Arch Linux

MonkeyBoy

Member

Registered: 2017-11-26

Posts: 22

Steam - Cannot install games, stuck at " Creating local game files"

Have posted this issue at github but it seems to be a hard problem to solve so I try here as well. Moderator: If it is not OK practice then please erase this post.

When Installing a game (trying) it becoms marked ... - Install... in the left pane, the blue INSTALL-button instantly changes into "PLAY" and the dialogue gets stucked at Creating local game files..., w the dots rolling 1-2-3 for Preparing [game] Nothing else happens. Clicking CANCEL closes the dialogue, and the game is still marked ... - Install... and the blue button PLAY.

Clicking PLAY goes to the Updating [game] dialogue and PLAY GAME never gets lit. X out of dialogue.

Trying to Uninstall the game gives the dialogue Delete Game Files?, clicking DELETE shows the little infosquare Steam - Uninstall, Uninstalling %game%... frozen and the client is unresponsive. Have to monkeyBonkey@banana ~> kill -SIGKILL steam

Tries to install other games puts the game in que in the left pane and same as above - it gets stuck at the dialogue Creating local game files... . Click CANCEL and PLAY changes to INSTALL.

NB

A - This is the first time in years I install steam again, Ubuntu and win back in the days.
B - I have found remedies on ze interwebz and I have acted accordingly: reinstall Steam, move gamefolder to different disk (partition in my case), restart computer, changing regions for download and some more I cannot rememeber - no avail.
C - In some logs I find signs of connection to servers not working well. See below.
D - In stdout there is sometimes a cascade of lines but apparently this belongs to another issue at github, unrelated to this and the phenomena being all harmless according to issue.
E - In some occasions behaviour is irratic, on time, all in a sudden a game was installed (!) Not able to reproduce.
F - I have been fiddling w this now for a few days and AFAIHM I have not found anything mapping my problem in full. Just partially and what remedies those suggest has not helped my case. See B

Logs etc
Steam stdout
Steam stats_log
Steam site_licens_log
Steam system info

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,403

Re: Steam - Cannot install games, stuck at " Creating local game files"

What "different" partition? Which filesystem? steam gets wonky when it doesn't have a ext4 partition. In general with Steam issues, try to install steam-native-runtime and using the steam-native command to run it. If that fixes things, great and make sure you keep using that instead.  also since I've never seen that many dbus errors even when using the normal steam runtime, what do you get for

loginctl show-session $XDG_SESSION_ID

MonkeyBoy

Member

Registered: 2017-11-26

Posts: 22

Re: Steam - Cannot install games, stuck at " Creating local game files"

@V1del, thanks for taking your time. I will try to make things more clear.

Different disk/partition like in suggestions that I found at Steam support page. Suggestion was to change disk to install the games on.

The games are installed on btrfs, first thing I will do now is to make sure that the  games end up in a ext4 fs. I have been searching the web for 3 days now not finding any suggestion in this direction. Feels like I'm not the only one with steam-linux problem so I am a little confounded - are there any resources to find such things that I have missed? I feel kinda stoopid over here

I will go steam-native, sounds to be sound in the long run.

Again - thanks for your time and effort. Will make sure to report back on the issue.

Here is output from ~>loginctl show-session $XDG_SESSION_ID

MonkeyBoy

Member

Registered: 2017-11-26

Posts: 22

Re: Steam - Cannot install games, stuck at " Creating local game files"

OK, games are now moved to ext4 partition and I run steam as native (steam-native). I have checked the stdoutput and it is really running over native. Results are unchanged from before.

After a quick web search I find that steam runs fine on btrfs. Though I have not done proper research ftm. But I will reformat /home to ext4 later on and see what outcome that might be.

Cheers!

Last edited by MonkeyBoy (2017-12-19 17:33:44)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,403

Re: Steam - Cannot install games, stuck at " Creating local game files"

Can you try from a Xorg session? Maybe there are some wonky interactions with Xwayland?

MonkeyBoy

Member

Registered: 2017-11-26

Posts: 22

Re: Steam - Cannot install games, stuck at " Creating local game files"

Good point, wayland might very well be the culprit. So, I will reformat /home to ext4 and go heads on with Xorg (allways good to learn something new: )

Also, after going native the dbus errors seems to have disappeared. I will provoke it though, see if it only was coincidental.

Cheers!

Last edited by MonkeyBoy (2017-12-19 18:20:06)