Bug#1121667: steam-libs:i386 missing deps and also upstream client links to obsolete libvpx6

[Ximin Luo]

Simon McVittie:
> Control: tags -1 + moreinfo unreproducible
> 
> On Sun, 30 Nov 2025 at 11:13:48 +0000, Ximin Luo wrote:
>> The latest steam client cannot be executed
> 
> It works here (I'm using the public beta, if that matters).
> 
> I see that you have Steam installed in a non-standard location /opt/steam, which is not the ~/.steam/debian-installation used by Debian, and also not the ~/.local/share/Steam used by Valve.
> 
> Are ~/.steam/steam and ~/.steam/root both symlinks to /opt/steam? For that installation location, both of them should be.
> 

Yes, both of them are symlinked to the correct location as documented in README.Debian.

> The packaging of the Steam client in Debian does not have control over the upstream Steam client and how it downloads its own files: the part we have control over ends at the end of /usr/games/steam, when it runs steam.sh. If there's a problem with the upstream part, https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/ might be a better place to report it.
> 
>> ~~~~
>> $ steam
>> [..]
>> [----] Verifying installation...
>> [2025-11-30 11:09:11] Verification complete
>> UpdateUI: skip show logo
>> dlmopen /opt/steam/ubuntu12_32/steamui.so failed: libXtst.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
> 
> Have you deleted, or otherwise disabled, the LD_LIBRARY_PATH Steam Runtime provided by Steam? (~/.steam/root/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime for the user that is running Steam.) Disabling this is specifically not supported.
> 

I have not done anything like that to my installation. In fact it was working up until the latest update.

> libXtst.so.6 is meant to be provided by ~/.steam/root/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libXtst.so.6. (But if you happen to have Debian's libxtst6:i386 installed, that newer version will take precedence and the one in the Steam Runtime will be ignored.)
> 

OK, this file does exist.

> If this has somehow not been unpacked correctly, deleting ~/.steam/root/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime or running Steam as
> 
>      steam --reset
> 
> might help.
> 
> This moves Steam files and game files around, so it would be a good idea to have a backup or snapshot of saved games and anything that would be inconvenient to re-download.
> 
>> dlmopen /opt/steam/ubuntu12_32/steamui.so failed: libvpx.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
> 
> This is provided as a vendored library by the Steam client itself: it's ~/.steam/root/ubuntu12_32/libvpx.so.6, and ubuntu12_32/steamui.so has a RUNPATH on $ORIGIN to be able to locate it.
> 

OK, this file also does exist.

> Again, if things have not been unpacked correctly, running Steam as `steam --reset` might help.
> 

Neither deleting ~/.steam/root/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime nor running `steam --reset` helped.

However, I deleted the whole of `~/.steam/root/ubuntu12_32` as well as `~/.steam/root/ubuntu12_32/package`, reran `steam`, it redownloaded the runtime and now it's working again.

After some playing around I realised the error occured because I did a `sudo chmod -R g+s` on `/opt/steam` recently, which mistakenly applied this to *files* as well as directories. Re-running `sudo chmod -R g+s` after the previous delete-and-reupdate fix, makes the error come back. Undoing it with `find . -not -type d -execdir chmod -h g-s '{}' \;`, fixes the error in the most direct way - without having to do the delete-and-reupdate that also works.

In fact with `g+s` set, you get a bunch of extra warnings in the terminal, but steam decides to ignore this and carries on running, so I didn't think to paste this in my original log:

~~~~
[..]
(process:1407845): steam-runtime-tools-CRITICAL **: 23:43:23.784: _srt_constructor: assertion '_srt_check_not_setuid ()' failed

(process:1407847): steam-runtime-tools-CRITICAL **: 23:43:23.865: _srt_constructor: assertion '_srt_check_not_setuid ()' failed

(process:1407848): steam-runtime-tools-CRITICAL **: 23:43:23.867: _srt_constructor: assertion '_srt_check_not_setuid ()' failed
srt-logger[1407848]: Internal error: _srt_find_myself: assertion '_srt_check_not_setuid ()' failed

(srt-logger:1407848): GLib-CRITICAL **: 23:43:23.867: g_propagate_error: assertion 'src != NULL' failed
srt-logger[1407848]: E: Assertion failure
steam.sh[1407768]: Couldn't set up srt-logger, not logging to console-linux.txt

(process:1407881): steam-runtime-tools-CRITICAL **: 23:43:23.887: _srt_constructor: assertion '_srt_check_not_setuid ()' failed
steam-runtime-check-requirements[1407881]: Internal error: _srt_find_myself: assertion '_srt_check_not_setuid ()' failed
steam.sh[1407768]: steam-runtime-check-requirements failed with an unexpected nonzero exit status. Trying to continue
[..]
~~~~

TBH this is still an upstream bug, it should not be segfaulting on incorrect permissions:

~~~~
$ ./ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/amd64/usr/bin/steam-runtime-check-requirements

(process:1624798): steam-runtime-tools-CRITICAL **: 23:57:54.387: _srt_constructor: assertion '_srt_check_not_setuid ()' failed
steam-runtime-check-requirements[1624798]: Internal error: _srt_find_myself: assertion '_srt_check_not_setuid ()' failed
Segmentation fault         (core dumped) ./ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/amd64/usr/bin/steam-runtime-check-requirements
exit code 139
$ ./ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/usr/bin/steam-runtime-check-requirements

(process:1624878): steam-runtime-tools-CRITICAL **: 23:59:05.329: _srt_constructor: assertion '_srt_check_not_setuid ()' failed
steam-runtime-check-requirements[1624878]: Internal error: _srt_find_myself: assertion '_srt_check_not_setuid ()' failed
Segmentation fault         (core dumped) ./ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/usr/bin/steam-runtime-check-requirements
exit code 139
~~~~

Best,
X

-- 
GPG: ed25519/56034877E1F87C35
https://github.com/infinity0/pubkeys.git