Steam fails to start: Failed to load steamui.so - dlerror(): /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpng12.so.0: Cannot read file: is a directory

steamclosed Distro Family: Ubuntu

ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux#7360 · opened 2020-09-12 by baschi29 · updated 2020-09-14 · 2 comments · github

Bbaschi29 2020-09-12 github

Your system information

Steam client version (build number or date): 12.09.2020
Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Kubuntu 20.04
Opted into Steam client beta?: No
Have you checked for system updates?: Yes

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

Steam is unable to start. I tried installing via apt and via the download from the steam website.

First there is the following error popping up:

Error: You are missing the following 32-bit libraries, and Steam may not run:
libc.so.6

Steam itself throws the following error:
Failed to load steamui.so - dlerror(): /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpng12.so.0: Cannot read file: is a directory
(I translated the last part from german: Kann die Datei-Daten nicht lesen: Ist ein Verzeichnis)

I tried various fixes from the internet regarding libc.so.6, but I have all dependencies installed. Libpng12-0 is also installed.

I can provide further information if needed. I hope somebody can help me out with this.

Steps for reproducing this issue:

Install steam via apt or the steam website on kubuntu 20.04
Try to start steam

Kkisak-valve maintainer 2020-09-12 github

Hello @baschi29, can you check if the libc6-i386 package is installed on your system with something like apt policy libc6-i386 and install it with sudo apt install libc6-i386 if it isn't already.

Is the system accurately telling you that /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpng12.so.0 is a folder? That's abnormal ... Ubuntu no longer provides libpng12-0 and this library should be provided by the Steam runtime. If it is a directory, can you figure out what package it belongs to, and if nothing does, remove it.

Bbaschi29 2020-09-12 github

Hey @kisak-valve,

libc6-i386 is installed.

There actually is a libpng12.so.0 directory under /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/. Weird.

Ther also is a file called libpng12.so.0.54.0 (which is correct I suppose?)

I couldn't find a package the directory belongs to. It is empty nonetheless, so I decided to delete it. After that steam started working again.

I suppose something was very (as in very very) off with my Linux installation. I will close this issue for the time being.

Thanks for your help!

Nothing extracted yet.