Steam

What works

• Launching from an existing Windows 10 installation
• Logging in
• Installing and downloading games
• Automatic updates
• Steam store and community
• Steam friends
• Launching games manually

What does not

• Minor issues with some unicode characters, probably fixable with the right font
• Launching games from the launcher (crash)

Workarounds

• Wine windows compatibility version should be set to Windows XP otherwise friends will not work.
• The same applies to ./bin/cef/cef.winxp/steamwebhelper.exe otherwise it will continuously crash
• Launching with -no-cef-sandbox is required to get the store / community working

What was not tested

• Clean install (should be fine)
• Steam overlay
• SteamVR
• Steam workshop
• Broadcasting
• Big picture
• In-home streaming

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU: AMD
• Driver: open source

Additional Comments

• Using default wineprefix with d3dx9, d3d10, d3d11, msvc, dxvk and microsoft corefonts.
• Tested Windows 10 and Windows XP wine compatibility for steam.exe and steamwebhelper.exe.
• Steam build: March 5 2019
• Message "Steam will stop running on Windows XP in 0 days." appears at top but has no effect.
• steamwebhelper.exe will crash on occasion.
• Using the search bar in the game library will sometimes cause a crash
• Using AMD Radeon RX 590, Mesa 19.0.2, AMDVLK #258c2ba

These notes were last updated: 29 April 2018

Follow these guidelines to avoid embarrassment when your Test Submission is immediately rejected!!

• Ensure the version of Wine you have installed currently supports the Steam Client
  (see the Steam Client Build Issues section below).
• Where possible please indicate the build date of Steam - you used to run your test against. From the Steam Client window:
  

  Help
  About Steam

• Put your PC specifications in the Extra Comments section e.g. like your CPU and system memory.¹
• When adding test results please specify video card and driver version you are using.²
• It's also useful to mention what Desktop Environment you are using (e.g. KDE/Plasma, Gnome, Xfce, Budgie, Mate, Cinnamon, ...)
• Specify if you installed the Steam client into a fresh Wineprefix (or not), and what programs and games you have installed.
• Specify what version of the Windows compatibility you use for your Wineprefix (e.g. Windows XP, Windows 7). Specify if you override this for the Steam client executable.
• Specify whether you installed into a 32-bit or a 64-bit Wineprefix.
• Add detailed comments about what is not working for you.
• Please indicate if your using Wine Staging and/or any additional patches applied - to the version of Wine you are using.
• Please, don't submit test results like "Everything is working" or "Everything isn't working".

These guidelines ensure your submitted test results are actually relevant to other users of Wine and WineHQ.

¹ The console version of the lshw utility is your friend. This command will dump your System hardware specification in a clean format. Post command and output in the Extra Comments section:

sudo lshw -short | egrep -v '(volume|disk|bus)'

² inxi can be used to display information about your graphics card, and your OpenGL/ graphics driver versions. Post the command and output in the Extra Comments section:

inxi -G -c0

You need:

• You are recommended to use the latest release of Wine (see Steam Client Build Issues below)
  You can get instructions on how to install the latest Wine release at WineHQ Download.
• It is not necessary to use a clean Wineprefix, but this is recommended.

Remember to set your WINEPREFIX variable, replacing ... , with a valid Unix path.

See: WineHQ FAQ: Wineprefixes.

Create a .desktop file launcher file

The command line is for losers right? So why not create yourself a Steam launcher! Now you can launch your Steam games straight from your Ubuntu Unity Gnome menu.

Wine will typically automagically extract Steam png icons from the original Windows .ico version:

find "${HOME}/.local/share/icons/hicolor/" -name "*steam.0.png"

Typically the icon codes are: BAC4_steam.0 / F664_steam.0 (type png; 0=Steam client, Steam games will use the Steam game ID number)

Use this information to create a Steam64.desktop file, e.g. for a 64-bit Wineprefix:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Steam64
Comment=Application for managing and playing games on Steam (Wine, 64-bit Wineprefix)
Exec=env WINEPREFIX="..." wine C:\\\\windows\\\\command\\\\start.exe "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Steam\\Steam.exe" -no-browser +open steam://open/minigameslist
TryExec=wine
Terminal=false
Type=Application
StartupNotify=true
Icon=BAC4_steam.0
Categories=X-Wine;Network;FileTransfer;Game;

1. Replace ... with your actual WINEPREFIX path (typically "${HOME}/.wine" - by default).
2. The Exec should have backslashes (\) escaped. If expressions are left unquoted then you need to escape your escape codes - as the Unix Command Shell will "eat them"!!
   To avoid a world of pain - just quote any paths...
   But note: you can only use double quotes (") in a .desktop file.
3. The .desktop file can be put in any sub-directory of:

   "${HOME}/.local/share/applications/"

4. When your click on your desktop entry, in your Desktop Environment menu, and it appears to do nothing... Check it for common errors with:

   desktop-file-validate Steam64.desktop

Note: the Steam client command line parameter: -no-browser +open steam://open/minigameslist ; is a rudimentary workaround to current situation with the Steam CEF web browser which does not render correctly (with any currently released version of Wine). You will only get a basic (installed) games list with these launch options and will not be able to install, remove, or purchase games. The mini games list option also disables access to Steam friends and community features.

tl;dr you currently need at least:

• Wine Development: ≥3.12
  
• Wine Staging: ≥2.19 (TBC)

just to be able to install and run the Steam Client!

Steam Client Fails to install games/ applications, with the error "content servers unreachable."

Affects all Steam Client builds, since the Steam client release with build date Jun 1 2018. This issue results from an inability to verify certificates signed using an ECDSA signature. The symptom is that Steam is unable to install any new games, applications or updates (of these).

See bugs: 45329 and 35902.

Wine Development and Wine Staging have a patch-set to support ECDSA signature verification. Wine Stable versions will not work, without the additional ECDSA signature verification patch-set.

Steam Client Fails to start 

Affects all Steam Client builds, since the Steam client release with build date Jul 6 2017. The most obvious symptom of this issue is that the Steam Client self-updates and then crashes when it starts up the new version. Terminal output includes:

net.cpp (262) : Fatal Assertion Failed: PlatformSocketsInit failed, error [no name available] (1)
net.cpp (262) : Fatal assert failed: net.cpp, line 262. Application exiting.

Assert( Fatal Assertion Failed: PlatformSocketsInit failed, error [no name available] (1) ):net.cpp:262

A patch to fix this issue is in the Wine Staging Git tree - see commit 996d9ab307d102399c0014458c59b27671bb921d - now included in version 2.12.
See patch: Set return size when calling WSAIoctl with WS_SIO_GET_EXTENSION_FUNCTION_POINTER.

This patch is in the Wine Git tree - now included in version 2.13.

This patch is in the Wine Stable Git tree - now included in version 2.0.2.

All currently released versions of Wine incorrectly set the ret_size value of the function:

WSAIoctl(... code=WS_SIO_GET_EXTENSION_FUNCTION_POINTER ... *ret_size=0 ...)

The correct behaviour is:

WSAIoctl(... code=WS_SIO_GET_EXTENSION_FUNCTION_POINTER ... *ret_size≥4 ...)

See bug: 43315.

Steam Client Store/(built-in) Web Browser not working 

Affects all Steam Client builds, since Steam with build date Oct 7 2015. The most obvious symptom of this issue is that you get backtrace error pop-up(s) referring to steamwebhelper.exe crashing. Typically, with recent builds of Wine Staging, you will see black/blank areas - in place of rendered web content. The Chromium Embedded Framework" (CEF), that Steam is built on, now has sandboxing/kernel hooking enabled by default. The CEF sandboxing hooks directly into the Windows kernel and this breaks under Wine.

See bug: 21232.

Ensure that your Wine (Windows) version is left at the default setting of Windows XP (this can easily be checked with the winecfg utility). Setting this to a more recent Windows release version introduces additional (known) compatibility issues. If a Steam game needs to use a newer version of Windows, for compatibility reasons, then you can override the Wine Windows version to Windows XP  - just for the Steam client and steamwebhelper executables.

32-bit Wineprefix:

export WINEPREFIX="❚❚❚❚❚❚"
wine reg.exe ADD "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\AppDefaults\Steam.exe" /v "Version" /t "REG_SZ" /d "winxp" /f
wine reg.exe ADD "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\AppDefaults\steamwebhelper.exe" /v "Version" /t "REG_SZ" /d "winxp" /f

64-bit Wineprefix:

export WINEPREFIX="❚❚❚❚❚❚"
wine reg.exe ADD "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\AppDefaults\Steam.exe" /v "Version" /t "REG_SZ" /d "winxp64" /f
wine reg.exe ADD "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\AppDefaults\steamwebhelper.exe" /v "Version" /t "REG_SZ" /d "winxp64" /f

See bug: 38960.

Workaround Option 1 (recommended) use CEF no sandboxing (-no-cef-sandbox) - command line parameter - when launching Steam Client

The recommended solution is to launch the Steam Client, with disabled support for CEF-based runtime sandboxing (for a 32-bit Wineprefix):

export WINEPREFIX="❚❚❚❚❚❚"
cd "${WINEPREFIX}/drive_c/Program Files/Steam"
wine Steam.exe -no-cef-sandbox

Steam Client web rendering is supported - when run from both 32-bit Wineprefix 's & 64-bit Wineprefix 's.

This is a workaround - so please indicate if you've used this Steam CLI switch when submitting AppDB tests for Steam!

Workaround Option 2 patch wine ntdll to support Chrome sandbox (only supports 32-bit Wineprefix)

There is currently one semi-official patch to get the Steam store to work correctly. This patch partially fixes sandboxing support for the CEF runtime. However 64-bit Wineprefix 's are not supported at present.

• ntdll: Add thunks to support Chrome's sandbox trampolines. [3]

Workaround Option 3 Crossover (hack) patch

This patch injects a --nosandbox parameter to the CEF runtime - when it is called from a steamwebhelper.exe process. This is a hack - so please indicate if you've used this patch when submitting AppDB tests for Steam!

Steam Client web rendering is supported - when run from both 32-bit Wineprefix 's & 64-bit Wineprefix 's.

Rebuild Wine (vanilla or Wine Staging) with the following experimental patch:

• hack for CrossOver

Steam Client Overlay not working

Wine versions 1.7.37(-) do not fully implement the MSDN guidelines for Input Method Manager: cross-process/thread IME must be prohibited. For further details see bug 35361. The most significant symptom of this is that all Steam Games exit after any/the first key press.

This is a wine regression exposed by a Steam Client build dated 3 Dec 2013. Update your Wine version to 1.7.38 or disable the Steam overlay and Friends window.

Steam Client crashes after user login

This is an issue related to the Dec 3 2013 Steam Client build. You will need to use a fairly recent version of Wine that has a patch to fix this API implementation mismatch. Development releases of Wine 1.7.7(-) and Stable releases of Wine 1.6.1(-) no longer support the Steam Client.

The actual Windows implementation of the Win32 function NtAdjustPrivilegesTokenNtAdjustPrivilegesToken does not match the MSDN specification for the API of the function... Wine versions 1.7.7(-) incorrectly assume the MSDN specification is the correct one. It should be emphasised that this is not a bug in the Steam Client - it simply calls this Win32 function and assumes the standard MS Windows behaviour. See bug 35030.

Steam browser protocol

There are numerous system-wide commands available that interact with Steam. All of them open up Steam if it is not open.

• To install a Steam game, with Steam Game id:

  wine start 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe' steam://install/id -no-cef-sandbox
  

• To run an installed Steam application, with Steam id:

  wine start 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe' steam://run/id -no-cef-sandbox
  

  To run an installed Steam/non-Steam application or game mod, with Steam id:

  wine start 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe' steam://rungameid/id -no-cef-sandbox
  

• To validate the local files of an installed Steam application, with Steam id:

  wine start 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe' steam://validate/id -no-cef-sandbox
  

• To open your Library tab with your current Downloads:

  wine start 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe' steam://open/downloads -no-cef-sandbox

  To open you Steam Screenshots:

  wine start 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe' steam://open/screenshots -no-cef-sandbox

For the full guide see: Valve Developer Community: Steam browser protocol

Steam Application IDs

These Application IDs (id) can, for example, be used in conjunction with Steam via this command to launch a specific application:

wine start 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe' steam://run/id -no-cef-sandbox

or alternately via:

wine start 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe' -applaunch id -no-cef-sandbox

Generally quickest way to get the specific id, for a Steam application, is using the 3rd party Steam Database website.

All the store URLs are in format store.steampowered.com/app/id, so for Wasteland 2, the URL is http://store.steampowered.com/..., and the id is 240760.

Steam Command Line Options

These command-line parameters work when launching the Steam application (Steam.exe) under Windows (or Wine):

* The -no-cef-sandbox option is no longer officially documented. It is only supported under Windows XP.

For the full guide (including specific commandline options for Valve games and game engines), see: Valve Developer Community: Steam Command Line Options

Warning: all Wine terminal commands in this guide assume you are using a 64-bit Wineprefix!

Steam freezes after opening the library.

This is a bug that affects some users. At this time, there isn't a solution to fix this problem. It is recommended to reinstall steam or (if necessary) start over with a clean Wineprefix.

When opening a new window in Steam, that window starts transparent.

This is a compositing-related problem. Try disabling compositing in the settings for your Window Manager.

Steam In-Game overlay will not close.

This is an intemitent issue with no permanent solution. You can try to close the overlay by clicking on the "Close the steam overlay" link at the top of the screen. This is currently the most effective solution, but, sometimes the only way is to close the game.

Big Picture Mode fail to open, asking for DirectX.

Until now Steam Big Picture mode doesn't work with Wine. Big Picture mode requires DirectX 10.1 libraries that Wine currently does not support.

Steam window is unresponsive or slow.

This bug is not yet resolved. If you're using Desktop compositing, you can disable-it and it will improve steam performance. The Steam client requires and uses OpenGL acceleration.

Steam window stealing window focus or not taking focus.

This is a common glitch with Wine running under X-Windows. The best solution in this case is minimize the steam window or close it to the taskbar.

Users of the KDE/Plasma Desktop can set fine grained Focus Stealing control over applications. It is recommended to set the Wine Steam class to None if you have problems with game draw windows not running in fullscreen.

When Wine draws windows using X-Server protocols these cannot guarantee or mimic the same ordering or focus that DirectX/Draw libraries provide under Microsoft Windows.

How to fix "Could not Connect to Network" Issue.

For those experiencing the "Could Not Connect to Network" problem often the Windows solution is to delete the ClientRegistry file. To do that, delete it:

rm "${WINEPREFIX}/drive_c/Program Files/Steam/ClientRegistry.blob"

Note: For most people simply restarting the client works around the issue.

Chat window doesn't work.

The chat appears to be working but messages are not displayed correctly. Try resizing and/or minimizing/maximizing the chat window.

Try to call any friend to chat from the friends list, and the window will show up again.

Steam Takes too long to start.

When starting the Steam client - Wine crashes and writes a small memory dump (*.mdmp files). ­

A fix, for Linux-based systems, is to edit the /etc/sysctl.conf file (Arch: create a file /etc/sysctl.d/98-steam-network-buffers.conf) and add these entries:

# Send and receive buffer sizes to make steam happy
net.core.rmem_max = 131072
net.core.wmem_max = 131072

and then, run as root:

­sysctl -p

or for Arch:

sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.d/98-steam-network-buffers.conf

Unable to launch games with error: "The registry was in use by another process".

This is a Steam client bug resulting from the Linux kernel caching file operations. You can fix this problem by shutting down Steam cleanly (keep running and exiting steam itself until you get a clean shutdown without any errors after "Shutting down" - watch the console you ran steam from) and then restarting it. Once steam has been shut down cleanly and restarted the error should not occur.

If all fails, start Steam, right-click on the game and select Properties. Go to Local files tab and click on Verify integrity of game cache...

Some file systems support extra sync flag. This should solve the problem. However it will reduce performance, so use with care!

chattr -R +S ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Steam

Most/All games crash after open or after a short time.

Try disabling the gameoverlayrender.dll. Run winecfg, go to Libraries, add a new library replace named gameoverlayrenderer and set to disabled. Note the In-Game Overlay will not work (including the Steam screenshot facility).

Steam client crashes when authenticating user.

This problem can be caused by WINE requiring the native ntlm_auth library to be installed (in order to authentic your login). On most Linux-based distributions this library is included in the Samba (server) package - typically this package includes winbind.

If you have this issue then you will see an console/debug error similar to the following:

err:winediag:SECUR32_initNTLMSP ntlm_auth was not found or is outdated. Make sure that ntlm_auth >= 3.0.25 is in your path. Usually, you can find it in the winbind package of your distribution.

­

Steam client window(s) do(es)n't render any text.

For Wine versions 1.5.10(+) stubs for the dwrite.dll were introduced and subsequently implemented. This results in the symptom that the Steam Client will render with invisible text without a workaround (see below). See bug 31374. Upgrading to Wine versions 1.7.49(+), with a fully implemented dwrite.dll, will fix this issue.

Ensure Steam client is launched as follows...

wine Steam.exe -no-dwrite

Backup/Restore games: file dialog displays files out of order.

The Symptom of this is that the Steam Client file browser, for Backing up or Restoring Steam games, displays files and folders in an apparently jumbled up order. Technically this is a bug in the Steam Client. It assumes that WinAPI functions FindFirstFile/FindNextFile will return files and folders in sorted order. This is however only the case for NTFS formatted drives. See bug 34122. Upgrading to Wine versions 1.9.10(+) fixes this issue.

General Workarounds.

If you have an problem that you can't solve one 'hack' is to force the Steam client to reinstall itself.

Shutdown your Steam client - if necessary force shutdown, with:

wineserver -k

Delete all files in your Steam folder (default is typically: ~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Steam/) except the file steam.exe and the Steam games directory: steamapps.

Re-launch your Steam client - in order to re-download all application files.

Your Steam games will be intact - since games are stored in subdirectories off the steamapps directory.

How to disable/enable forced Steam Client updates.

This workaround disables write access to your Steam package folder where Steam downloads updates to. Caveat Emptor - disable updates for too long and your Steam installation will break... You have been warned!!

First, navigate to (32-bit Wineprefix):

cd "${WINEPREFIX}/drive_c/Program Files/Steam"
chmod -w package

... this disables all subsequent Steam Client updates...

chmod +w package

... this re-enables all subsequent Steam Client updates...

Make fonts look less ugly.

To make fonts look better in Steam and in other applications, running via Wine, we need to change a few values in the Wine registry...

First make a new text document called fontfix.reg in your favourite text editor with the follow content:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"FontSmoothing"="2"
"FontSmoothingTypeFontSmoothingType"=dword:00000002
"FontSmoothingGammaFontSmoothingGamma"=dword:00000578
"FontSmoothingOrientationFontSmoothingOrientation"=dword:00000001

Then we need to import this file to the wine registry, to do that:

env WINEDEBUG="fixme-all" WINEPREFIX="${WINEPREFIX}" wine regedit fontfix.reg

Once complete, fonts will be smoothed and will look a lot better in Steam and all other Wine applications.

If your Steam Client fonts still look poor then navigate to:

"${WINEPREFIX}/drive_c/windows/Fonts"

and press Ctrl + F  and type arial to find, then delete, all variants of Arial except the original Arial.ttf.

Playing videos/trailers through Steam Store - directly in Steam client window. 

Steam now uses the Chromium Embedded Framework runtime to render the webstore. Playback of trailer videos is handled by the builtin HTML5 / Pepper Flash players. No extra Windows software is required to support this.

If your Steam Chromium Embedded Framework is running with sandboxing enabled - then the Steam store will typically not be rendered at all...
So you've got bigger problems, to deal with (see the Steam Client Build Issues section), than non-playing trailer videos!

How to completely re-install the Steam Client application.

To reinstall Steam without loosing your installed games, you need to move/copy the folder (and all sub-folders):

"${WINEPREFIX}/drive_c/Program Files/Steam/steamapps"

... or for a 64-bit Wineprefix ...

"${WINEPREFIX}/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps"

to a safe place.

In a clean Wineprefix, after reinstalling steam, you can just move back the steamapps folder (and all sub-folders). Hey Presto! All your backed up games should show up, as installed, when you launch the newly installed Steam Client...

NB This will not backup or restore your saved games!! These will need to be safely backed up separately.

Keep Saved Games in your Wineprefix

Using the:

winetricks sandbox

command will ensure that all symbolic links to your Linux HOME folder are removed from your Wineprefix. Your Steam games Saved Games will therefore all be stored directly within your Wineprefix.
Note the winetricks sandbox command will remove the default link to your Linux / root directory:

ls -hl "${WINEPREFIX}/dosdevices/"
lrwxrwxrwx 1 user group 1 Oct 14 16:53 z: -> //

There are legitimate reasons why you might want to access files outside of your Wineprefix. In order you to re-enable this access, you have to recreate the Linux / root directory symbolic link:

ln -s / "${WINEPREFIX}/dosdevices/z:"

Issues with Multi-Monitor Setups

Often issues arise when using a hardware set-up with 2 or more monitors... Symptoms are that games launched from your Steam client will render on the wrong display, mess up your X display resolution or not render/support your native (target) monitor resolution/refresh rate. A work around for this is to launch the Steam client in a virtual desktop (32-bit Wineprefix), e.g.:

cd "${WINEPREFIX}/drive_c/Program Files/Steam"
wine explorer /desktop=Steam,1920x1080 "Steam.exe"

(N.B. replace 1920x1080 with your monitors native resolution - if different)