Hello @SeraphisCain, this reads like #8114, but the Proton instances should be short lived. can you tell what Proton version is being run when this happens? Also, do you have third party builds of Proton installed?
@kisak-valve I think it's Proton 6.3 that's being run, but I'm not 100% on that (EDIT: Actually it may have been one of the GE Protons?). And I do have 4-5 GE builds of Proton installed, yes. I just triggered the issue again to see if I could figure out which Proton version was being run, but my system went unstable before I could figure it out.
EDIT: After reading the thread you linked, I tried deleting all the GE Protons aside from the most recent and that seems to have fixed it? Been several minutes now with no explorer.exe spam.
Deleting Glorious Eggroll seems to have solved it for me as well. Would've never thought of that!
Thanks for checking @SeraphisCain, The Steam client update exposed a previously hidden quirk of older third party Proton builds. This is not something that should be solved on Valve's side.
Closing in favor of the older issue report.
bump
proton 6.3x1 2021-11
Your system information
Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:
Within 30-60 seconds of Steam being opened, infinite instances of explorer.exe /desktop spawn until RAM is full, CPU is at 100%, and system freezes, necessitating a hard reboot. Processes point toward
steamapps/compatdata/0. Deleting the0prefix folder temporarily fixes it, but on next boot Steam re-creates the folder. Workaround is making thecompatdatafolder read-only so Steam can't re-create the folder, which is feasible for me since all my game prefixes are on a separate drive, but may not be feasible for others. This issue only started yesterday, and there's a thread on the Steam Play Reddit of a few other people also experiencing it.Steps for reproducing this issue:
Simply run Steam and wait.