Since some time now the Steam Flatpak cannot start up and I have no idea why this happens.

Web research leads to basically nothing that is related to what I experience so I assume it has something to do with my system. Other Flatpaks start up normally and I can use them.

When resetting everything related to the Steam Flatpak and reinstalling it from Flathub it loads and installs the Flatpak and then installs all necessary stuff

[various update-related stuff]
setup.sh[4598]: Forced use of runtime version for 32-bit libcurl.so.4
setup.sh[4598]: Found newer runtime version for 32-bit libSDL2-2.0.so.0. Host: 0.2400.0 Runtime: 0.2600.5
setup.sh[4598]: Forced use of runtime version for 32-bit libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0
setup.sh[4598]: Found newer runtime version for 32-bit libvulkan.so.1. Host: 1.3.224 Runtime: 1.3.239
setup.sh[4598]: Forced use of runtime version for 32-bit libdbusmenu-glib.so.4
setup.sh[4598]: Forced use of runtime version for 32-bit libcurl-gnutls.so.4
setup.sh[4598]: Forced use of runtime version for 32-bit libdbusmenu-gtk.so.4
setup.sh[4598]: Forced use of runtime version for 64-bit libcurl.so.4
setup.sh[4598]: Found newer runtime version for 64-bit libSDL2-2.0.so.0. Host: 0.2400.0 Runtime: 0.2600.5
setup.sh[4598]: Found newer runtime version for 64-bit libvulkan.so.1. Host: 1.3.224 Runtime: 1.3.239
setup.sh[4598]: Forced use of runtime version for 64-bit libcurl-gnutls.so.4
steam.sh[2]: Steam client's requirements are satisfied

So everything looks good up to this point. The small Steam update windows poppend up several times indicating the running installation/update. The output then continues:

[2023-08-17 22:47:50] Startup - updater built Jul 28 2023 18:44:09
[2023-08-17 22:47:50] Startup - Steam Client launched with: '/home/dirk/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam' '-no-cef-sandbox'
08/17 22:47:50 Init: Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1690583737)/tid(5467)
[2023-08-17 22:47:50] Loading cached metrics from disk (/home/dirk/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.local/share/Steam/package/steam_client_metrics.bin)
[2023-08-17 22:47:50] Failed to load cached hosts file (File 'update_hosts_cached.vdf' not found), using defaults
[2023-08-17 22:47:50] Using the following download hosts for Public, Realm steamglobal
[2023-08-17 22:47:50] 1. https://cdn.steamstatic.com, /client/, Realm 'steamglobal', weight was 1, source = 'baked in'
[2023-08-17 22:47:50] Verifying installation...
[2023-08-17 22:47:50] Verification complete
XRRGetOutputInfo Workaround: initialized with override: 0 real: 0xf0d328f0
XRRGetCrtcInfo Workaround: initialized with override: 0 real: 0xf0d311c0
GetWin32Stats: display was not open yet, good
GetWin32Stats: display was not open yet, good

(The last line gets printed twice, yes.)

The first startup process then hangs there for a few seconds and continues with this.

steamwebhelper.sh[5473]: Running under Flatpak, disabling sandbox
steamwebhelper.sh[5473]: CEF sandbox already disabled
CAppInfoCacheReadFromDiskThread took 0 milliseconds to initialize
src/steamUI/steamuisharedjscontroller.cpp (540) : Failed creating offscreen shared JS context
src/steamUI/steamuisharedjscontroller.cpp (540) : Fatal assert; application exiting
08/17 22:48:39 Init: Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1690583737)/tid(5467)
assert_20230817224839_27.dmp[5771]: Uploading dump (out-of-process)
/tmp/dumps/assert_20230817224839_27.dmp
dirk ~ $

After the command prompt is shown agein, this gets printed:

assert_20230817224839_27.dmp[5771]: Finished uploading minidump (out-of-process): success = yes
assert_20230817224839_27.dmp[5771]: response: CrashID=bp-f62fb7e8-d024-452e-a937-9c6672230817
assert_20230817224839_27.dmp[5771]: file ''/tmp/dumps/assert_20230817224839_27.dmp'', upload yes: ''CrashID=bp-f62fb7e8-d024-452e-a937-9c6672230817''

At the given location there is no dump file.

Do you guys have any Idea why this happens and how I can fix it?

Involved software:

$ flatpak --version
Flatpak 1.15.4

$ flatpak remotes
Name    Optionen
flathub system

$ flatpak info com.valvesoftware.Steam | grep Version | awk '{print $2}'
1.0.0.78

$ uname -rms
Linux 6.4.10-arch1-1 x86_64

$ openbox --version | head -n1
Openbox 3.6.1

$ pacman -Qi xorg-server | grep Version | awk '{print $3}'
21.1.8-2
  • TheCreativeNameEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    All this is seriously so weird…

    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.

    1.flatpak uninstall --all --delete-data

    2.Remove flatpak with your package manager

    3.sudo rm -rf /var/lib/flatpak /var/cache/flatpak ~/.local/share/flatpak ~/.cache/flatpak ~/.local/share/flatpak ~/.cache/flatpak /etc/flatpak

    4.Reboot

    5.Install flatpak again

    6.Add flathub

    7.Install steam

    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?

    • 𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘬OP
      1·
      1 year ago

      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:

      GetWin32Stats: display was not open yet, good
GetWin32Stats: display was not open yet, good
steamwebhelper.sh[5479]: Runtime for steamwebhelper: defaulting to /home/dirk/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/steam-runtime-heavy
steamwebhelper.sh[5479]: Running under Flatpak, disabling sandbox
steamwebhelper.sh[5479]: CEF sandbox already disabled
CAppInfoCacheReadFromDiskThread took 0 milliseconds to initialize
src/steamUI/steamuisharedjscontroller.cpp (540) : Failed creating offscreen shared JS context
src/steamUI/steamuisharedjscontroller.cpp (540) : Fatal assert; application exiting
08/19 00:40:11 Init: Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1690583737)/tid(5473)
assert_20230819004011_29.dmp[5779]: Uploading dump (out-of-process)
/tmp/dumps/assert_20230819004011_29.dmp
dirk ~ $
assert_20230819004011_29.dmp[5779]: Finished uploading minidump (out-of-process): success = yes
assert_20230819004011_29.dmp[5779]: response: CrashID=bp-5698e954-748a-45d6-a5d4-7aa7a2230818
assert_20230819004011_29.dmp[5779]: file ''/tmp/dumps/assert_20230819004011_29.dmp'', upload yes: ''CrashID=bp-5698e954-748a-45d6-a5d4-7aa7a2230818''

      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:

      https://nopaste.net/QJI3c2Amz5

      • TheCreativeName
        1·
        1 year ago

        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.

        • 𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘬OP
          1·
          1 year ago

          But then why is it working for everyone else?

          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.

          GetWin32Stats: display was not open yet, good
GetWin32Stats: display was not open yet, good
steamwebhelper.sh[19338]: Runtime for steamwebhelper: defaulting to /home/dirk/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/steam-runtime-heavy
steamwebhelper.sh[19338]: glibc >= 2.34, partially disabling sandbox until CEF supports clone3()
Fontconfig warning: line 5: unknown element "description"
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/10-hinting-slight.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/10-scale-bitmap-fonts.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/10-scale-bitmap-fonts.conf", line 72: non-double matrix element
Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/10-scale-bitmap-fonts.conf", line 72: non-double matrix element
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/10-scale-bitmap-fonts.conf", line 80: saw unknown, expected number
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/10-sub-pixel-rgb.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/10-yes-antialias.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/11-lcdfilter-default.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/20-unhint-small-vera.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/30-metric-aliases.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/40-nonlatin.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/45-generic.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/45-latin.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/48-spacing.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/49-sansserif.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/50-user.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/51-local.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/60-generic.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/60-latin.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/65-nonlatin.conf", line 4: unknown element "description"
CAppInfoCacheReadFromDiskThread took 0 milliseconds to initialize
src/steamUI/steamuisharedjscontroller.cpp (540) : Failed creating offscreen shared JS context
src/steamUI/steamuisharedjscontroller.cpp (540) : Fatal assert; application exiting
08/19 01:26:26 Init: Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1690583737)/tid(19319)
assert_20230819012626_30.dmp[19438]: Uploading dump (out-of-process)
/tmp/dumps/assert_20230819012626_30.dmp
dirk ~ $
assert_20230819012626_30.dmp[19438]: Finished uploading minidump (out-of-process): success = yes
assert_20230819012626_30.dmp[19438]: response: CrashID=bp-175add07-33af-421a-a870-828612230818
assert_20230819012626_30.dmp[19438]: file ''/tmp/dumps/assert_20230819012626_30.dmp'', upload yes: ''CrashID=bp-175add07-33af-421a-a870-828612230818''

          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.

          dirk ~ $ pacman -Ss xdg-desktop-portal | grep installed
extra/xdg-desktop-portal 1.16.0-3 [installed]
extra/xdg-desktop-portal-gtk 1.14.1-1 [installed]

          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.

          • TheCreativeName
            1·
            1 year ago

            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.

            • 𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘬OP
              1·
              1 year ago

              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.

              So no more Steam games for me, I guess …

              • TheCreativeNameEnglish
                1·
                1 year ago

                This just can’t be…

                After some deep digging, I found one last Idea. Try launching steam with the -vgui flag and let me know if that works.

                • 𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘬OP
                  1·
                  1 year ago

                  This just can’t be…

                  Yep. This makes no sense at all. But I have no idea what to try anymore.

                  Try launching steam with the -vgui flag

                  Unfortunately this does not change the behavior. It still does the same thing as described before.

                  • TheCreativeName
                    2·
                    1 year ago

                    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…