germany. someone made some math some time ago that for > 100gb downloads it’s actually faster to fly to romania, download to a usb drive and fly back than to wait for the download to finish in germany. i hate german internet.
I also have an issue when starting up Flatpak Steam on Nobara. Steam started suddenly “bootlooping”. It appears in the background tasks of GNOME and disappeara after a few seconds.
I found a workaround, however; Start by closing it in the backround apps, right-clicking Steam on the dock and selecting any page to open to, like friends or store
Did you also delete the steam user data when reinstalling it? Regardless, I found a Github issue that looks very similar to yours. Apparently this was caused by a beta update? But this was about 4 months ago? Weird.
Anyway, the suggested fix was to first reset steam with flatpak run com.valvesoftware.Steam --resetAnd then opt out of any potential beta: com.valvesoftware.Steam -clearbeta
Not sure if this really is the same issue, but it’s definitely worth a try.
Edit: Seems like on some systems, removing the package xdg-desktop-portal-gnome also fixed it. Don’t know if it also applies to the flatpak, but just try it. Just remember to install the package again if it doesn’t fix it. It may be needed for some other things.
Resetting it like this seems to work a bit. The Steam interface started up one time and after logging in and restarting it, it now does the same thing as before.
Seems like on some systems, removing the package xdg-desktop-portal-gnome also fixed it.
Okay, well then we’ll need to investigate further.
On one page I found a set of rm commands for resetting Steam issues and adapted it to the Flatpak version.
While these commands will delete most of the steam stuff, just in case you didn’t know, for any flatpak you can run flatpak uninstall --delete-data to delete all user data for uninstalled apps. Or, if you don’t want to uninstall the app first, just deleting ~/.var/app/the app you want to delete the data of will also do the trick. That, just as a small side note.
Resetting it like this seems to work a bit. The Steam interface started up one time and after logging in and restarting it, it now does the same thing as before.
That’s something at least. Why don’t we try something? Maybe the beta version will fix it? When you have the steam client open, try switching to the beta version of it. You can do that by opening the steam settings, go to interface and select the beta. If that also doesn’t work, try launching it with -no-cef-sandbox, as that also fixed it for some people.
Okay, not it gets weird. I uninstalled Steam with deleting the data. Then I reinstalled it and now does die the double GetWin32Stats: display was not open yet, good with several seconds of “hangign” again after all the initialization stuff and it then crashes again as described but in addition to that it also now hangs for several seconds at CAppInfoCacheReadFromDiskThread took 0 milliseconds to initialize.
The weird thing is: now I can’t even start/reset it with flatpak run com.valvesoftware.Steam --reset anymore.
<span style="color:#323232;">[...]
</span><span style="color:#323232;">GetWin32Stats: display was not open yet, good
</span><span style="color:#323232;">GetWin32Stats: display was not open yet, good
</span><span style="color:#323232;">steamwebhelper.sh[159]: Runtime for steamwebhelper: defaulting to /home/dirk/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/steam-runtime-heavy
</span><span style="color:#323232;">steamwebhelper.sh[159]: Running under Flatpak, disabling sandbox
</span><span style="color:#323232;">steamwebhelper.sh[159]: CEF sandbox already disabled
</span><span style="color:#323232;">CAppInfoCacheReadFromDiskThread took 0 milliseconds to initialize
</span><span style="color:#323232;">src/steamUI/steamuisharedjscontroller.cpp (540) : Failed creating offscreen shared JS context
</span><span style="color:#323232;">src/steamUI/steamuisharedjscontroller.cpp (540) : Fatal assert; application exiting
</span><span style="color:#323232;">08/18 11:32:52 Init: Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1690583737)/tid(152)
</span><span style="color:#323232;">assert_20230818113252_28.dmp[273]: Uploading dump (out-of-process)
</span><span style="color:#323232;">/tmp/dumps/assert_20230818113252_28.dmp
</span><span style="color:#323232;">dirk ~ $
</span><span style="color:#323232;">assert_20230818113252_28.dmp[273]: Finished uploading minidump (out-of-process): success = yes
</span><span style="color:#323232;">assert_20230818113252_28.dmp[273]: response: CrashID=bp-ccf87007-b170-434a-ad01-b780e2230818
</span><span style="color:#323232;">assert_20230818113252_28.dmp[273]: file ''/tmp/dumps/assert_20230818113252_28.dmp'', upload yes: ''CrashID=bp-ccf87007-b170-434a-ad01-b780e2230818''
</span>
To eliminate any other potential issues I’d recommend deleting the steam user folder as well before launching it again. Like I told you earlier.
Edit: It’s hilarious, I find many people having the exact same issue but never with the Flatpak version. Some even use the Flatpak version as a workaround. Very weird.
I could not uninstall it because Pixelorama and Airshipper needed it (as well as Steam, of course). So I removed all of them before, then removed the package and reinstalled it. Then I started up Steam and it crashed again with the same error message and behavior. It loaded Steam, the update messages were shown, the steam popups popped up, but at the end, well, this again:
<span style="color:#323232;">GetWin32Stats: display was not open yet, good
</span><span style="color:#323232;">GetWin32Stats: display was not open yet, good
</span><span style="color:#323232;">steamwebhelper.sh[5479]: Runtime for steamwebhelper: defaulting to /home/dirk/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/steam-runtime-heavy
</span><span style="color:#323232;">steamwebhelper.sh[5479]: Running under Flatpak, disabling sandbox
</span><span style="color:#323232;">steamwebhelper.sh[5479]: CEF sandbox already disabled
</span><span style="color:#323232;">CAppInfoCacheReadFromDiskThread took 0 milliseconds to initialize
</span><span style="color:#323232;">src/steamUI/steamuisharedjscontroller.cpp (540) : Failed creating offscreen shared JS context
</span><span style="color:#323232;">src/steamUI/steamuisharedjscontroller.cpp (540) : Fatal assert; application exiting
</span><span style="color:#323232;">08/18 23:36:47 Init: Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1690583737)/tid(5473)
</span><span style="color:#323232;">assert_20230818233647_29.dmp[5780]: Uploading dump (out-of-process)
</span><span style="color:#323232;">/tmp/dumps/assert_20230818233647_29.dmp
</span><span style="color:#323232;">dirk ~ $
</span><span style="color:#323232;">assert_20230818233647_29.dmp[5780]: Finished uploading minidump (out-of-process): success = yes
</span><span style="color:#323232;">assert_20230818233647_29.dmp[5780]: response: CrashID=bp-9ef905ea-c25f-429b-9f2a-2ce832230818
</span><span style="color:#323232;">assert_20230818233647_29.dmp[5780]: file ''/tmp/dumps/assert_20230818233647_29.dmp'', upload yes: ''CrashID=bp-9ef905ea-c25f-429b-9f2a-2ce832230818''
</span>
I also tried flatpak run com.valvesoftware.Steam --reset again as it allowed me to start Steam once. But no, same result. Hangs for quite some time at the first GetWin32Stats: display was not open yet, good and circa the same duration onn CAppInfoCacheReadFromDiskThread took 0 milliseconds to initialize and them mentions a nonexistent log file.
I wonder if there is a clean way to thoroughly remove all and everything coming from Flatpak. At this point I don’t even care if there is any data lost …
<span style="color:#323232;">$ flatpak list
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Name Anwendungskennung Version Zweig Installation
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Pixelorama com.orama_interactive.Pixelorama 0.11.1 stable system
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Steam com.valvesoftware.Steam 1.0.0.78 stable system
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Airshipper net.veloren.airshipper 0.10.0 stable system
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Freedesktop Platform org.freedesktop.Platform 22.08.14 22.08 system
</span><span style="color:#323232;">i386 org.freedesktop.Platform.Compat.i386 22.08 system
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Mesa org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default 23.1.4 22.08 system
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Mesa (Extra) org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default 23.1.4 22.08-extra system
</span><span style="color:#323232;">nvidia-535-98 org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.nvidia-535-98 1.4 system
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Mesa org.freedesktop.Platform.GL32.default 23.1.4 22.08 system
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Mesa (Extra) org.freedesktop.Platform.GL32.default 23.1.4 22.08-extra system
</span><span style="color:#323232;">nvidia-535-86-05 org.freedesktop.Platform.GL32.nvidia-535-86-05 1.4 system
</span><span style="color:#323232;">nvidia-535-98 org.freedesktop.Platform.GL32.nvidia-535-98 1.4 system
</span><span style="color:#323232;">openh264 org.freedesktop.Platform.openh264 2.1.0 2.2.0 system
</span>
It’s hilarious, I find many people having the exact same issue but never with the Flatpak version. Some even use the Flatpak version as a workaround. Very weird.
Yeah … And it even makes no sense either. It started up before and let me log in but the next start it crashed and now it always crashes no matter what I do. There seems also no-one else in the world affected by this.
Okay, so the runtimes were fine, good to know. Btw, you can remove runtimes without first removing the apps that depend on them. They just won’t work any more until you install it again.
I wonder if there is a clean way to thoroughly remove all and everything coming from Flatpak. At this point I don’t even care if there is any data lost …
Not an official one, but this should do the trick if you really want to delete everything. If you want to, you could back up the user files for your other Flatpaks first.
If that also doesn’t work, I’m 95% certain it has to be one of your system packages. Weird that a system package would break any Flatpaks though… What distro are you using anyway?
Btw, you can remove runtimes without first removing the apps that depend on them.
I tried first, but it just complained that Steam (and the other two Flatpaks) needed the package and it aborted the removal process.
Anyways, I uninstalled all Flatpaks as you described, removed the directories, removed the Flatpak package, did a reboot, ran a full system update and installed Flatpak and did another reboot just to be sure and just installed Steam this time.
It starts getting hilarious. Same, Friggin. Result. Installation works without any issues, update works without any issues, the popups show, the console output looks fine, and then this again at the end:
<span style="color:#323232;">GetWin32Stats: display was not open yet, good
</span><span style="color:#323232;">GetWin32Stats: display was not open yet, good
</span><span style="color:#323232;">steamwebhelper.sh[5479]: Runtime for steamwebhelper: defaulting to /home/dirk/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/steam-runtime-heavy
</span><span style="color:#323232;">steamwebhelper.sh[5479]: Running under Flatpak, disabling sandbox
</span><span style="color:#323232;">steamwebhelper.sh[5479]: CEF sandbox already disabled
</span><span style="color:#323232;">CAppInfoCacheReadFromDiskThread took 0 milliseconds to initialize
</span><span style="color:#323232;">src/steamUI/steamuisharedjscontroller.cpp (540) : Failed creating offscreen shared JS context
</span><span style="color:#323232;">src/steamUI/steamuisharedjscontroller.cpp (540) : Fatal assert; application exiting
</span><span style="color:#323232;">08/19 00:40:11 Init: Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1690583737)/tid(5473)
</span><span style="color:#323232;">assert_20230819004011_29.dmp[5779]: Uploading dump (out-of-process)
</span><span style="color:#323232;">/tmp/dumps/assert_20230819004011_29.dmp
</span><span style="color:#323232;">dirk ~ $
</span><span style="color:#323232;">assert_20230819004011_29.dmp[5779]: Finished uploading minidump (out-of-process): success = yes
</span><span style="color:#323232;">assert_20230819004011_29.dmp[5779]: response: CrashID=bp-5698e954-748a-45d6-a5d4-7aa7a2230818
</span><span style="color:#323232;">assert_20230819004011_29.dmp[5779]: file ''/tmp/dumps/assert_20230819004011_29.dmp'', upload yes: ''CrashID=bp-5698e954-748a-45d6-a5d4-7aa7a2230818''
</span>
I’m 95% certain it has to be one of your system packages.
Since everything regarding Flatpak was removed, including all caches, configuration files and data I am pretty sure that it has to do something specificially with the Steam Flatpak because my system as a whole works properly and and all other Flatpaks I have installed also work properly …
What distro are you using anyway?
I’m on Arch. I have listed all involved application’s version numbers at the end of my original post.
Edit: Not sure if it helps, but here’s the full installation/update output:
I am pretty sure that it has to do something specificially with the Steam Flatpak
That is also possible. But then why is it working for everyone else? I used the steam flatpak multiple times today with no issues. I guess you could also ask the same question for the system package issue theory.
How about the package manager version? Is that working? That could give some hints on whether it’s the system or the Flatpak package.
Arch, yes. This is what all the people who had to remove xdg Desktop portal use. How could they remove it if it’s a dependency of flatpak? Maybe they don’t have flatpak.
If you have too much time on your hands, you could try another fresh arch installation on another hard-drive. If it works there, we know it has to be a system package. If it doesn’t, it’s probably the Flatpak.
That’s the question here :) Flatpak it self can’t be the issue because other Flatpaks work. My system can’t be the issue because my system works. And yes, the Steam Flatpak on it’s own also can’t be the issue because then more people would be affected and I would find something during web research.
How about the package manager version?
There isn’t really a Steam version in the repos but only in multilib. So I enabled it and installed steam from there. It also crashes. The only difference is that there are some fontconfig things it cannot understand.
<span style="color:#323232;">GetWin32Stats: display was not open yet, good
</span><span style="color:#323232;">GetWin32Stats: display was not open yet, good
</span><span style="color:#323232;">steamwebhelper.sh[19338]: Runtime for steamwebhelper: defaulting to /home/dirk/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/steam-runtime-heavy
</span><span style="color:#323232;">steamwebhelper.sh[19338]: glibc >= 2.34, partially disabling sandbox until CEF supports clone3()
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Fontconfig warning: line 5: unknown element "description"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/10-hinting-slight.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/10-scale-bitmap-fonts.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/10-scale-bitmap-fonts.conf", line 72: non-double matrix element
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/10-scale-bitmap-fonts.conf", line 72: non-double matrix element
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/10-scale-bitmap-fonts.conf", line 80: saw unknown, expected number
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/10-sub-pixel-rgb.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/10-yes-antialias.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/11-lcdfilter-default.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/20-unhint-small-vera.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/30-metric-aliases.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/40-nonlatin.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/45-generic.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/45-latin.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/48-spacing.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/49-sansserif.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/50-user.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/51-local.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/60-generic.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/60-latin.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/65-nonlatin.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">CAppInfoCacheReadFromDiskThread took 0 milliseconds to initialize
</span><span style="color:#323232;">src/steamUI/steamuisharedjscontroller.cpp (540) : Failed creating offscreen shared JS context
</span><span style="color:#323232;">src/steamUI/steamuisharedjscontroller.cpp (540) : Fatal assert; application exiting
</span><span style="color:#323232;">08/19 01:26:26 Init: Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1690583737)/tid(19319)
</span><span style="color:#323232;">assert_20230819012626_30.dmp[19438]: Uploading dump (out-of-process)
</span><span style="color:#323232;">/tmp/dumps/assert_20230819012626_30.dmp
</span><span style="color:#323232;">dirk ~ $
</span><span style="color:#323232;">assert_20230819012626_30.dmp[19438]: Finished uploading minidump (out-of-process): success = yes
</span><span style="color:#323232;">assert_20230819012626_30.dmp[19438]: response: CrashID=bp-175add07-33af-421a-a870-828612230818
</span><span style="color:#323232;">assert_20230819012626_30.dmp[19438]: file ''/tmp/dumps/assert_20230819012626_30.dmp'', upload yes: ''CrashID=bp-175add07-33af-421a-a870-828612230818''
</span>
So it’s Steam in combination with my system. This time the mentioned dump is there but it does not contain any information I could use/understand.
This is what all the people who had to remove xdg Desktop portal use. How could they remove it if it’s a dependency of flatpak?
When reinstalling Flatpak it asked for xdg-desktop-portal-impl to be installed and offered multiple packages that provide it.
It also worked earlier during testing (at least one time it started up and let me log in but subsequently it crashed on any of the further tries) so all dependencies are satisfied.
Okay… Now that you have the non flatpak steam, could you remove flatpak and xdg-desktop-portal*?
Reboot and launch steam again.
This is the last idea I have for now… If this also doesn’t help, it is probably a different issue than this and this, and you should report it to valve.
Thanks for all your help with this. Unfortunately Steam still scrashes. The xdg-pdesktop-portal packages aren’t installed. Only the Flatpak package seems to have them as hard dependency.
Valve said they won’t give any support here because I’m not using Ubuntu with Gnome.
Well that’s that then. I also have no idea what to try anymore… I guess you’ll just have to wait until some random update fixes the issue. Sorry.
Edit: Since you reinstalled everything, I think it could be some cache on your system that went bad. That would explain why both the Flatpak and native versions don’t work and why the rest of your system works. But I have no idea where that cache might be…
I've bought maybe 40 new games since I got my Steam Deck a year ago. I've played maybe a dozen of those, and only played two of them to completion.
I had to start with the Witcher 3, which is finished the main story for but never got around to the DLCs (because my parenting instincts are apparently so bad I got the worst ending possible on my first playthrough, which kind of soured playing any further).
Then I had to play the Mass Effect trilogy, because the Legendary Edition had just dropped and it had been so long.
Then I discovered Horizon Zero Dawn, and couldn't put it down.
Ever since then I've been bouncing back and forth between games and franchises I simply never got around to in my teens and 20s — Assassin's Creed, the Arkham series, Bioshock, Dishonored, Halo (God bless the Master Chief Collection) Kingdoms of Amalur, Portal (duh), Prince of Persia...
I'm slowly getting caught up on not just my Steam backlog, but 15 years worth of gaming I missed out on because I didn't have the money.
I dislike “spend money to save money” logic, but I’m gonna be honest, the Steam Deck was really transformative to me in that regard.
The fact games suspend and come back immediately, and that I can carry it to bed, to the sofa with my wife, and so on, means I actually finish games. Hell, sometimes I’ll be watching TV and playing at the same time, but the game does get played. It’s a backlog destroyer.
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