Fedora 40: Steam Client stopped working

Hi, i am quite new to linux and fedora. Some weeks ago I installed fedora 40 on my desktop, I also installed steam (from rpmfusion) and it worked flawlessly for several weeks. Yesterday steam stopped working for me.
When I start it, the client shows up with the valve symbol and the rotating blue circle - but the circle doesn’t stop rotating and the client will not proceed.
I don’t believe that I changed something (I didn’t install updates before the bug occurred). But I installed some updates since them, but they didn’t help…

What can I do ?

Here the output when I start steam via terminal:

dapeta@fedora:~$ steam
steam.sh[2614]: Running Steam on fedora 40 64-bit
steam.sh[2614]: STEAM_RUNTIME is enabled automatically
setup.sh[2683]: Steam runtime environment up-to-date!
steam.sh[2614]: Steam client’s requirements are satisfied
[2024-09-13 09:59:42] Startup - updater built Sep 11 2024 20:40:00
[2024-09-13 09:59:42] Startup - Steam Client launched with: ‘/home/dapeta/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam’ ‘-srt-logger-opened’
09/13 09:59:42 minidumps folder is set to /tmp/dumps
09/13 09:59:42 Init: Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1726088054)/tid(2742)
[2024-09-13 09:59:42] Loading cached metrics from disk (/home/dapeta/.local/share/Steam/package/steam_client_metrics.bin)
[2024-09-13 09:59:42] Using the following download hosts for Public, Realm steamglobal
[2024-09-13 09:59:42] 1. https://client-update.akamai.steamstatic.com, /, Realm ‘steamglobal’, weight was 1000, source = ‘update_hosts_cached.vdf’
[2024-09-13 09:59:42] 2. https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com, /client/, Realm ‘steamglobal’, weight was 1, source = ‘update_hosts_cached.vdf’
[2024-09-13 09:59:42] 3. https://client-update.steamstatic.com, /, Realm ‘steamglobal’, weight was 1, source = ‘baked in’
[2024-09-13 09:59:42] Verifying installation…
[2024-09-13 09:59:43] Verification complete
UpdateUI: skip show logo
Steam logging initialized: directory: /home/dapeta/.local/share/Steam/logs

/usr/share/themes/Mint-Y-Dark-Aqua/gtk-2.0/main.rc:1053: error: unexpected identifier ‘direction’, expected character ‘}’
XRRGetOutputInfo Workaround: initialized with override: 0 real: 0xebf07e90
XRRGetCrtcInfo Workaround: initialized with override: 0 real: 0xebf065f0
steamwebhelper.sh[2778]: Using supervisor /home/dapeta/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/amd64/usr/bin/steam-runtime-supervisor
steamwebhelper.sh[2778]: Starting steamwebhelper under bootstrap sniper steam runtime via /home/dapeta/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/steam-runtime-sniper.sh
steamwebhelper.sh[2778]: Using CEF sandbox (try with -no-cef-sandbox if this fails)
steamwebhelper.sh[2778]: Starting steamwebhelper with Sniper steam runtime at /home/dapeta/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/steam-runtime-sniper/_v2-entry-point
Steam Runtime Launch Service: starting steam-runtime-launcher-service
Steam Runtime Launch Service: steam-runtime-launcher-service is running pid 2967
bus_name=com.steampowered.PressureVessel.LaunchAlongsideSteam
pressure-vessel-wrap[2805]: N: Not replacing “/etc/vulkan/explicit_layer.d” with tmpfs: Path “/etc” is reserved by the container framework
pressure-vessel-wrap[2805]: N: Not replacing “/etc/vulkan/implicit_layer.d” with tmpfs: Path “/etc” is reserved by the container framework
exec ./steamwebhelper -lang=en_US -cachedir=/home/dapeta/.local/share/Steam/config/htmlcache -steampid=2742 -buildid=1726088054 -steamid=0 -logdir=/home/dapeta/.local/share/Steam/logs -uimode=7 -startcount=0 -userdatadir=/home/dapeta/.local/share/Steam/config/cefdata -steamuniverse=Public -realm=Global -clientui=/home/dapeta/.local/share/Steam/clientui -steampath=/home/dapeta/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam -launcher=0 -no-restart-on-ui-mode-change --valve-enable-site-isolation --enable-smooth-scrolling --password-store=basic --log-file=/home/dapeta/.local/share/Steam/logs/cef_log.txt --disable-quick-menu --enable-features=PlatformHEVCDecoderSupport --disable-features=SpareRendererForSitePerProcess,DcheckIsFatal
BRefreshApplicationsInLibrary 1: 0ms
[2024-09-13 10:01:43] Background update loop checking for update. . .
[2024-09-13 10:01:43] Checking for available updates…
[2024-09-13 10:01:43] Downloading manifest: https://client-update.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam_client_ubuntu12
[2024-09-13 10:01:43] Manifest download: send request
[2024-09-13 10:01:43] Manifest download: waiting for download to finish
[2024-09-13 10:01:44] Manifest download: finished
[2024-09-13 10:01:44] Download skipped: /steam_client_ubuntu12 version 1726088054, installed version 1726088054, existing pending version 0
[2024-09-13 10:01:44] Nothing to do

Try using the default theme.
Check a new user with default settings.

Thx for the suggestion. I created a test user with default settings and steam is indeed starting again for the test user - but not for my real user (even after changing the theme).
What is interesting is that the error message you noted is also shown for the test user, so I don’t know if its relevant.

See also: Error running steam - #6 by vgaetera

Thx again.
I tried so far:

  • reset steam with steam --reset → no change
  • with or without internet connection → no change
  • checked in the steam.sh output the mentioned error in main.rc → but the file looks fine
  • compared the output of steam.sh of the working testuser with my main user and the main difference seems to be that it just hangs somewhere on my main user and progresses further on the testuser (reading the game library etc)

I have still no glue what is going on here.

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I found a solution for my problem.

Steam stores the account infos in the file:
~/home//.local/share/Steam/config/loginusers.vdf

Open the file with a text editor and set the value of: “AllowAutoLogin” to “0”.
That solved the problem for me.

1 Like