Linux Mint download/installation: Missing file privileges?

[Wolfguarde]

I'm running into an issue near the end of my download; it's refusing to finish, with an error message saying it's missing file privileges. The download for steamworks common distributables also loops every time I start steam/verify Palworld's files. Any Linux users know a fix I can implement after I sleep and come back to this?

[wererabbit]

Check your available drive space -- you can get weird errors like that if you're running out of space. Also with the common distributables, you may have a caching issue so you'll want to clear that in the steamapps/temp and steamapps/downloading folders.

If the game is showing as installed, try running the "Verify Installation" option on that game under the game properties (hit the gear icon, drop down menu to "properties" then find the option within the properties pop-up.)

If the game isn't showing as installed yet and your drive space is looking ok, manually remove the game files and then re-install using Proton Experimental.

[Wolfguarde]

Thanks for this. This is a fresh drive (I'm upgrading rigs soon, and I've grabbed a portable SSD to play around with Linux on in the interim) with around 500gb partitioned for general use, so it shouldn't be a space issue... could definitely be a caching issue, though. I'll give that a go.

I did initially try copy-pasting the Palworld files from my windows installation over into my Linux steam folder, as prior research had implied that this shouldn't cause any issues... going to do a full download and see how I go with that. Verified a few times before posting this, and wound up with the same issue each time. The download/install mostly completes, but it hits this same wall at the very end.

I've got steam, steam runtime 3.0 sniper, and proton experimental showing up as openable clients; should I be exclusively using the proton client?

[Xaekai]

Probably something that can be fixed with judicious use of chown and chmod in your terminal emulator. Check the mode and ownership of your steam library folders.

[]"]]

Most likely the error is what it says. You have wrong permissions on the partition or one of the folders used by Steam.

Try deleting the game folder and compatdata completely before reinstalling.

path-to-steam/steamapps/common/Palworld
path-to-steam/steamapps/compatdata/1623730

Originally posted by Wolfguarde:

I've got steam, steam runtime 3.0 sniper, and proton experimental showing up as openable clients; should I be exclusively using the proton client?

What do you mean by "openable clients"? Show up where?

[Wolfguarde]

Originally posted by juko:

Most likely the error is what it says. You have wrong permissions on the partition or one of the folders used by Steam.

Try deleting the game folder and compatdata completely before reinstalling.

path-to-steam/steamapps/common/Palworld
path-to-steam/steamapps/compatdata/1623730

Originally posted by Wolfguarde:

I've got steam, steam runtime 3.0 sniper, and proton experimental showing up as openable clients; should I be exclusively using the proton client?

What do you mean by "openable clients"? Show up where?

I did not know compatdata existed; I've restarted the download and am most of the way through it. If it fails, I'll try deleting that as well. Unless it's something I could feasibly delete and recover via verifying files?

RE: openable clients: that turned out to be a mistake on my part; their installs dropped config files on my desktop, which I assumed were .exe files. Not really sure why they've got desktop shortcuts, but they're not what I thought.

Originally posted by Xaekai:

Probably something that can be fixed with judicious use of chown and chmod in your terminal emulator. Check the mode and ownership of your steam library folders.

I know how to reach the files via thunar and edit permissions there, but I'm still too fresh to Linux to be fully familiar with chown/chmod usage. How would I go about checking mode/ownership on the relevant files with them?

[wererabbit]

Yes, you should be exclusively using Proton. You can try Proton 8 but for something like this game, Proton Experimental may remain a bit more current. You have to see what works best on your system.

I wouldn't mess with chown/chmod without a thorough review of how they work from a credible resource beforehand -- you can really cause some issues if you do the wrong thing with those commands. I think the purge of the subfolder in the compatdata folder is a great idea along with the game files.

I think re-downloading is your best bet -- I've had mixed results with the good old "oh, I'll just move this folder over" method on Kubuntu. Some games are fine, but a few are not.

If you do move a folder over, you have to tell Steam to find it and then let Steam setup the data accordingly. In theory it should work, but in practice not so much on Linux.

Also -- the game isn't playing very nicely with my 3070ti - not sure why. It seems to get overwhelmed at the transition points between zones. My wife's AMD 7600 handles everything like a champ, no slowdowns at all. So again, YMMV and the software is still definitely beta.

[Wolfguarde]

Yeah, I've got it running on Proton experimental currently, and am taking snapshots after every change I make, as I'm aware I'm taking risks trying out potential fixes. The main holdup for me at the moment is that I live in a country with third world internet, and 20gb is taking the better part of a day to replace with my download speed range. Would deleting the compatdata now be safe?

I haven't tried downloading any other games as yet (mainly because of the aforementioned issues with internet speed), so I don't know if this is a Palworld issue or a Mint build/kernel issue. Planning to download a smaller one after this is done if the problem hasn't resolved itself with a full download/install.

[Wolfguarde]

Bit of extra info, as I've just noticed it: It appears that the steamworks common redistributables download is being re-queued every time I verify the integrity of Palworld's files. Not sure if/how this is relevant, but it might be.

[]"]]

I guess that's the problem and not Palworld.

It should be installed to:

path-to-steam/steamapps/common/Steamworks Shared

About 364 MB. It contains installers for the usual Windows dependencies like DirectX, dotnet, and Visual C++ redistributables.

You could try deleting that. Also delete the cache (Steam settings > Downloads > Clear download cache).

Quit Steam completely, and start Steam from a terminal. That way you might get more output in case there's still a problem.

Then reinstall the Steamworks Common Redistributables (it shows up in your library if you search)

[Wolfguarde]

I will give that a go if this install fails, thank you.

How do I go about running steam via terminal? I haven't managed to figure that out yet.

[]"]]

It should be just

steam

if you installed it via your package manager

[Wolfguarde]

Updating to say: I got this working, the issue was that I copied the data over from Windows. A full reinstall on Linux, along with deleting the compatdata folder, worked.

Thanks to everyone for the comprehensive answers, hopefully this thread's of use to someone else in future as well.

[wererabbit]

Glad to hear it!

[<<LingLing@BigBrothel>>]

For the record, in case of access permission problems:

You could try running 'sudo chown -R <USERNAME>:<USERNAME> <GAME_LIB_DIR_PATH>', in order to recursively fix existing owner permission problems in your game library folder (<1000:1000> should work, too).

Look in 'Steam Menu > Settings > Storage' for the affected game library folder location(s).

Next, if this doesn't suffice, you can try setting missing read permissions for 'user' and 'group', for all files in your game library folder, with 'chmod -R ug+r <GAME_LIB_DIR_PATH>' (using 'a+r', to include 'other', should be safe, too).

If that still doesn't work, setting write permissions on specific affected folders with 'chmod -R ug+w <GAME_OR_RESOURCE_FOLDER>' should help; the download manager may give a hint on what specific folder lacks write permissions, maybe also the console log output, when running 'steam' inside a terminal.

Some executable files may need '+x', but this is rarely the case and should not be applied to all files, for security reasons, as well as applying write permissions to all in '<GAME_LIB_DIR_PATH>' - this should only be used as a last resort.