Steam segfaults on openSUSE 12.3? Also, games that used to work no longer working?

English Games
1

I’ve been using Steam on openSUSE since the early Betas. It’s been working perfect until recently, and I’m stuck with figuring out why. Any troubleshooting tips would be very welcome!

System specs:OS = openSUSE 12.3 - 64 bit
Kernel = 3.7.10-1.16-desktop
KDE = 4.10.5
CPU = AMD X4 965
RAM = 16GB
Video = Nvidia GTX660Ti
Video driver = 319.17 (from nvidia repo)

This evening I did a clean install. I did a full format of root and /home and installed a clean 12.3 configuring a new user. No old files were copied over. This a complete default install, fully updated to the standard repos. I then added packman and switched system repos over to packman, and updated again. Nvidia proprietary drivers were installed, and kernel updated.

Steam 1.0.0.39 was then installed from the standard games repo (Index of /repositories/games/openSUSE_12.3)

I’ve checked here: https://en.opensuse.org/Steam and if I use

STEAM_RUNTIME=0 steam

Steam doesn’t even start. I ran the search for missing libs and added the one that was missing.

Symptoms of the problem with Steam client:

I launch Steam (icon, or from Terminal) and it starts up OK, shows the main screen. If I click through to any game page that has Flash content, Steam immediately segfaults.

SUSE Paste ← terminal output from launching Steam and then crashing

OK, I assume this is a Flash issue, but I can’t find anything that points me at a specific issue or resolution. Currently I’ve made no tweaks to whatever Flash Steam is using.

Could this be fixed by downloading some 32 bit version of libflashplayer.so and dropping into some system dir?

Problems with games:

I used to have no issues at all with any games (eg Portal), but now nothing starts. I just get a black screen for Dota2, Portal, HL2 (all versions), etc etc.

I can’t pin it down to a specific event or update (the games stopped working before I did the clean install, and after the clean install still do not work). Does anyone else have these games? Are they working for you?

I have tried manually installing the 325 version of the proprietary Nvidia driver, but that hasn’t made any difference at all.

So… I’m kind of stuck here. Guessing… it could be a KDE thing? It could be a Nvidia driver thing? Or something else maybe?

I don’t have enough info to open an usable bug with Valve… I don’t know if it’s my system, a Steam issue, or… just the idiot driving the keyboard/mouse…

2

Replying to myself…

Found this: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1493-GHZB-7612

and that fixed one of the issues… now the Steam client is no longer tripping over itself.

This hasn’t resolved the problem of games (all variations of HL2, Portal, Dota2 etc) refusing to work. All I get is a black screen when I launch a game.

3

And replying to myself again…

Found this:Source games halt at black screen when starting - Opensuse 12.3 64bit :: Steam for Linux General Discussions
which resolved the issue.

So for completeness in case anyone else is bumping into stability issues and Source/Valve games not working on a 64 bit openSUSE install:

I’ll go back under my rock now :slight_smile:

4

smaug42 wrote:
>
> And replying to myself again…
>
> Found this:‘Source games halt at black screen when starting - Opensuse
> 12.3 64bit :: Steam for Linux General Discussions’
> (http://tinyurl.com/kvuvrar)
> which resolved the issue.
>
> So for completeness in case anyone else is bumping into stability
> issues and Source/Valve games not working on a 64 bit openSUSE install:
>
>
> - Update the flash player as described here:
> https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1493-GHZB-7612
> - Set the option for Source/Valve games as described here: ‘Source
> games halt at black screen when starting - Opensuse 12.3 64bit ::
> Steam for Linux General Discussions’ (http://tinyurl.com/kvuvrar)
>
>
> I’ll go back under my rock now :slight_smile:
>
>
I think it is better that those who want to use 32 bit applications like
steam should go in for a 32 bit installation rather than having to
install 2 OSes(64 and 32) worth of packages

–
GNOME 3.6.2
openSUSE Release 12.3 (Dartmouth) 64-bit
Kernel Linux 3.7.10-1.16-desktop

5

very useful tip mate, without exception.

Ok now for real, does anyone know how to repair steam on openSUSE ? Becouse the tips from @smaug42 do no work for me :confused:

6

I have the exact same issue. It just started, i cannot play any Steam Games. Both Left 4 Dead 2 and Dota go directly into a black screen, no sound no nothing and nothing happens. Issue is described in this forum indeed Source games halt at black screen when starting - Opensuse 12.3 64bit :: Steam for Linux General Discussions but there are no fixes for it. The uncheck “Enable Steam Communtiy In-Game” dosn’t solve the issue. Currently i cannot play anything. What’s up with opensuse, everytime i update Steam breaks. This is starting to be rlly annoying !

7

I am confused, steam is working fine for me. (since steam beta went public)
openSUSE 12.3 64 bit.

I am not sure installing the 32 bit version is good idea.
I have seen people having issues with it. ( steam )

But from the steam forums I am under the impression its nvidia related, and I use amd.

@rbarsoianu did you restart steam after changing that setting ?

8

Just a few tips for steam.

First of all, installing the 32-bit runtime pattern seems to help with some issues, also getting the 32-bit flash plugin fixed the issue I had where the client would crash on pages with videos.

However, on the Half-life 2 issue it looks more like the setting for the SDL_AUDIODRIVER environment variable which on opensuse defaults to “pulse” so, try running a terminal and doing the following command to see if it fixes it.

env SDL_AUDIODRIVER=alsa steam

If you want a little bit more info, I have a video on youtube that has a brief rundown of what I ran into with steam on opensuse 12.3 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bt54dV6AJU where I show how I modified the startup of steam on kde to accomodate this.