I just put together my first dedicated Linux machine. Running Pop!_OS, and I’ve got a problem with Steam. I’ve tried installing it from the Pop Shop (i love that name), both the .deb and flatpak versions as well as sudo apt install steam. In both cases, when I open the app it will just blink at me. Like the window is trying to maximize but then minimizes before it can get that far. I made sure that all my drivers look good and was just playing Starfield, so I know it’s at least somewhat functional. What’s weird is that it launched once for me. Long enough to get signed in. But after a reboot, it will not open unless I type steam --reset from terminal. Then it opens just fine and acts like nothing happened. Of course if I close that terminal window, Steam closes. And if I don’t do a reset, it will go right back to flashing at me again.

I’ve also noticed that games show “Cloud Status: Unable to sync” in the app. The following games are installed currently:

  • The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition
  • Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun
  • Starfield Premium edition All of these games show the cloud sync error. But when I checked the first two, the game save I had from my steam deck worked fine. But it still shows the error.

I tried opting into Beta to see if that might have some bleeding edge fix, nope. I’m still new to Linux and I’ll admit I’m not even sure where to look for Steam errors specifically to give more details.

Hardware (in case it helps):

  • AMD Ryzen 5 7600X
  • 32GB G.Skill Flare
  • Gigabyte B650i Aurous ITX
  • WD Black 1TB boot drive
  • Samsung Evo Plus 2TB storage
  • Cooler Master 850w gold SFX PSU
  • XFX 6700XT 12GB

Any ideas on what I can try? Or where I can find logs to better understand? I asked in the Linux Gaming sub…lemmy? at least about the cloud sync, but got no traction.

  • Sentau@lemmy.one
    2·
    1 year ago

    Maybe you can try logging in before changing the file. Then quit steam, change the file and restart your steam system and then try to open steam. This was the exact process I followed and it worked.

    Edit : the change to the .desktop file is not applied until you reboot your system.

    • Father_Redbeard@lemmy.mlOP
      2·
      1 year ago

      No luck. I uninstalled it via Pop Shop first, but it was still holding onto my login. So I removed it via terminal:

      sudo apt remove steam

      sudo apt purge steam

      sudo apt autoremove

      rm -rf ~/.steam

      rm -rf ~/.local/share/Steam

      At this point I conffirmed the steam.desktop was removed

      sudo apt clean

      I was able to open it to logon page and sign in. But it immediately began the flash dance. steam via Terminal does work to open it, but of course if you kill that session the app closes as well.

      • Sentau@lemmy.one
        2·
        1 year ago

        I have edited the comment above. I had made an error while typing. Please check if that changes anything

        • Father_Redbeard@lemmy.mlOP
          2·
          1 year ago

          Hmm, it works now. But I swear I rebooted multiple times! Oh well, I’m just happy it works now. Thanks for being patient with a newb!