Arch Linux

Jotunn

Member

Registered: 2023-04-29

Posts: 69

[Resolved] Steam library Disk Write Error

I had my steam library created on a separate partition on a completely different drive.
I reinstalled Arch and steam and was unable to reconnect to the old library on the 2nd partition.
I deleted the old library and created a new library in the same location.
When I try to download a game to the library on this 2nd partition it returns "Disk Write Error"
I have also noticed that the directory on this 2nd partition is now asking for root credentials when being mounted (something it never did before the reinstall).

I have tried changing permissions to this partition so all users have RWX permission (reverted this change after it was found to be ineffective)
I ran the following command to permanently mount the directory to /home:

echo "UUID=$(lsblk -no UUID /dev/nvme1n1p1) $mount/home $(lsblk -no FSTYPE /dev/nvme1n1p1) defaults,noatime 0 2" >> /etc/fstab

That command resolved without errors but after rebooting the directory was still unmounted and it still required root credentials in order to mount.

I do not have any other operating systems installed. I have seen other threads discussing a similar issue but they were all cases of dual-booting arch and windows, and the issue was directly related to that. In this case, the one installation of Arch is the only OS on the machine.
I believe the issue is related to the mounting of this additional drive/partition/directory but am not sure how to go about fixing that without reformatting the entire thing. There is a large amount of data I wish to preserve in this directory.

Last edited by Jotunn (2023-07-05 16:29:31)

Jotunn

Member

Registered: 2023-04-29

Posts: 69

Re: [Resolved] Steam library Disk Write Error

Update: I reran the following:

# su > echo "UUID=$(lsblk -no UUID /dev/nvme1n1p1) $mount/mydisk $(lsblk -no FSTYPE /dev/nvme1n1p1) defaults,noatime 0 2" >> /etc/fstab
# mount /dev/nvme1n1p1 /mnt
mount: (hint) your fstab has been modified, but systemd still uses
       the old version; use 'systemctl daemon-reload' to reload.
# systemctl daemon-reload

After this I was able to access the 2nd partition without needing to enter credentials.
This solution persisted through reboots.
Currently, this is the output from lsblk:

NAME               MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE  MOUNTPOINTS
zram0              253:0    0     4G  0 disk  [SWAP]
nvme0n1            259:0    0 465.8G  0 disk  
├─nvme0n1p1        259:1    0   511M  0 part  /boot
├─nvme0n1p2        259:2    0  19.5G  0 part  /
└─nvme0n1p3        259:3    0 445.8G  0 part  
  └─ainstnvme0n1p3 254:0    0 445.7G  0 crypt /home
nvme1n1            259:4    0   3.6T  0 disk  
└─nvme1n1p1        259:5    0   3.6T  0 part  /mydisk

Unfortunately, after recreating the steam library on nvme1n1p1 again, I was still not able to install any games.
Steam is still returning the same error "Disk Write Error"

Jotunn

Member

Registered: 2023-04-29

Posts: 69

Re: [Resolved] Steam library Disk Write Error

Final update:
I fixed it!
I had originally installed Steam with flatpak
reinstalling through flatpak did not resolve the issue
but uninstalling, enabling multilib and installing the 32-bit app through pacman resolved the issue

$ sudo vim /etc/pacman.conf
        -uncomment the following 2 lines:
        #[multipib]
        #Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
$ sudo pacman -Syyu
$ sudo pacman -S steam

RandomRanger

Member

Registered: 2023-06-26

Posts: 42

Re: [Resolved] Steam library Disk Write Error

Flatpak uses sandboxed permissions. Did you make sure that your steam install had access to that filesystem? It seems like you have resolved the issue, but if the problems stems from the sandboxing it may have only been a workaround.

$ flatpak info --show-permissions name

See section 3.11 for more
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Flatpak

Last edited by RandomRanger (2023-07-14 13:23:26)

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Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from science.

delgadillouski

Member

Registered: 2023-12-08

Posts: 1

Re: [Resolved] Steam library Disk Write Error

Flatpak uses sandboxed permissions. Did you make sure that your steam install had access to that filesystem? It seems like you have resolved the issue, but if the problems stems from the sandboxing it may have only been a workaround.

$ flatpak info --show-permissions name

See section 3.11 for more
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Flatpak

As RandomRanger suggests, it is a sandboxing issue, or rather a safety feature I would say.  I solved the same Disk Write Error issue in Steam following the insight provided by RandomRanger. The command 'flatpak info --show-permissions name' only throws the predefined sandbox rules, while the command 'flatpak override' allows new rules to deny or allow resources, sockets, features, devices, default rules and more.

$ flatpak override --help

To solve the issue and allow steam to access the desired folder I ran the following:

# flatpak override --filesystem=/foo/desiredfolder/ 

And to ensure the new rule was applied I ran:

$ flatpak override --show 

See man flatpak-override for more
https://man.archlinux.org/man/flatpak-override.1

MangoWater

Member

Registered: 2025-07-25

Posts: 1

Re: [Resolved] Steam library Disk Write Error

flatpak override didn't work for me, so the way I fixed it to keep using the flatpak version is that I created a bind mount from the external drive to home

 mkdir -p ~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.local/share/SteamLibrary

sudo mount --bind /mnt/drive2/SteamLibrary ~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.local/share/SteamLibrary

After that, I added this to /etc/fstab :

/mnt/drive2/SteamLibrary  /home/user/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.local/share/SteamLibrary  none  bind  0  0

And then added the new path as a library folder in Steam settings:

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

The error went away, and the game installed and ran fine afterwards.