[Steam UI/Overlay] Showing overlay (SHIFT+TAB) will crash the game if Overlay not ready yet

[deanrih]

Your system information

• Steam client version (build number or date): 1685072487
• Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Manjaro (Arch)
• Opted into Steam client beta?: Yes
• Have you checked for system updates?: Yes

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

If the Steam overlay is not ready, then when trying to open it, it will crash the game. I'm not sure if it's actually "not ready" but there's a consistent occurrence that always ends up crashing the game, I have set up overlay notes and then pin it, so every time I open the game, it will show up without opening the overlay. Now it usually shows up pretty quickly, if within 5 seconds (rough measurement) the notes show up, I know that the game won't crash when I try to open the overlay, but if it's more than that (usually by noticeable margin), it will 100% of the time crash the game, even though the overlay notes show up.

Note that having notes set up or not doesn't matter, because I also experience this with other games where I haven't set up the notes yet.

Another note, let's say I have noticed the notes finally show up after 10 seconds, so you might be thinking, the overlay may be still loading something, and wait for a bit so it didn't crash, the problem is, no matter how long I waited, even hours after the notes show up, it will crash, I can't know what's causing the overlay to load slowly and how to trace it, if there's a guide so I can give better information, please let me know.

Steam client and tested games are installed on an NVMe SSD.

Steps for reproducing this issue:

In this step, I use Dota 2 because I kinda know when the overlay is being initiated and when the notes should show up

Also, this is assuming you have notes set up and pin them

1. Open Dota 2
2. Wait until the Dota 2 logo screen ended
3. Count the time and wait until the notes show up
4. Open the overlay (SHIFT + TAB), if the time it took is less than 5 seconds, it won't crash, but if it more, it will definitely crash

[Zerrocool518]

its also when you are in csgo or gmod and you want to send someone a friend request

[deanrih]

@kisak-valve Since version 1686092969, it seems worse, specifically crashing Dota 2 and CS:GO

As for Dota 2, it will crash as soon as the pinned notes Window appears, as I've described above, I have notes set up on Dota 2 and it will show up for 5 ~ 15 seconds, it worked before this version and now Dota 2 will crash as soon as the notes will show up, Dota 2 itself seems open up normally and showing the dashboard and then crash around the time where the pinned notes should show up.

As for CS:GO, it will crash as soon as you open the overlay, but will work just fine if you don't open it or perhaps no one sends a friend request as @Zerrocool518 mentioned above.

I also tried both games on Stable branch version 1685488080 and they work fine.

[deanrih]

Okay, so it seems the behaviour is still consistent with my original post but just severe, on Dota 2 if the overlay shows up within 5 seconds, it will be fine, but if not, the whole game crashed (previously it will crash when you open/activate the overlay, now it just crash)

[AtFreezingPoint]

Yep, CSGO. It crashes every time i try to do Shift + Tab too. On Arch, btw.

Edit: This happened in the Beta client i think 1 and a half month ago too, i guess i was just too lazy to report it, sadly.

[matharman]

I can reproduce with games other than CS-GO (namely Hunt: Showdown), but only when using X. If I use Wayland, the overlay works as normal.

Steam Version:  1686779606

System Information

```` Computer Information: Manufacturer: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. Model: ROG STRIX B550-I GAMING Form Factor: Desktop No Touch Input Detected Processor Information: CPU Vendor: AuthenticAMD CPU Brand: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core Processor CPU Family: 0x19 CPU Model: 0x21 CPU Stepping: 0x2 CPU Type: 0x0 Speed: 4950 MHz 24 logical processors 12 physical processors Hyper-threading: Supported FCMOV: Supported SSE2: Supported SSE3: Supported SSSE3: Supported SSE4a: Supported SSE41: Supported SSE42: Supported AES: Supported AVX: Supported AVX2: Supported AVX512F: Unsupported AVX512PF: Unsupported AVX512ER: Unsupported AVX512CD: Unsupported AVX512VNNI: Unsupported SHA: Supported CMPXCHG16B: Supported LAHF/SAHF: Supported PrefetchW: Unsupported Operating System Version: Fedora Linux 38 (Workstation Edition) (64 bit) Kernel Name: Linux Kernel Version: 6.3.7-200.fc38.x86_64 X Server Vendor: The X.Org Foundation X Server Release: 12014000 X Window Manager: GNOME Shell Steam Runtime Version: steam-runtime_0.20230509.49499 Video Card: Driver: AMD AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT (navi22, LLVM 16.0.5, DRM 3.52, 6.3.7-200.fc38.x86_64) Driver Version: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 23.1.2 OpenGL Version: 4.6 Desktop Color Depth: 24 bits per pixel Monitor Refresh Rate: 59 Hz VendorID: 0x1002 DeviceID: 0x73df Revision Not Detected Number of Monitors: 2 Number of Logical Video Cards: 1 Primary Display Resolution: 2560 x 1440 Desktop Resolution: 4480 x 1440 Primary Display Size: 23.50" x 13.23" (26.97" diag), 59.7cm x 33.6cm (68.5cm diag) Primary VRAM: 12288 MB Sound card: Audio device: USB Mixer Memory: RAM: 31987 Mb VR Hardware: VR Headset: None detected Miscellaneous: UI Language: English LANG: en_US.UTF-8 Total Hard Disk Space Available: 886792 MB Largest Free Hard Disk Block: 124493 MB Storage: Number of SSDs: 3 SSD sizes: 1000G,1000G,1000G Number of HDDs: 0 Number of removable drives: 0 ````

[smaTc]

I can reproduce with games other than CS-GO (namely Hunt: Showdown), but only when using X. If I use Wayland, the overlay works as normal.

Steam Version:  1686779606

System Information

Can confirm. CSGO und Hunt Showdown crash when trying to open the overlay. Though, Hunt was initially working, before I killed the game due to a freeze.

Edit: Hunt works again with GE 8.4

[deanrih]

Okay, so it seems the behaviour is still consistent with my original post but just severe, on Dota 2 if the overlay shows up within 5 seconds, it will be fine, but if not, the whole game crashed (previously it will crash when you open/activate the overlay, now it just crash)

This specific case seems to be fixed, at least not flat out crashing the game, but overall since my branch was moved into stable, it seems that for me, it is actually more stable, haven't encounter a crash when SHIFT+TAB in Dota 2, the overlay is also seems initialized much faster than previously, but I think I need more time testing it.

[xzrvr]

it appears to be fully working now for me in csgo

edit: rebooted now broken and freezes whole pc when crash

edit 2: not sure if this is related but csgo's loading time for csgo is longer now

[mlandalv]

Same problem for me in Hunt: Showdown after the latest Steam update. A bit random but mostly it works the second time the game is started.

I'm using Wayland (sway).

1. Start game
2. Open steam overlay
3. Game freezes and has to be stopped
4. Start game again
5. Open steam overlay
6. Works

Was planning on uploading the game's log file (PROTON_LOG=1 %command%), but ~1 m of running resulted in a 3+ GB file.

Steam information

[thomsale]

I have the same issue with Fedora 38 6.2.15-703.inttf.fc37.x86_64 I am also using wayland with the nvidia proprietory 535 drivers:

NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-535.43.02

using launch options:

__NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1 %command%

game launches and plays fine, its the "shift + tab" to get to friends chat that crashes with the error:

[kisak-valve]

Hello @thomsale, blind guess, but does __NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1 __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia %command% instead of __NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1 %command% work any better?

[deanrih]

The latest stable update version (1687386907) somehow make it seems reverted to the very early version, the scaling of the panels/windows are off, and I think the center/middle point is now between all monitor again instead of the center of currently active monitor because 1) all my window/panel now shifted to the right (I have 2 monitors and my main monitor is the left one) and; 2) the scale of panels/windows somehow become bigger and note window previously only on the corner now cover the whole screen (pinned).

And the crash behaviour is the same as the old one, the pinned window (note) shows up either under or above 5 seconds, but if it shows above 5 seconds and I do SHIFT + TAB, it will crash/freeze the game.

Also, I found some correlation that if there's a somewhat heavy (but not that heavy) running program like browsers (Chrome-based or Firefox-based), it increases the chance of the overlay to be initialized above 5 seconds which in turn will crash the game when opened (SHIFT + TAB)

[aloisiomarques]

same problem here, csgo taking forever to open after this last update. I realized that in addition to being slow, now I have to wait to process Vulkan shaders, I don't understand why I thought it was in opengl since csgo is native to linux, in addition there is shift + tab that closes the game immediately, you can't even buy it in the steam store.

[psychicgoldfish]

happening for me too. latest Kubuntu.

[shytzedaka]

can confirm this is happening aswell in Ubuntu 23.04 with KDE desktop in team fortress 2.

[Numbers-iwnl]

still a issue with both csgo and dota2 for me, adding -vulkan on csgo launch options seemed to fix it somehow but dota2 still a problem... can't even buy the new cache

[deanrih]

still a issue with both csgo and dota2 for me, adding -vulkan on csgo launch options seemed to fix it somehow but dota2 still a problem... can't even buy the new cache

Can you provide some detail to your setup, I've been playing Dota 2 and it's no longer a problem/no longer crash on me, I have Friend, Notes and Timer window opened in the Overlay.

That being said, I at least experience one crash when completing the purchase of Dota+, the purchase completed successfully, but when Dota 2 trying to acknowledge the purchase (after the overlay being dismissed) it crashes, I think it's Dota 2 specific rather than Overlay though

[Numbers-iwnl]

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/9534#issuecomment-1704525825

Hey my setup is as follows: i5 6400 RX 580 16GB DDR4 1TB HDD Currently running Garuda KDE/X11

I can shift tab now, but steam overlay still crashes the game every now and then, not every time tho Also the game just randomly crashed last match i played and i couldn't come back in time, really sucks to lose score because of it Also the game just feels terrible with vsync off for some reason, sucks to have it on but without it feels like running at 30FPS despite being always 60+

[deanrih]

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/9534#issuecomment-1706997111

I can confirm I have similar experience, both the overlay situation and also with the game randomly crashed last match too, although it happened in Played With Bots instead of actual match, since I rarely play actual match in CS alone.

[BlueStoneCreepr]

Starfield and Empyrion had the same issue on my steamdeck. Im just gonna turn off steam overlay for those games and wait for a fix.