If you're using Arch Linux or anything based on it (or other rolling update distributions) and you've recently run updates that included freetype2, you might unfortunately notice that Steam is now quite broken.
When loading any part of the Steam client that depends on web views, it will just give you a rather unhelpful black screen. This is obviously a big problem and makes it all quite unusable. So what can you do? Well, if you're comfortable with your package managing you could downgrade freetype2 back to version 2.10.4 but that can then end up breaking future updates that depend on the newer version. Valve are hot on the issue though and they've already put up a fresh Steam Beta with a fix.
Valve contractor Timothee Besset commented on GitHub to say it's "Today's beta update comes with a fairly significant change to the way we setup the runtime environment for the web views. Please test that this addresses the issue on all affected distributions!". So if you're seeing the black-screen issues, try out the latest Steam Beta. Doing so is easy by just loading up Steam settings and then look for the red boxed area shown below:
Arch Linux does at times have issues like this, because updates are constantly rolling so issues end up being found much quicker - which also means by the time other distributions upgrade (like Ubuntu every 6 months) the issues are likely solved by then.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Before someone says "something something Arch bad for steam deck something something" I would like to remember that Steam deck will not pull updates from the main arch Linux repositories, instead Valve will push updates from their official ones, in order to avoid this kind of regressions.
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Before someone says "something something Arch bad for steam deck something something" I would like to remember that Steam deck will not pull updates from the main arch Linux repositories, instead Valve will push updates from their official ones, in order to avoid this kind of regressions.
thats correct and to make it even clearer, Steam OS is no Rolling release like Arch, so if Valve doesn't take Steam OS seriously then it will be outdated after a very short time! same as it was with Steam OS 1 + 2.
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I kinda brace myself since some people love to point fingers at things like this and claim that Arch is a bad/buggy/difficult distro. I ran it for many years and something big like this happened maybe once or twice a year and always had a simple fix; it's darn solid. I am pretty sure I had more problems with my distro of choice's last upgrade than my entire Arch days..
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Hmm funny, I had an issue where the update notifier came up, in the area where the release notes are listed, starting with the date, it was black and sometimes when I started the update, the text would show up for a split of a second before the window closes. I wonder if that is related, but I'm on Kubuntu, not arch.
Well I'll see after next update I guess!
Well I'll see after next update I guess!
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obscurenforeign Sep 1, 2021
This is hardly exclusive to Arch. I've been experiencing this problem on Pop OS 21.04, though strangely only on KDE and not with Pop's Gnome variant. (Presumably this can happen on Ubuntu 21.04 as well?) Glad Steam took care of this issue, the beta fixes it!
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AussieEevee Sep 1, 2021
TBF, this is one of those reasons why I always let updates go a week or two before I update. Windows taught me that updates can break things, and it's best to let an update get tested in the wild and hotfixed before I update.
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I'm on beta, and i still have this issue.
Just rollback freetype2 to the precedent version fix it. Add it to ignorePkg and wait the fix.
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Hmm funny, I had an issue where the update notifier came up, in the area where the release notes are listed, starting with the date, it was black and sometimes when I started the update, the text would show up for a split of a second before the window closes. I wonder if that is related, but I'm on Kubuntu, not arch.Same here. Arch with Xfce, though... It's quite a while like that.
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p.s. I switched Steam from beta to stable and the problem's gone. Strange...
edit: but now something is wrong with my Steam's config.
Last edited by axredneck on 1 September 2021 at 4:49 pm UTC
edit: but now something is wrong with my Steam's config.
Last edited by axredneck on 1 September 2021 at 4:49 pm UTC
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TBF, this is one of those reasons why I always let updates go a week or two before I update. Windows taught me that updates can break things, and it's best to let an update get tested in the wild and hotfixed before I update.I usually do the same honestly. I mean, I don't have a fixed interval, but it's around a week more or less (depends on my mood lol).
In the past I've also been on the extremes, doing it daily (or even more than once a day), or very rarely.
Doing it very rarely (e.g. once a month) was the worst way to do it, at least for me. The chances that something went bad were higher than any other strategy... mostly because identifying the actual problem was much harder when pretty much every package was a potential cause.
I think the (more-or-less) 1 week interval is great and also requires the least effort.
Usually it's not necessary to wait because there is testing repos. So testing repos users should experience bugs before packages goes to stables repos.
A broken package is pretty rare on stable repo.
Last edited by Nibelheim on 1 September 2021 at 5:26 pm UTC
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I'll have to try this out later. In the past few days, Steam on my Opensuse Tumbleweed install has been just a little wonky. With any luck, the beta will clear that up.
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slaapliedje Sep 1, 2021
Before someone says "something something Arch bad for steam deck something something" I would like to remember that Steam deck will not pull updates from the main arch Linux repositories, instead Valve will push updates from their official ones, in order to avoid this kind of regressions.I'm not sure they've actually said such things, or we've just assumed that's what they'll do, because it'd be madness otherwise.
Weird, I've had previous issues with freetype2 and arch. Other one I had issues with was ghostscript. The bug was that it'd just print a solid black page. That was amusing...
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mishugashu Sep 1, 2021
I just came back from an update and reboot (since I updated the kernel) on my ArchLinux machine, and got a black window on Steam. Found this article, switched to Steam beta, and it works! Good looking out, as always, Liam.
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I'm not sure they've actually said such things, or we've just assumed that's what they'll do, because it'd be madness otherwise.
Lol. I don't see anyine saying Arch is buggy here. Obviously because Arch didn't break. Steam did. It's on them to fix it. Could have been any distro. That's what testing is for.
Even if Valve use their own repos, issues can still happen
Agreed, but that's on Valve to fix it. They are promising a console like experience after all.
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StalePopcorn Sep 1, 2021
No problems here, but I'm on Manjaro—not quite as cutting edge.
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Even if Valve use their own repos, issues can still happen
Agreed, but that's on Valve to fix it. They are promising a console like experience after all.
I'm highly skeptical about this promise, as Valve aren't locking down Steam Deck to only run SteamOS, which could come back to bite them on the bum. Time will tell though.
Valve support SteamOS only. If users wanna install another OS, they can't beneficiate about Valve support.
Anyway, it's first time Steam is broken on Arch in 9 years. So don't worry.
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furaxhornyx Sep 2, 2021
Before someone says "something something Arch bad for steam deck something something" I would like to remember that Steam deck will not pull updates from the main arch Linux repositories, instead Valve will push updates from their official ones, in order to avoid this kind of regressions.
True question: is it like "another Manjaro" (minus the AUR packages, at least for the official version I guess), or something different ?
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I got the error while on steam runtime. Using steam native however it works fine
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