Error installing steam on Linux

[teaboy]

I'm trying to install the official steam linux client, and while it installs, it is then unable to connect to download all of the bits that it needs. Looking at the output from when I run it in a terminal, it's failing with a redirect from client-download.steampowered.com after receiving a 302 error. It appears to be redirecting to cdn.akamai.steamstaticcom which is missing a . ! My ISP helpfully throws up a search page at this point, so it gets data which is incorrect.

Any suggestions as to how I get round this, or do I just need to wait for someone to notice the error with the redirect?

UPDATE: fixed by copying the update_hosts_cached.vdf file from another machine - see my post below.

[DevaVictrix]

What district and did you use the official repository? Have you got any community repositories set up?

[teaboy]

I downloaded the client from steampowered.com. I haven't even got to the point where it will let me pick a repository - it's on first run and failing.

[teaboy]

A quick thought - I'd previously tried installing it from the Debian testing repository. So I removed the current install (apt remove --purge steam-launcher) and then removed the ~user/.steam and ~user/.local/share/Steam directories, and anything else that was obvious.

Reinstalled from the steam-latest.deb file that I downloaded earlier (which worked on another Linux machine yesterday) and tried again. This is the output of the console when I ran it with a new install:

user@lapsang:~$ steam
Setting up Steam content in /home/user/.local/share/Steam
/home/user/.local/share/Steam/steam.sh: line 114: VERSION_ID: unbound variable
/home/user/.local/share/Steam/steam.sh: line 114: VERSION_ID: unbound variable
Running Steam on debian  64-bit
/home/user/.local/share/Steam/steam.sh: line 114: VERSION_ID: unbound variable
STEAM_RUNTIME is enabled automatically
Pins potentially out-of-date, rebuilding...
Can't find 'steam-runtime-check-requirements', continuing anyway
/home/user/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam
WARNING: setlocale('en_US.UTF-8') failed, using locale: 'C'. International characters may not work.
[2021-02-17 19:50:21] Startup - updater built Oct 28 2020 23:34:22
ILocalize::AddFile() failed to load file "public/steambootstrapper_english.txt".
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(0)
[2021-02-17 19:50:21] Failed to load cached hosts file (File 'update_hosts_cached.vdf' not found), using defaults
[2021-02-17 19:50:21] Using the following download hosts for Public, Realm steamglobal
[2021-02-17 19:50:21] 1. http://client-download.steampowered.com, /client/, Realm 'steamglobal', weight was 100, source = 'baked in'
[2021-02-17 19:50:21] 2. http://media.steampowered.com, /client/, Realm 'steamglobal', weight was 1, source = 'baked in'
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1.0)
[2021-02-17 19:50:21] Verifying installation...
[2021-02-17 19:50:21] Unable to read and verify install manifest /home/user/.local/share/Steam/package/steam_client_ubuntu12.installed
[2021-02-17 19:50:21] Verification complete
[2021-02-17 19:50:21] Downloading Update...
[2021-02-17 19:50:21] Checking for available update...
[2021-02-17 19:50:21] Downloading manifest: client-download.steampowered.com/client/steam_client_ubuntu12
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1.0)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1.0)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1.0)
KeyValues Error: LoadFromBuffer: missing {   (current key: '<!DOCTYPE') in file manifest [offset: 14]

/data/src/tier1/KeyValues.cpp (2999) : Assertion Failed: Error while parsing text KeyValues for resource manifest
/data/src/tier1/KeyValues.cpp (2999) : Assertion Failed: Error while parsing text KeyValues for resource manifest
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1.0)
crash_20210217195022_7.dmp[38767]: Uploading dump (out-of-process)
/tmp/dumps/crash_20210217195022_7.dmp
[2021-02-17 19:50:22] failed to load manifest from buffer.
[2021-02-17 19:50:22] Failed to load manifest
[2021-02-17 19:50:22] Error: Download failed: http error 200
[2021-02-17 19:50:22] Saving metrics to disk (/home/user/.local/share/Steam/package/steam_client_metrics.bin)
[2021-02-17 19:50:22] Error: Steam needs to be online to update.	 Please confirm your network connection and try again.
crash_20210217195022_7.dmp[38767]: Finished uploading minidump (out-of-process): success = yes
crash_20210217195022_7.dmp[38767]: response: CrashID=bp-0b9dc9c0-8c9d-4e62-809e-bcb5e2210217
crash_20210217195022_7.dmp[38767]: file ''/tmp/dumps/crash_20210217195022_7.dmp'', upload yes: ''CrashID=bp-0b9dc9c0-8c9d-4e62-809e-bcb5e2210217''
[2021-02-17 19:50:29] Shutdown
/data/src/tier0/threadtools.cpp (3658) : Assertion Failed: Illegal termination of worker thread 'Thread(0x0x57968f30/0x0xf2881b'
/data/src/tier0/threadtools.cpp (3658) : Assertion Failed: Illegal termination of worker thread 'Thread(0x0x57968f30/0x0xf2881b'

I tried to look at downloading the file manually, and it is still failing, with a 302 redirect to a non-existent domain (probably due to a typo somewhere). This is shown when using curl to attempt to download the file:

user@lapsang:~$ curl --verbose -o test.txt client-download.steampowered.com/client/steam_client_ubuntu12
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--     0*   Trying 205.196.6.230:80...
* Connected to client-download.steampowered.com (205.196.6.230) port 80 (#0)
> GET /client/steam_client_ubuntu12 HTTP/1.1
> Host: client-download.steampowered.com
> User-Agent: curl/7.74.0
> Accept: */*
> 
  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--     0* Mark bundle as not supporting multiuse
< HTTP/1.1 302 Found
< location: http://cdn.akamai.steamstaticcom/client/steam_client_ubuntu12?1613270262
< Content-Length: 0
< Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2021 19:53:10 GMT
< Expires: Mon, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT
< Cache-Control: no-cache,must-revalidate
< Pragma: no-cache
< 
  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--     0
* Connection #0 to host client-download.steampowered.com left intact

I can go to the relevant URL in a browser. Again, it fails (popping up my ISP's "Did you want us to search for that" page - not helpful!), but adding the . in the relevant place allows me to download a file, which looks like it might be helpful.

However, as far as I'm aware, I have nothing that will modify this in my network. Changing the URL for the redirect to be steamstatic.com works in a browser.

[teaboy]

Aha! Solved it! I looked at the other Linux machine that I had, and it was using cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com and cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com. It was pulling them in from the update_hosts_cached.vdf file. I didn't have that on this one, so I copied it over, and it now updates.

Very weird, as the installer for this was the same as for the other. Unless there was something from the original steam package from the Debian repository lurking around in the background.

[DePawlur]

I got exactly the same thing, my ISP is Verizon and it can't resolve DNSclient-download.steampowered.com/client/steam_client_ubuntu12

I had to reserve to tethering from my mobile to download the package.

I went through reinstall of Ubuntu 20.04n, 21.04, 18.04 and even mint and for the love of it wasted a DAY to try and figure it out..........

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ PLEASE RESOLVE this annoying issue, otherwise other people are suffering. Error is also stupid and doesn't really say anything

[snap228]

I'm having this issue on a new install on macos. I have a update_hosts_cached.vdf file from another machine but not sure where to put it where the initial installer will find it. Also tried a bunch of host file stuff but can't seem to find a way to fix the cdn.akamai.steamstaticcom typo. Any ideas?

[teaboy]

The update_hosts_cached.vdf file appears to be in the .steam/steam folder under my user account in Linux. Not sure where it goes on a Mac. I think that I ran the client from the command line to get some info about what was going on.

(Sorry that I've not responded sooner - I've not launched Steam recently).