Having a similar issue. Steam won't launch for me at all, even after steam --reset.
I can see the login screen, but after the login screen nothing happens. Only the tray icon appears, but nothing else.
Launching steam from terminal keeps printing this lines over and over again.

(steam:51965): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 19:17:29.493: g_object_ref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed

(steam:51965): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 19:17:29.493: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
steamwebhelper.sh[53325]: Runtime for steamwebhelper: defaulting to /home/sajito/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/steam-runtime-heavy
steamwebhelper.sh[53325]: glibc >= 2.34, partially disabling sandbox until CEF supports clone3()

(steam:51965): GLib-CRITICAL **: 19:17:38.669: g_main_context_push_thread_default: assertion 'acquired_context' failed

(steam:51965): GLib-CRITICAL **: 19:17:38.669: g_main_context_pop_thread_default: assertion 'g_queue_peek_head (stack) == context' failed
BuildCompleteAppOverviewChange: 446 apps
RegisterForAppOverview 1: 13ms
RegisterForAppOverview 2: 13ms

Your system information

• Steam client version (build number or date): multilib/steam 1.0.0.78-1
• Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): EndeavourOS - With KDE Plasma 5.27.6
• Opted into Steam client beta?: No
• Have you checked for system updates?: Yes
• Steam Logs: logs.zip
• GPU: Nvidia

Also running X11. Using a workstation, not a mobile computer.

This is also happening for me. Only running --reset or appending the steam Exec line in the .desktop file with -vgui will let me launch at all

This is also happening for me. Only running --reset or appending the steam Exec line in the .desktop file with -vgui will let me launch at all

But does it let you run games? Why is nobody pointing out that even if you open steam ui with -vgui, none of the games are opening.

My games are opening fine, when using -vgui.
@hermestrimegistus I think you're having a different issue. Are you using mangohud? If yes, have you tried disabling/removing it?

Yep, this is the only way to open steam and actually launch games from it for me too. I'm running arch w/xfce, everything up to date. 3060ti. It's bizarre, you would think that resetting steam would fix the issue wholesale. But once you exit steam, you need to run steam --reset again, and each time you want to open it. When I launch it via commandline, these are the errors that pop up.

Could not connect to X session manager: Authentication Rejected, reason : None of the authentication protocols specified are supported and h

(steam:9387): Gtk-WARNING **: 21:06:56.305: gtk_disable_setlocale() must be called before gtk_init()
RegisterForAppOverview 1: 7ms
RegisterForAppOverview 2: 7ms

(steam:9387): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 21:06:56.877: g_object_ref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed

(steam:9387): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 21:06:56.877: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
steamwebhelper.sh[10034]: Runtime for steamwebhelper: defaulting to /home/jonah/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/steam-runtime-heavy
steamwebhelper.sh[10034]: glibc >= 2.34, partially disabling sandbox until CEF supports clone3()
BuildCompleteAppOverviewChange: 241 apps'

My games are opening fine, when using -vgui. @hermestrimegistus I think you're having a different issue. Are you using mangohud? If yes, have you tried disabling/removing it?

Yes my games probably have mangdohud in arguments. I uninstalled mangohud but since using -vgui is not letting me open the properties of the game I can't edit them.

This is also happening for me. Only running --reset or appending the steam Exec line in the .desktop file with -vgui will let me launch at all

But does it let you run games? Why is nobody pointing out that even if you open steam ui with -vgui, none of the games are opening.

Most likely because after doing reset, it resets your game properties, I noticed that with vgui I couldn't open Properties. Whats most likely happening is that your games only run with specific launch commands and/or with a custom proton (that all resets after running steam --reset)

This is also happening for me. Only running --reset or appending the steam Exec line in the .desktop file with -vgui will let me launch at all

But does it let you run games? Why is nobody pointing out that even if you open steam ui with -vgui, none of the games are opening.

Most likely because after doing reset, it resets your game properties, I noticed that with vgui I couldn't open Properties. Whats most likely happening is that your games only run with specific launch commands and/or with a custom proton (that all resets after running steam --reset)

Thanks friendo. steam --reset deletes all proton and other steam libraries. After setting them in compatibility the games are running as before. May god bless you!

Now that a temporary fix exists. Is there a latest ticket tracking this issue and whether specific code issue has been found or not?

This is interesting. Doing a reinstall of xdg-desktop-portal let me open the steam client. But the same issue persists, once you close steam. You can't open it back up. But reinstalling that is much quicker than resetting steam.

This is interesting. Doing a reinstall of xdg-desktop-portal let me open the steam client. But the same issue persists, once you close steam. You can't open it back up. But reinstalling that is much quicker than resetting steam.

Hmm odd, because I don't even have xdg-desktop-portal installed

This is interesting. Doing a reinstall of xdg-desktop-portal let me open the steam client. But the same issue persists, once you close steam. You can't open it back up. But reinstalling that is much quicker than resetting steam.

Hmm odd, because I don't even have xdg-desktop-portal installed

I believe xdg desktop portal is a functional dependency of steam with the latest update due to the changes to the file manager. https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/78625?project=5&string=steam

This is interesting. Doing a reinstall of xdg-desktop-portal let me open the steam client. But the same issue persists, once you close steam. You can't open it back up. But reinstalling that is much quicker than resetting steam.

Hmm odd, because I don't even have xdg-desktop-portal installed

I believe xdg desktop portal is a functional dependency of steam with the latest update due to the changes to the file manager. https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/78625?project=5&string=steam

Installing xdg-desktop-portal does nothing for me

Hmm, there seems to have been an update to the client? And now reinstalling xdg-desktop-portal does nothing for me.

Hmm, there seems to have been an update to the client? And now reinstalling xdg-desktop-portal does nothing for me.

Maybe that was it yes.. And the worst thing is that using my workaround I can't set proton GE, because after resetting I can't install new versions of proton and if I do it after I open Steam then Steam doesn't update my current version of proton...

I might have found some kind of way around getting it to work (on Arch KDE with nvidia 535.54.03), having it setup to autostart on login seems to highly increase the chances of it starting steam-native, no -vgui or --reset needed, xdg-desktop-portal installed, flatpak installed, everything is running as intended. If you dont see the steam splash screen when you login (basically starting steam without UI), just logout and try again, just do not close steam once it starts I guess.

One reason why I am not using the -vgui argument (despite it working fine) is that I am unable to configure the launch options for games (which is a pain on a new install).

EDIT: after a few more restarts, it is no longer working :(

I found what fixes the issue for me!

1. Remove these:
   • ~/.local/share/Steam/
   • ~/.steam/
   • ~/.steampath
   • ~/.steampid
2. Open Steam.
3. Login.
4. Go to Steam -> Settings -> Interface.
5. Disable "Enable GPU accelerated rendering in web views (requires restart)".

Never buying NVIDIA again...

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/9692#issuecomment-1605607970

That actually works. Many thanks! 🚀
PS: +1 for never buying NVIDIA again

Disabling GPU acceleration doesn't work for me.
But the issue seems to only occur with X11, at least for me. When using a wayland session, the new ui is working fine.

Disabling GPU acceleration doesn't work for me. But the issue seems to only occur with X11, at least for me. When using a wayland session, the new ui is working fine.

I'm also on X11 and I actually didn't follow those steps exactly. This is what solved it for me https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/9383#issuecomment-1605700376

I'm on Nvidia, and enabling gpu accelerated rendering worked for me as well.

I'm on Nvidia with the same issue, and can confirm that solved it for me (I had to enable it though, per https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/9383#issuecomment-1605700376). Thank you! was driving me crazy

Unfortunately for me the solution does not work :(
Even after steam --reset the ui won't open. Started steam in a Wayland session, there it's working well. Enabled GPU acceleration, tried again in X11, but still won't start.

On X11 with Nvidia, enabling gpu accelerated rendering fixed it for me

I am using fedora 38, after migrating from Wayland/noveau to xorg/Nvidia proprietary drivers (from RPM fusion), the same is happening to me
--reset open the UI but it statys stuck at "loading my user data..".
This my journalctl sample of steam when opening without --reset

Jul 01 16:06:55 fedora com.valvesoftware.Steam.desktop[12704]: GetWin32Stats: display was not open yet, good
Jul 01 16:06:55 fedora com.valvesoftware.Steam.desktop[12870]: steamwebhelper.sh[181]: Runtime for steamwebhelper: defaulting to ~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/steam-runtime-heavy
Jul 01 16:06:55 fedora com.valvesoftware.Steam.desktop[12870]: steamwebhelper.sh[181]: Running under Flatpak, disabling sandbox
Jul 01 16:06:55 fedora com.valvesoftware.Steam.desktop[12870]: steamwebhelper.sh[181]: CEF sandbox already disabled
Jul 01 16:06:55 fedora com.valvesoftware.Steam.desktop[12704]: Could not connect to X session manager: None of the authentication protocols specified are supported
Jul 01 16:06:56 fedora com.valvesoftware.Steam.desktop[12704]: CAppInfoCacheReadFromDiskThread took 137 milliseconds to initialize
Jul 01 16:06:56 fedora com.valvesoftware.Steam.desktop[12704]: Failed to init SteamVR because it isn't installed
Jul 01 16:07:28 fedora steam[12704]: gtk_disable_setlocale() must be called before gtk_init()
Jul 01 16:07:29 fedora com.valvesoftware.Steam.desktop[12704]: roaming config store loaded successfully - 231 bytes.
Jul 01 16:07:29 fedora com.valvesoftware.Steam.desktop[12704]: migrating temporary roaming config store
Jul 01 16:07:29 fedora com.valvesoftware.Steam.desktop[12704]: BRefreshApplicationsInLibrary 1: 0ms
Jul 01 16:07:29 fedora steam[12704]: g_object_ref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
Jul 01 16:07:29 fedora steam[12704]: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
Jul 01 16:07:29 fedora com.valvesoftware.Steam.desktop[12704]: Could not connect to X session manager: None of the authentication protocols specified are supported
Jul 01 16:07:29 fedora com.valvesoftware.Steam.desktop[12704]: Could not connect to X session manager: None of the authentication protocols specified are supported
Jul 01 16:07:29 fedora /usr/libexec/gdm-x-session[10138]: (--) NVIDIA(GPU-0): CRT-0: disconnected
...
Jul 01 16:07:29 fedora com.valvesoftware.Steam.desktop[12704]: Could not connect to X session manager: None of the authentication protocols specified are supported
Jul 01 16:07:30 fedora com.valvesoftware.Steam.desktop[12704]: Could not connect to X session manager: None of the authentication protocols specified are supported
Jul 01 16:07:30 fedora com.valvesoftware.Steam.desktop[12704]: Could not connect to X session manager: None of the authentication protocols specified are supported
Jul 01 16:07:30 fedora com.valvesoftware.Steam.desktop[12704]: Could not connect to X session manager: None of the authentication protocols specified are supported
Jul 01 16:07:30 fedora com.valvesoftware.Steam.desktop[12704]: System startup time: 35.18 seconds
Jul 01 16:07:30 fedora steam[12704]: Trying to remove a child that doesn't believe we're it's parent.
Jul 01 16:07:30 fedora steam[12704]: Trying to remove a child that doesn't believe we're it's parent.
Jul 01 16:07:30 fedora steam[12704]: Trying to remove a child that doesn't believe we're it's parent.
Jul 01 16:07:30 fedora steam[12704]: Trying to remove a child that doesn't believe we're it's parent.
Jul 01 16:07:30 fedora steam[12704]: g_object_ref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
Jul 01 16:07:30 fedora steam[12704]: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
Jul 01 16:07:30 fedora com.valvesoftware.Steam.desktop[12704]: BuildCompleteAppOverviewChange: 358 apps
Jul 01 16:07:30 fedora com.valvesoftware.Steam.desktop[12704]: RegisterForAppOverview 1: 12ms
Jul 01 16:07:30 fedora com.valvesoftware.Steam.desktop[12704]: RegisterForAppOverview 2: 12ms
Jul 01 16:07:31 fedora steam[12704]: g_object_ref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
Jul 01 16:07:31 fedora steam[12704]: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/9692#issuecomment-1605607970

For those using flatpak, I removed those folders:
~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.steam
~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.steampath
~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.steampid
~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/data/Steam # Not sure about this one, if that's the same one.

The only way I could open to disable "GPU accelerated rendering in web views " was trough -vgui parameter

flatpak run com.valvesoftware.Steam --reset -vgui

Otherwise, steam manage to run, however i got this stack trace on journalctl:

Jul 01 16:39:47 fedora systemd-coredump[26646]: [🡕] Process 26018 (steamwebhelper) of user 1000 dumped core.
                                                
                                                Stack trace of thread 5862:
                                                #0  0x00007fda4ed6490d n/a (/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 + 0x16490d)
                                                #1  0x00007fda34cb3f4e n/a (/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/GL/default/lib/dri/libgallium_dri.so + 0xb3f4e)
                                                #2  0x00000000004ab4a6 n/a (~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/steamwebhelper + 0xab4a6)
                                                ELF object binary architecture: AMD x86-64

Chiming in to add: following https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/9764#issuecomment-1614911342 solved the issue for me today. I presume that the only thing required is clearing .cache/nvidia/GLCache, AFAIK Electron does not use Vulkan for hardware acceleration on Nvidia.

xdg-portal-* was not a factor in my case, I had xdg-portal-kde installed and installing or removing any variants did not solve, or worsen the issue for me.

EDIT:
Forgot to add my system details.
5950X, X470
3060 12GB
Arch, KDE
linux-lts, nvidia-dkms and otherwise a normal Arch install.

Can confirm, deleting ~/.cache/nvidia/GLCache fixed the issue for me.

Deleting ~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.cache/nvidia/GLCache/ seems to have worked for me as I'm using the flatpak version of Steam.

This also happens to me with an AMD card. None of the above fixes did the trick, unfortunately.

However launching Steam via the terminal (with just steam, not steam --reset did the trick).
In the logs, a lot of Could not connect to X session manager: None of the authentication protocols specified are supported are spammed.

Specs: AMD Radeon RX480, Pop!_OS 22.04

This also happens to me with an AMD card. None of the above fixes did the trick, unfortunately.

However launching Steam via the terminal (with just steam, not steam --reset did the trick). In the logs, a lot of Could not connect to X session manager: None of the authentication protocols specified are supported are spammed.

Specs: AMD Radeon RX480, Pop!_OS 22.04

I also found that right clicking the Steam icon and clicking "Library" to start steam in the library worked for me, also amd gpu and pop os

Can confirm @ragardner 's workaround works.

I can only reproduce this with nvidia driver version 535.
Everything works as expected after downgrading to 525.

I found what fixes the issue for me!

1. Remove these:

   • ~/.local/share/Steam/
   • ~/.steam/
   • ~/.steampath
   • ~/.steampid

2. Open Steam.

3. Login.

4. Go to Steam -> Settings -> Interface.

5. Disable "Enable GPU accelerated rendering in web views (requires restart)".

Never buying NVIDIA again...

Rarely I had GPU accelerated rendering in the morning, after I came back it stopped working. However, there's no need to delete anything.
There's an easier workaround:
1 - Run Steam with steam -vgui.
2 - Disable GPU accelerated rendering in web views, the same way as the same 5 mentioned in the quote.
3 - It asks you to restart Steam, so do it.
4 - After that, close Steam again and then open it with the new UI.
5 - Profit!

I found what fixes the issue for me!

1. Remove these:

   • ~/.local/share/Steam/
   • ~/.steam/
   • ~/.steampath
   • ~/.steampid

2. Open Steam.

3. Login.

4. Go to Steam -> Settings -> Interface.

5. Disable "Enable GPU accelerated rendering in web views (requires restart)".

Never buying NVIDIA again...

Rarely I had GPU accelerated rendering in the morning, after I came back it stopped working. However, there's no need to delete anything. There's an easier workaround:

1. Run Steam with steam -vgui.
2. Disable GPU accelerated rendering in web views, the same way as mentioned in the steps 4 and 5 in the quote.
3. It asks you to restart Steam, so do it.
4. After that, close Steam again and then open it with the new UI.
5. Profit!

Nvidia driver version 535.86.05 that was just released fixes the issue for me.

Issue is still present on laptop with amd GPU

I have tried it on the new Thelio Mira with the AMD 7700x, AMD 6600, and 32gb of RAM, POP!_OS 22.04 with all updates installed, Steam attempts to load and then goes into an endless boot loop, requiring a restart to kill the process. It also did the same thing in Mint 21.2. Works great in Windows, no issues at all. So why now in Linux? I have tried it from the repo, flatpak and direct from Steam, and same issue. Got it working once, and then it crashed hard after an hour back to endless boot loops.

Issue present with nvidia-open driver on arch linux w/ NVIDIA 3080. Only steam logo on taskbar appears and no ui. Also big picture doesn't work with -vgui
EDIT: updated my nvidia-open drivers and all works now