“You are missing the following 32-bit libraries, and Steam may not run: libc.so.6” The common fixes don't work

[FriendlyFire]

Update: Problem Solved!!!

Solution -> Went to ubuntu 13.10. If you have a reason you need 12.04, I don't know how to help you, but if anyone stumbles across this, try upgrading. I thought 12.04 would be the more stable version that things worked on, perhaps it is not that simple.

Edit: So I know this is a problem that has been asked around a lot, but I've tried a bunch of solutions with no success. I'm running Ubuntu 12.04 (64 bit), and I just installed it yesterday. This is my first time working with linux.

The error is: You are missing the following 32-bit libraries, and Steam may not run: libc.so.6

Things I've tried. First, I had downloaded from the steam website. I uninstalled it, and tried again from the ubuntu software centre.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ia32-libs
sudo apt-get upgrade

This installed a bunch of the 32 bit libraries, but did not fix the issue. This seems like the major fix for most people. The direct approach of

sudo apt-get install libc.so.6

returns this:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package libc.so.6
E: Couldn't find any package by regex 'libc.so.6'

I guess libc.so.6 isn't a package, just a single file or something? I also tried

gksudo gedit /etc/ld.so.conf.d/steam.conf

Added these two lines, those the second one was all ready in the file, but copied over:

/usr/lib32
/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/mesa

Then executed:

sudo ldconfig
But nothing seemed to happen, steam still doesn't work.

So, I feel like it is more likely that I have the library and steam isn't looking in the right place. One thing I've seen is people usually reference /usr/local/lib/ for your library locations. However, I can't find where to cd into /usr/, it isn't in my home folder. If /usr/ is the home folder, there is only a /.local folder which only has /share, no lib anywhere. Sorry for my linux ignorance.

I appreciate any help, I honestly have no idea how to confirm I have the library and point steam to it, or if that is even the right thing to do.

[Kranky K. Krackpot]

libc.so.6 is probably just a symlink. Maybe you miss that symlink somehow. The libc itself must be somethere in ia32-lib-... packages, it's strange that it didn't install with the rest of 32-bit libs. Do you have any libc.* in your /lib32 ? Try "ls -l /lib32/libc*"

[Zyro]

I don't know for Ubuntu, in Debian (multiarch) this should be
apt-get install libc6:i386

[FriendlyFire]

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1721832 Sep 30 11:06 /lib32/libc-2.15.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 185928 Sep 30 11:06 /lib32/libcidn-2.15.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 Sep 30 11:06 /lib32/libcidn.so.1 -> libcidn-2.15.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 34316 Sep 30 11:06 /lib32/libcrypt-2.15.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 16 Sep 30 11:06 /lib32/libcrypt.so.1 -> libcrypt-2.15.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Sep 30 11:06 /lib32/libc.so.6 -> libc-2.15.so

It is there as the last one, so I guess I do have it? Then the question is indeed, why isn't steam finding it.

Zyro, I've tried that before, it doesn't add anything new or upgrade anything.

[Kranky K. Krackpot]

Yes, it seems like you already have it.
Actually, I don't know if Steam uses your system's libc or its own one... Did you install your Ubuntu according to Valve's guide? As far as I remember, Ubuntu (and Debian) have two sets of 32-bit libs: "ia32-lib-..." packages and multiarched "lib...:i386" libs.
Anyway, you could try in terminal "STEAM_RUNTIME=1 steam", if it faills -- then "STEAM_RUNTIME=0 steam", if it fails too -- then "LD_PRELOAD="/lib32/libc.so.6 steam", then "LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/lib32/:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}" steam". Maybe some of them will do. It's just a blind bruteforce guess I could suggest right now.
PS. Ops, Valve doesn't have a guide about Steam on 64-bit. Strange, I remember they had one somewhere...

[Sark32]

FriendlyFire - I have attached a link to a discussions thread with people having the same Ubuntu 12.04/.12 x64 problem Steam Discussion . I am not sure if you have already tried this method, but if you are missing just the 32 bit libraries it may be the same issue that the people in the aforementioned discussion link are experiencing.

Here is the script that "Slouken" recommended:
if [] && ! dpkg --print-foreign-architectures | grep i386 >/dev/null; then
echo "Fixing architectures..."
sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
fi

Apparently, this has fixed the problem on Ubuntu 12 64 bit that everyone has been experiencing. Please, let me know if you've tried this method before or if it works for you.

P.S. Once completed please run the following script:
~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam

Also, if problem persists could you please run steam in your Ubuntu terminal and copy and paste the results in your response. Thank you.

[FriendlyFire]

sark, I had tried running the command "sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386" and was told that it wasn't a valid command. Not sure if the script fixes that, but I have all ready reinstalled to 13.10, which has fixed the issue.

Sorry I couldn't test your solution, but thanks for the help anyway.

[Самодѣр̆жецъ]

Goto "/home/user/.local/share" and delete or rename the steam folder, additional start steam let it reinstall.
Worked for me well!
You can simply move your games after the reinstallation.

[Pecon]

I read this topic while I had this issue and figured I should post my solution. I was running a fresh copy of Debian 8.6 x64

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list
(Edit the file and add [arch=amd64,i386] after each 'deb', so the deb entries should look something like 'deb [arch=amd64,i386] http://ftp.ca.debian.org/debian/ jessie main')
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install lib32z1 libgl1-mesa-dev:i386

Then just run steam again.

[Le Kefir]

Just run:

sudo apt-get install libc6-i386

And run steam