steamwebhelper crashing repeatedly on launch, client will not open at all

[yumio7]

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Your system information

• Steam client version (build number or date): Unknown (cannot open client to check), package manager listing 'steam 1.0.0.78-2'
• Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Arch
• Opted into Steam client beta?: No
• Have you checked for system updates?: Yes
• Steam Logs: steam-logs.tar.gz
• GPU: Nvidia

inxi -F

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

As of a few days ago steam was working normally, but one night it wouldnt launch. Since then it has not worked at all. When I launched it from the command line it looked like the webhelper was launching repeatedly, or crashing, I'm not entirely sure. Sometimes I get the "steamwebhelper is not responding" box but none of the options fix the issue. I've reinstalled my nvidia drivers, vulkan and everything, including the app itself. Only thing I can get to launch is the flatpak version (duh) but even steam-runtime wont work. The most ive ever seen is the "Updating Steam" window followed by nothing (or the steamwebhelper crash window).

I appologize if there is already an issue open for this, I've looked thru a bunch but most of the related ones are from almost a year ago, and none of the proposed solutions in them worked.

Steps for reproducing this issue:

1. Launch steam
2. Observe webhelper crash

[GoDev87]

I have the same problem on Fedora 39 with steam in or out publicbeta.

[TTimo]

Hello @yumio7,

Your steamwebhelper.log reports FATAL:gpu_data_manager_impl_private.cc(442)] GPU process isn't usable. Goodbye. which could indicate an issue with your graphics drivers configuration.

You can try to disable GPU acceleration in the Steam client as a workaround by setting -cef-disable-gpu on the Steam command line.

[yumio7]

I had attempted to use that to the same result as stated above.

[TTimo]

Please update to the Steam beta client and check if the same problem occurs? (Steam -> Settings -> Interface -> Client Beta Participation)

[yumio7]

@TTimo I explicitly stated in my issue that I cannot open the client.

[TTimo]

Oh err .. I guess you can't do that if you are not able to bring up the UI either. There's a manual way to do it: echo publicbeta > ~/.steam/steam/package/beta

[crumblingstatue]

Oh err .. I guess you can't do that if you are not able to bring up the UI either. There's a manual way to do it: echo publicbeta > ~/.steam/steam/package/beta

I did this, and the behavior is still the same (Arch Linux) #10538 is probably a duplicate of this

[yumio7]

Behavior still the same for me too after switching to the beta.

[FedeAbella]

I'm having this same issue now on Ubuntu 23.10, after latest update (ran Steam perfectly earlier today on a different user on the same pc, but steam is globally installed, so I'm guessing this appeared for me after some update I received today)

[FedeAbella]

Switching to the beta in the terminal using @TTimo's command and restarting afterwards worked for me.

Edit: It definitely didn't work right after moving to beta, until I restarted everything

[TTimo]

The stable client shipped just a short while ago. There should be no functional difference between beta and stable right now.

[ieyi4ooPAig1ui5U]

Perhaps it could have something to do with this childish nonsense?

steamwebhelper.sh[20212]: === Tue Feb 27 05:23:29 PM PST 2024 ===
steamwebhelper.sh[20212]: Starting steamwebhelper under bootstrap sniper steam runtime at /usr/local/games/steam_linux/ubuntu12_64/steam-runtime-sniper
pressure-vessel-wrap[20232]: W: Binding directories that are located under "/usr/" is not supported!
bwrap: Can't chdir to /usr/local/games/steam_linux/ubuntu12_64: No such file or directory

[kisak-valve]

Hello @ieyi4ooPAig1ui5U, https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-runtime/blob/master/doc/steamlinuxruntime-known-issues.md#usrlocal is now relevant to your system now that steamwebhelper is being run in the Steam Linux Runtime - Sniper container environment. Your issue is unrelated to the issue reported in this issue report.

[crumblingstatue]

Interestingly, a fresh install of the flatpak version (com.valvesoftware.Steam) does produce a working version for me, even though https://github.com/flathub/com.valvesoftware.Steam/issues/1251 talks about the same issue with steamwebhelper on the flatpak version.

My only conclusion is that the error might have to do with updating an existing install of Steam. Although I did remove ~/.steam and ~/.local/share/Steam when testing the native version, and that didn't fix the error with steamwebhelper. But maybe that's not all the files that need removing and reinstalling.

[TTimo]

@crumblingstatue please try something like this: mv ~/.local/share/Steam ~/.local/share/Steam.off then launch steam native. That will do a fresh install, do you get a functional setup if you do this?

If that works, please save an archive of ~/.local/share/Steam.off for me! (minus steamapps/ .. likely don't need that).

[zer0def]

In my case, after peeking into ~/.steam/steam/logs/steamwebhelper.log, I was greeted by a familiar CEF warning:

pressure-vessel-wrap[3835945]: E: Cannot run /usr/bin/bwrap: wait status 256
pressure-vessel-wrap[3835945]: E: Diagnostic output:
bwrap: No permissions to creating new namespace, likely because the kernel does not allow non-privileged user namespaces. On e.g. debian this can be enabled with 'sysctl kernel.unprivileged_userns_clone=1'.

Whether that's something acceptable to the user is up to their discretion.

[crumblingstatue]

@crumblingstatue please try something like this: mv ~/.local/share/Steam ~/.local/share/Steam.off then launch steam native. That will do a fresh install, do you get a functional setup if you do this?

No, that doesn't work. It prompts me to reinstall, and I let it reinstall Steam, and then after I still get the steamwebhelper crash.

[TTimo]

thanks @crumblingstatue - you might want to open a separate issue and provide your own logs and system info. Make sure to try -cef-disable-gpu (it looks like we are tracking something unrelated to GPU accel though).

If your system is setup to collect crashes (coredumpctl) you could check for steamwebhelper crashes and provide the coredumpctl debug output for some of those?

[FedeAbella]

Switching to the beta in the terminal using @TTimo's command and restarting afterwards worked for me.

Edit: It definitely didn't work right after moving to beta, until I restarted everything

Welp, after this solved it for me yesterday, it's now back to being broken for me.

@TTimo is there something else that needs trying I can help with? I'm on Ubuntu 23.10.

[TTimo]

@FedeAbella please open a separate issue and provide your logs, thank you.

[yumio7]

As of upgrading to nvidia drivers v. 550.54.14 the issue is still persisting. Only the flatpak version of the client works on my machine still.

[yumio7]

Turns out this issue was related to Hyprland, my WM. I've since switched to swayfx and it works perfectly again. Closing this issue as its not related to steam itself.

[tjbp]

I had this same issue and tracked it down to a change I'd just made to try and get my Nvidia drivers working with Wayland. __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME was set to nvidia in those changes, and running __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME= steam-runtime got Steam running again.