Arch Linux

Cadeyrn

Member

Registered: 2013-04-06

Posts: 170

Steam instantly closes with no error

The problem is this:

$ steam
/home/jimi/.local/share/Steam/steam.sh: line 161: VERSION_ID: unbound variable
/home/jimi/.local/share/Steam/steam.sh: line 161: VERSION_ID: unbound variable
Running Steam on arch  64-bit
STEAM_RUNTIME is disabled by the user
$ STEAM_RUNTIME=1 steam
/home/jimi/.local/share/Steam/steam.sh: line 161: VERSION_ID: unbound variable
/home/jimi/.local/share/Steam/steam.sh: line 161: VERSION_ID: unbound variable
Running Steam on arch  64-bit
STEAM_RUNTIME is enabled by the user
$

That's right, nothing! And $? was 0 in both cases--no error code or anything. I've already tried this command:

find ~/.steam/root/ \( -name "libgcc_s.so*" -o -name "libstdc++.so*" -o -name "libxcb.so*" -o -name "libgpg-error.so*" \) -print -delete

And ~/.local/share/Steam/steam.sh is NOT empty, nor is bin-steam.sh (that was an issue I found people had when I Googled this).

OK, background time:
I'm using 2 installs of Arch Linux. One is the host computer, and the other is a QEMU/KVM guest using PCI passthrough and OVMF to play games with a real graphics card (long story). On the host, steam works fine. On the guest, this behavior I'm complaining about is suddenly happening. It wasn't the case the last time I gamed on the VM, which was a few days ago. And before you ask, no, it's not because I'm trying to run Steam on both computers at the same time. I do that, but I tested it without doing that and it does the same thing.
Said VM is using the newest version of the proprietary NVidia drivers (367.27-1), and the newest versions of steam-native and steam-libs (1.0.0.52-1) + the {lib32-,}libudev.so.0 library link packages that 1.0.0.52 needs. However, its behavior was completely identical before I upgraded everything, so it acted the same on steam-native 1.0.0.51, steam-libs and libudev.so.0 not installed, and nvidia 364.19-3. The host is running those newest steam-native and steam-libs, but is on nouveau instead (there are 2 NVidia cards in here).

EDIT: I forgot to mention: the host and the VM use the exact same home folder, and therefore steam folder, using a virtio-9p share. That's why this problem baffles me so much.

Last edited by Cadeyrn (2016-06-27 05:06:48)

Hydranix

Member

Registered: 2013-02-10

Posts: 55

Re: Steam instantly closes with no error

I'm sure you've tried doing

steam --reset && steam

With and without STEAM_RUNTIME=1/0

Right?

Steam gives me a ton of issues, is steam segfaulting on the guest?

dmesg|tail -n 100

right after it crashes. That might shed a little bit of light.

<unrelated>
I always wanted to try pci-passthrough to play within a VM, I bought a K-SKU processor though

How well did it work? Was it cool seeing the real graphics card from a qemu guest ?:)

Cadeyrn

Member

Registered: 2013-04-06

Posts: 170

Re: Steam instantly closes with no error

It works perfectly. I set it up using the infamous guides on vfio.blogspot.com and the ArchWiki page for PCI Passthrough via OVMF. The only reason I need a Linux VM is that I'm running 2 NVidia cards. If I had Intel graphics, or if either card was AMD, there would've been at least 1 and probably 3 ways to easily use the card in the host. Since I'm not, and because I'm using a Maxwell GPU (GTX 960), I have to basically undo half the config and switch to the shitty proprietary drivers on the host to use it.

I'm not sure that steam --reset would fix it, because it works fine on the host, just not on the guest. It's not segfaulting. As I said, it gives no errors and a returns 0 as it immediately exits before doing anything. I'm a little weary of running steam --reset because steam can be infamous for bugs like deleting your entire steamapps folder, or forgetting all your game categories. Thankfully, I manage all my custom shortcuts with Ice, so I don't have to worry about recreating those.

I should probably mention, the reason the fact that the host works is a big deal is: the host and the VM use the exact same home folder, and therefore steam folder, using a virtio-9p share. So that's why I don't think steam --reset will fix it.

Cadeyrn

Member

Registered: 2013-04-06

Posts: 170

Re: Steam instantly closes with no error

Running steam --reset did not fix it. I might just give up and get a new AMD card, since this NVidia one has no warranty and I can barely afford a new one. Those amdgpu drivers have me excited. (Switching to an AMD card for gaming would make it possible to much more easily play Linux games with it without a VM while still having access to the Windows VM.)

Last edited by Cadeyrn (2016-06-28 04:47:57)

Hydranix

Member

Registered: 2013-02-10

Posts: 55

Re: Steam instantly closes with no error

Sorry for late reply.

That they both share a home folder is more than likely the cause if I were to guess.

Theres a folder created by steam in the home directory

~/.steam

It contains steams pidfile, a pipe, and some symlinks to other directories in the home directory (but no symlinks outside the home directory).

I know it worked before, but perhaps the pidfile or the pipe steam uses is causing trouble?

I also know steam creates a file in /tmp which should be named something like this:

/tmp/steam_chrome_shmem_uid${UID}_spid$(pidof steam|cut -d ' ' -f 2)

Maybe some combination of sharing or hiding those files between host and guest would get steam to stop crashing?

Cadeyrn

Member

Registered: 2013-04-06

Posts: 170

Re: Steam instantly closes with no error

But, I tried launching steam in the guest while it wasn't running on the host. How would it be the issue if none of those symlinks go outside the home directory, and it worked before?