Steam Flatpak crash on startup: Error "steamwebhelper is not responding" - NixOS 24.05

[shymega]

Similar issue to #1318, except on NixOS 24.05, with the latest Flatpak.

I'm using this on an AMD CPU, with an AMD 780M iGPU.

The fix described here works for me, but it does mean I can't use the latest version of Steam.

I do not have AppArmor or SELinux on NixOS, and my Flatpak has no special overrides, other than allowing access to external storage for games.

I'm not sure where to find the logs - if someone can let me know where to find the logs, I can upload them.

Thanks.

[smcv]

Similar issue to #1318

I'm pretty sure you mean a similar symptom, but almost certainly for a different reason.

[forcibly downgrading Steam] works for me

This is not something that Valve is ever going to support.

I'm not sure where to find the logs

~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.local/share/Steam/logs

[shymega]

Similar issue to #1318

I'm pretty sure you mean a similar symptom, but almost certainly for a different reason.

Yes, you're quite right. My bad for neglecting that.

[forcibly downgrading Steam] works for me

This is not something that Valve is ever going to support.

Agreed, which is why I would rather not use that [solution] as a fix.

I'm not sure where to find the logs

~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.local/share/Steam/logs

Any log in particular? I see quite a few.

[smcv]

console-linux.txt, webhelper-linux.txt and webhelper.txt are likely to be the most relevant for a steamwebhelper crash. If you revert your workaround(s), move the current logs out of the way, then attempt to start Steam, you'll get "clean" logs that only contain the most recent launch attempt.

[shymega]

Got logs from the default Steam version.

I couldn't get webhelper.txt - it doesn't exist - but the rest I have.

Attached.
console-linux.txt
webhelper-linux.txt

[smcv]

Try with STEAM_LINUX_RUNTIME_VERBOSE=1 in the environment?

If you have STEAM_LINUX_RUNTIME_LOG=1 set, there will be another log file in ~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/steam-runtime-sniper/var/. If not, then the verbose log from starting the container runtime should end up in webhelper-linux.txt.

At the moment this looks like the container runtime startup is just freezing somewhere?

[smcv]

I couldn't get webhelper.txt - it doesn't exist

That would be consistent with container runtime startup freezing or something, so that the actual steamwebhelper never actually starts.

[shymega]

OK, so when running with those env vars (cmd: flatpak run --env=STEAM_LINUX_RUNTIME_LOG=1 --env=STEAM_LINUX_RUNTIME_VERBOSE=1 com.valvesoftware.Steam), Steam does load.

However, it appears to be intermittent. I have attached the logs requested to this ticket. I'm not sure if it's related to a possible bug with NixOS and AMD - its affecting 1Password GUI and dwl, a wlroots WM for me at the moment.

console-linux.txt
slr-latest.log
webhelper.txt
webhelper-linux.txt

[smcv]

If this is failing intermittently, please continue to use those options for a while (you can use flatpak override --user com.valvesoftware.Steam to get those two environment variables set by default for Steam, if you want) and collect logs from one of the times that it fails.