Steam won't start on Ubuntu 24.04 – runtime supervisor launches, but no UI (RX 9070)

[Matze]

Hi everyone,

I'm having trouble launching Steam on Ubuntu 24.04. When I run it with:

STEAM_DEBUG=1 STEAM_RUNTIME=1 steam

…the steam-runtime-supervisor process starts without errors, but the Steam client UI never appears. There are no crash messages or segmentation faults — it just silently fails after initializing.

To be noted that just after the installation everything was fine but after a system restart I run into this issue.

Things I’ve tried:

STEAM_RUNTIME=0 (native runtime)

-no-cef-sandbox, --disable-gpu-sandbox, --disable-seccomp-filter-sandbox

Removing ~/.steam and ~/.local/share/Steam

Clearing webcache, appcache

My system:

Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS (fresh install)

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D with AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Red Devil 16GB – using open source AMDGPU driver

OpenGL and Vulkan work perfectly in other games/apps

Possible cause?

I suspect the issue is related to my Radeon RX 9070 GPU and how Steam's runtime uses outdated Mesa versions (22.x or 23.x). The RX 9070 series requires a newer Mesa (24.x+) to function correctly, especially with Chromium-based UIs like the one used in the Steam client. This could explain why the UI doesn’t load at all.

I haven’t tried the Flatpak version yet, but I’ve seen some people say it works better with newer GPUs.

Has anyone else with an RDNA3 GPU run into this? Are there workarounds or launch flags that force Steam to use the system Mesa libraries?

Thanks for any help or insights!

[WeepingBelle (they/she)]

you have any luck with this? i have something similar, also on a fresh install of ubuntu 24.04 with a 9070 XT. steam wont open with the native runtime (altho steam_runtime=1 works fine) and i cant get any games to run using vulkan, only opengl. i really dont wanna go back to windows :(

[DataDingo]

I'm having this same Issue: Ryzen 7 9700X, Radeon RX 9070 XT.

Oddly, it will launch if I start it through the terminal (`steam`) but not when try to launch it with the icon (pinned into the dock).

[Blk_Mage_Ctype]

I've had the same issue.

OS: Ubuntu 25.04
CPU: AMD R9 7900X
GPU: AMD RX-9060XT 16GB

However, based on my searches, this seems to have been a persistent issue with Ubuntu dating back many years, manifesting itself repeatedly through various software generations.

I've read that disabling GPU Acceleration can help, but haven't tried it yet myself. (I keep forgetting to change settings.

Once workaround I've discovered is to right-click the Steam icon then select Library. Whenever I do this, it seems to launch reliably 100% of the time. However, it is dependent on you doing so initially, (i.e. prior to attempting to launch the app) otherwise it fails as usual. It won't work after the fact either, you must completely exit the application/end process for it to work, provided you can even get it to close, so you have to do it the first time and every time you attempt to lauch the app.

EDIT: Tried it and it works! Disable GPU Acceleration under Steam Settings and Steam will start up as it ought to afterwards!

[Iz]

Not sure if this is applicable for anyone else, but I've found that deleteing:

~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime
and
~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/steam-runtime

will force Steam to rebuild those directories and - start.

So I've simply added the lines:

rm -rf ~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime
rm -rf ~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/steam-runtime

to ~/profile (which will automatically remove the directories every user login, and is sufficient for Steam to then work for the duration of the session). I have no idea what the actual problem is though, just that Steam refused to start after every reboot all of a sudden. Beats reinstalling entirely anyway. Trust me. I've tried both options.

(Ubuntu 24.04, GPU nVidia GTX 1080Ti)