Upgrade to Fedora 40 broke steam

[walthaas]

Under Fedora 39 I was able to reliably play Steam games. Since upgrading to Fedora 40 I’m able to start Steam and select a game in my library, but when I click PLAY, Steam spends less than a second launching then shows PLAY again. I know the GPU works because I can use it to render a scene in Blender. The symptom is the same whether I launch it from the menu or command line. The command line gives me the error message /home/haas/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Skyrim Special Edition/SkyrimSELauncher.exe: cannot execute binary file which isn’t very helpful. Steam verifies the integrity of the files. I get the same symptom trying to start The Sims and The Witcher 3, but Floating Point starts and runs fine. There is no message on dmesg. Here’s my system:

System:
  Kernel: 6.8.9-300.fc40.x86_64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc
    v: 2.41-34.fc40
  Desktop: Xfce v: 4.18.1 tk: Gtk v: 3.24.41 wm: xfwm4 dm: LightDM
    Distro: Fedora Linux 40 (Xfce)
Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: PRIME X570-PRO v: Rev X.0x
    serial: <superuser required> part-nu: SKU UEFI: American Megatrends v: 3405
    date: 02/01/2021
Battery:
  Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech Wireless Mouse M525
    serial: <filter> charge: 100% (should be ignored) status: discharging
CPU:
  Info: 8-core model: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Zen 2
    rev: 0 cache: L1: 512 KiB L2: 4 MiB L3: 32 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 2199 high: 2200 min/max: 2200/4426 boost: enabled cores:
    1: 2200 2: 2196 3: 2200 4: 2196 5: 2200 6: 2196 7: 2200 8: 2200 9: 2196
    10: 2200 11: 2200 12: 2200 13: 2200 14: 2200 15: 2200 16: 2200
    bogomips: 114986
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3
Graphics:
  Device-1: NVIDIA GA102 [GeForce RTX 3080 Lite Hash Rate] vendor: ASUSTeK
    driver: nvidia v: 550.78 arch: Ampere pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 16 ports:
    active: none off: DP-2,HDMI-A-1,HDMI-A-2 empty: DP-1,DP-3 bus-ID: 09:00.0
    chip-ID: 10de:2216
  Device-2: Valve 3D Camera driver: uvcvideo type: USB rev: 3.2
    speed: 5 Gb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 2-2.1:3 chip-ID: 28de:2400
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.20.14 with: Xwayland v: 23.2.6
    compositor: xfwm4 v: 4.18.0 driver: X: loaded: nvidia
    unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,nouveau,vesa alternate: nv
    gpu: nvidia,nvidia-nvswitch display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 2560x1440 s-dpi: 96
  Monitor-1: DP-2 note: disabled model: Nvidia res: 640x480 size: N/A
  Monitor-2: HDMI-A-1 mapped: HDMI-0 note: disabled model: Cintiq Pro_16
    res: 640x480 dpi: 284 diag: 395mm (15.5")
  Monitor-3: HDMI-A-2 mapped: HDMI-1 note: disabled pos: primary
    model: Samsung LC32G7xT res: 2560x1440 dpi: 93 diag: 806mm (31.7")
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6.0 vendor: nvidia v: 550.78 glx-v: 1.4
    direct-render: yes renderer: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080/PCIe/SSE2
  API: EGL Message: EGL data requires eglinfo. Check --recommends.
Audio:
  Device-1: NVIDIA GA102 High Definition Audio vendor: ASUSTeK
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: speed: 16 GT/s lanes: 16
    bus-ID: 09:00.1 chip-ID: 10de:1aef
  Device-2: AMD Starship/Matisse HD Audio vendor: ASUSTeK
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: speed: 16 GT/s lanes: 16
    bus-ID: 0b:00.4 chip-ID: 1022:1487
  Device-3: Valve VR Radio driver: cdc_acm,hid-generic,usbhid type: USB
    rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 1-2.3.2:5 chip-ID: 28de:2102
  Device-4: Valve VR Radio & HMD Mic
    driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid type: USB rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s
    lanes: 1 bus-ID: 1-2.3.3:6 chip-ID: 28de:2102
  Device-5: C-Media Blue Snowball driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid
    type: USB rev: 1.1 speed: 12 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 5-2.1:3
    chip-ID: 0d8c:0005
  API: ALSA v: k6.8.9-300.fc40.x86_64 status: kernel-api
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.0.6 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse
    status: active 2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin
    4: pw-jack type: plugin
Network:
  Device-1: Intel I211 Gigabit Network vendor: ASUSTeK driver: igb v: kernel
    pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: f000 bus-ID: 05:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:1539
  IF: enp5s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 13.19 TiB used: 976.4 GiB (7.2%)
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Samsung model: SSD 980 PRO 500GB
    size: 465.76 GiB speed: 63.2 Gb/s lanes: 4 serial: <filter> temp: 50.9 C
  ID-2: /dev/nvme1n1 vendor: Samsung model: SSD 980 PRO 2TB size: 1.82 TiB
    speed: 63.2 Gb/s lanes: 4 serial: <filter> temp: 58.9 C
  ID-3: /dev/sda vendor: HGST (Hitachi) model: HDN726060ALE614
    size: 5.46 TiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter>
  ID-4: /dev/sdb vendor: HGST (Hitachi) model: HDN726060ALE614
    size: 5.46 TiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter>
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 464.16 GiB used: 12.83 GiB (2.8%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/dm-0
    mapped: luks-7b354766-7ee4-435e-9a57-4784c8ff8f5b
  ID-2: /boot size: 973.4 MiB used: 371.4 MiB (38.2%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2
  ID-3: /boot/efi size: 598.8 MiB used: 19 MiB (3.2%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1
  ID-4: /home size: 1.79 TiB used: 963.19 GiB (52.6%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/dm-1 mapped: home
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: zram size: 8 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: 100
    dev: /dev/zram0
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 46.0 C mobo: 53.0 C gpu: nvidia temp: 55 C
  Fan Speeds (rpm): fan-1: 1569 fan-2: 0 fan-3: 0 fan-4: 0 fan-5: 0 fan-6: 0
    fan-7: 0 gpu: nvidia fan: 0%
Info:
  Memory: total: 128 GiB note: est. available: 125.7 GiB used: 6.01 GiB (4.8%)
  Processes: 446 Power: uptime: 7h 44m wakeups: 0 Init: systemd v: 255
    target: graphical (5) default: graphical
  Packages: pm: flatpak pkgs: 9 Compilers: gcc: 14.1.1 Shell: Bash v: 5.2.26
    running-in: xfce4-terminal inxi: 3.3.34

[kisak-valve]

Hello @walthaas, [...].exe: cannot execute binary file tells us Steam trying to run a Windows game without a compatibility tool. This is a bad config of some kind with the Steam client. Likely from previously having the global Steam Play setting enabled in Steam's settings before the system upgrade, and forcefully adding secondary Steam library folders to a new Steam install without it being able to transition between client states.

Can you check Steam -> Settings -> Compatibility -> Enable Steam Play for all other titles (or if you previously did this on a per-game basis, toggle the similar setting in a game's per-game settings).

[walthaas]

That worked great at getting Skyrim to start and work! The Sims wants an Origin update which is annoyance I can deal with some other time. The Witcher 3 shows a popup with a PLAY button, but after I click that the game dies. Thanks for your help!

[walthaas]

The Witcher 3 started fine after I verified file integrity and reloaded damaged files, so that's all good.