protonscr

Steam startup became equivalent to starting an old unreliable car after mayor UI update

steamclosed Steam clientDistro Family: Arch
ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux#9922 · opened 2023-07-29 by panmarco83 · updated 2023-08-05 · 6 comments · github
Ppanmarco83 2023-07-29 github

Your system information

  • Steam client version (build number or date):
    • Steam Version: 1689034492
    • Steam Client Build Date: Tue, Jul 11 01:59 UTC -08:00
    • Steam Web Build Date: Mon, Jul 10 19:48 UTC -08:00
    • Steam API Version: SteamClient020
  • Distribution: Arch
  • Opted into Steam client beta?: No
  • Have you checked for system updates?: Yes (Multiple times over the last months)
  • Steam Logs: steam-logs.tar.gz
  • GPU: AMD

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

What I expect to happen is that the steam client will start when I click on it's icon or invoke it from a terminal.

What I do NOT expect to happen is being forced to watch htop with 'steam' filter for anything between 1 and 20 (probably more) attempts at starting steam.

  • I have completely uninstalled steam from system: sudo pacman -R steam
  • I have removed the steam runtime and config folders: rm ~/.local/share/Steam/

Steps for reproducing this issue:

  1. Open a terminal
  2. start htop
  3. filter for steam
  4. click on steam from menu
  5. watch htop and either wait for all the steam processes to stop OR the client to finally start
  6. see all the processes die, goto step 4
Ppanmarco83 2023-08-03 github

today, it took between 20 and 30 attempts.

Ppanmarco83 2023-08-04 github

2023.08.04 12:08 (24h) Gave up at 40 attempts.....

Ppanmarco83 2023-08-04 github

Attempting a reinstall with old config folder

  • Rename ~/.local/share/Steam/ to ~/.local/share/Steam-OLD/
  • copy ~/.local/share/Steam-OLD/config/ into ~/.local/share/Steam/
  • delete ~/.local/share/Steam/config/htmlcache/
  • try starting up
  • [ fails ]

Attempting Attempting a reinstall with a blank slate

  • (Still preserving ~/.local/share/Steam-OLD/) Delete ~/.local/share/Steam
  • Still [ fails ]

ran the last attempt from a terminal:

src/steamUI/steamuisharedjscontroller.cpp (540) : Failed creating offscreen shared JS context
src/steamUI/steamuisharedjscontroller.cpp (540) : Fatal assert; application exiting
08/04 16:13:07 Init: Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1690583737)/tid(2666411)

this outputs in the terminal just before it dumps out...

Kkisak-valve maintainer 2023-08-04 github

src/steamUI/steamuisharedjscontroller.cpp (540) : Failed creating offscreen shared JS context

Hello @panmarco83, based on that hint, can you check if #9588 is relevant to your system?

Ppanmarco83 2023-08-05 github

Steam finally started up today after a 20 minutes of monitoring processes and launching.
@kisak-valve
I didn't see your message until after managing to get the client started.
I am hesitant to stop the client now that it is running so I'll try again tomorrow.
I do remember installing it as an attempt at mitigating the problems with file selection among others, but this would still not explain why it is a complete coin toss if the client will launch or not.

Ppanmarco83 2023-08-05 github

@kisak-valve, Huh, I uninstalled xdg-desktop-portal-gnome after reading through your message and reading the issue you suggested.
While reading through, I found something I wanted to try, the -vgui launch option, so I tried to launch steam normally first and it looks like it is starting properly now.

Nothing extracted yet.