridiculous this was marked as 'closed' when it persists.

As I said previously, I think it is clear how this issue can be reproduced. It would be nice if we could stop posting "me-too" comments so that people subscribed to this issue for actual updates can get to see those without receiving email from people confirming that they too can reproduce this. Granted, if you have something new to add that's great, but most of the comments here only repeat what others already have said.

Copium.

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/7245#issuecomment-663629964

I also have found it directly related to the Friends Chat Window as well. As soon as I closed it Steam became responsive.

read the comments, deactivate the animation for the avatars from "Friends" settings, for me this solved it.

read the comments, deactivate the animation for the avatars from "Friends" settings, for me this solved it.

Thanks I missed that comment. I performed the actions you suggested. Sorry.

read the comments, deactivate the animation for the avatars from "Friends" settings, for me this solved it.

Thanks I missed that comment. I performed the actions you suggested. Sorry.

I did the same thing and it eliminated all of my lag on Steam (of course, I'm using Wayland on my Inspiron Laptop,) maybe its something about allocating everything to the animated picture and picture frames lol. Whatever it may be, I hope it gets fixed soon, such a funny issue.

No wonder SteamOS' desktop mode / KDE session still uses X11 lol, w/ Wayland the Steam client can't run an expected & desirable feature (icon animations) w/o slowing to a crawl. Not really acceptable, especially years later. A workaround isn't a fix.

I can also confirm this happened to me.

Manjaro Linux, Gnome 43.2 Wayland with Kernel 6.1.7-1-MANJARO #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC running a Radeon 6700XT. I had to disable animated avatars in the friends list, and Steam instantly became responsive again.

Also, moving the friends list onto another monitor with the animations active also worked around the issue.

Same thing on a fresh install of Ubuntu 22.10 with 5.19.0-29-generic #30-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC kernel. Also a Radeon 6700XT.

The only error I see in the logs directly is this, but it happens even with disabling animated avatars and closing the friends list completely. So I'm guessing its unrelated.

(steam:14081): GLib-CRITICAL **: 19:05:21.963: g_main_context_push_thread_default: assertion 'acquired_context' failed
(steam:14081): GLib-CRITICAL **: 19:05:21.963: g_main_context_pop_thread_default: assertion 'g_queue_peek_head (stack) == context' failed

Glad to see this is open again at least…

Glad to see this is open again at least…

When was it ever closed?

When was it ever closed?

Mistaken, my bad.

No wonder SteamOS' desktop mode / KDE session still uses X11 lol, w/ Wayland the Steam client can't run an expected & desirable feature (icon animations) w/o slowing to a crawl. Not really acceptable, especially years later. A workaround isn't a fix.

I don't think it's a Wayland problem, I had before Ubuntu with X11 and I had the same problem I have now with Fedora and Wayland.

I had before Ubuntu with X11 and I had the same problem I have now with Fedora and Wayland.

Now that you mention it, my recollection says the same. Even worse.

I don't think it's a Wayland problem, I had before Ubuntu with X11 and I had the same problem I have now with Fedora and Wayland.

You probably have a different issue that had the same effect on X11. Using X11 makes Steam run fine, alas compared to Wayland makes Steam slow to a crawl unless if you turn off animated avatar borders/avatars icons, which is true on a fresh Ubuntu install (some distros vary, like pop!_OS which use X11 as default no matter what hardware you use as of now, which I've recently moved to because it's pretty good.)
Probably something to do with how Steam utilizes itself on Wayland, most of Steam windows are a chromium process iirc, maybe an update to the chromium process software could fix it?

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/7245#issuecomment-1421287531

I don't know, I was using Ubuntu 22.04.. with X11 on a Lenovo laptop and now I'm using Fedora 37 with Wayland on another Lenovo laptop. On both I was using and am using the flatpak edition of Steam.

I don't know, I was using Ubuntu 22.04.. with X11 on a Lenovo laptop and now I'm using Fedora 37 with Wayland on another Lenovo laptop. On both I was using and am using the flatpak edition of Steam.

Did you give it any permissions, like GPU Acceleration? Because I'm using the normal package from Steam's website (deb) and it worked fine, of course with the Wayland issue.
Flatpak Steam is known to have some issues, alas like with the normal permissions for Flatpak Steam, Left 4 Dead 2 mods do not work correctly.

I didn't need to give it permissions, beside the animation problem I didin't have any.

@Munoida Steam via flatpak keeps it's $HOME in .var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/, so paths must be relative to that location. Your issue is likely related to that.

Please open a separate issue however, that's not realy the topic at hand here. Generally, running via Flatpak is a bit more reliable since Steam assumes a lot of dependency versions which might vary with distribution packages.

@Munoida Steam via flatpak keeps it's $HOME in .var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/, so paths must be relative to that location. Your issue is likely related to that.

Please open a separate issue however, that's not realy the topic at hand here. Generally, running via Flatpak is a bit more reliable since Steam assumes a lot of dependency versions which might vary with distribution packages.

However that wasn't my issue, its not with Left 4 Dead trying to find the mods, it finds them, it just can't utilize them properly, and the issue is already open here https://github.com/flathub/com.valvesoftware.Steam/issues/851

I do see your point about Flatpak Steam being a bit more reliable, which albeit, fair enough, I just thought it would've been appropriate to bring it up due to some stuff Flatpak Steam can miss at times.

Interestingly I only had this occur once I downgraded from a CPU & GPU to a 5700G - perhaps ordinary cards can pave over the issue with "brute force"?

I too am using a laptop APU.

The issue is so annoying, The lag is also present when a Steam library in another SSD is present.

I'm on Linux Mint 21, RTX3070 Max-Q (driver 525.85.12), I7-11850H

I've tried this on Ubuntu 22.04, Pop 22.04, Arch Linux KDE. All Wayland and x11. On wayland I encountered this issue on every single distro. On x11 I had none.

However, as stated before on this issue, closing the friends list fixed every single freeze on the app. That's sus!

had this issue for a while now. first with Radeon vega 64 and now with 7900xtx. I think running X11 indeed removed the issue, but would rather use wayland. as stated closing friends window and main steam window removes the issue. Often just transferring windows to different desktop fixes it too. Would be nice if this finally got fixed.

Fedora 35-37

Issue still reproducible on Intel Arc A750 on Ubuntu 23.04 (default 6.2 kernel and Mesa 23.0.2 and Wayland). Closing the friends list still fixes it.

I can't reproduce this any more with the new beta client: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/593110/view/3686801719529689367

Fingers crossed it's not just a fluke.

Can corroborate w/ @Newbytee that the latest beta client seems to be performing perfectly w/o disabling any animations & under the Wayland window server (on Ubuntu 22.04.2, in my case).

I can't reproduce this any more with the new beta client: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/593110/view/3686801719529689367

Fingers crossed it's not just a fluke.

I don't think it is, look at the update notes!

The technical work in this update also makes it possible to enable hardware acceleration for the Mac & Linux versions of Steam, bringing them up to par with Windows.

I'm eager to try this out when I'm able to!

Just ran into this as well. In my case Steam overall was behaving normally, but the "Friends & Chat" and chat windows bogged down to where it was taking 1-2 seconds for any interactions to have an effect. Opted into beta channel and the both windows seems to be working, except for activating the dropdown next to a friend's name - this still takes 1-2 seconds.

System info:
Arch, kernel 6.2.12-arch1-1
Gnome 43.4
Wayland
AMD 5950X
NVIDIA RTX 3080

Just ran into this as well. In my case Steam overall was behaving normally, but the "Friends & Chat" and chat windows bogged down to where it was taking 1-2 seconds for any interactions to have an effect. Opted into beta channel and the both windows seems to be working, except for activating the dropdown next to a friend's name - this still takes 1-2 seconds.

System info: Arch, kernel 6.2.12-arch1-1 Gnome 43.4 Wayland AMD 5950X NVIDIA RTX 3080

Can you test the Steam client beta and see if that fixes the issue?

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/7245#issuecomment-1528693526

I mentioned that in my comment - the beta did seem to fix (or mostly fix) the bulk of it except for expanding the friend dropdown, which still took 1-2 seconds.

I've tested the beta and overall it runs better than before. However the news/offer window arrows (to cycle through the offers) aren't clickable, the in-game overlay runs very laggy and I also have the drop-down issues.

I mentioned that in my comment - the beta did seem to fix (or mostly fix) the bulk of it except for expanding the friend dropdown, which still took 1-2 seconds.

Sorry, I missed that somehow.

I've tested the beta and overall it runs better than before. However the news/offer window arrows (to cycle through the offers) aren't clickable, the in-game overlay runs very laggy and I also have the drop-down issues.

Those sound like different issues though, right?