steamwebhelper: bwrap: Can't make symlink at /var/lib/dbus/machine-id: destination exists and is not a symlink

[Panda-Code-Master]

Your system information

• Steam client version (build number or date):
• Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Debian
• Opted into Steam client beta?: [Yes/No] No
• Have you checked for system updates?: [Yes/No] Yes
• Steam Logs: steam-logs.tar.gz
• GPU: Nvidia/Intel/AMD : AMD Lucienne [Integrated]

Steps for reproducing this issue:

1. Download latest steam deb / install using steam-installer from apt
2. launch steam
3. get error for steam webhelper always crashing

[Panda-Code-Master]

even after purging all steam files with rm -rf .steam* and reinstalling it still gives the error steamwebhelper, a critical Steam component, is not responding. The Steam UI will not be usable. Click here for more information.

the only workaround / fix to this was using this command
steam -forcesteamupdate -forcepackagedownload -overridepackageurl https://web.archive.org/web/20240210115543if_/http://media.steampowered.com/client -exitsteam by which it reverts steam to an older version found from this ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux#9851 (comment)

[kisak-valve]

Hello @Panda-Code-Master, bwrap: Can't make symlink at /var/lib/dbus/machine-id: destination exists and is not a symlink looks like a possible line of interest from your webhelper-linux.txt log.

[Panda-Code-Master]

Hello @Panda-Code-Master, bwrap: Can't make symlink at /var/lib/dbus/machine-id: destination exists and is not a symlink looks like a possible line of interest from your webhelper-linux.txt log.

this error doesn't appear when using the work around #688

only in the latest version of steam

[smcv]

This looks like a Steam Linux Runtime issue (@kisak-valve, you could move it to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-runtime/ if you want).

@Panda-Code-Master, we will need more information to be able to solve this. Please try running the updated version of Steam (the one that doesn't work) as:

STEAM_LINUX_RUNTIME_VERBOSE=1 steam

Let it try to start the steamwebhelper for a while (for instance wait until the error dialog pops up), then provide your ~/.steam/steam/logs/webhelper-linux.txt as a Gist or attachment. It will contain environment variables, so if you have any environment variables with secret content (GITHUB_TOKEN or similar), please censor them by replacing their values with a placeholder like xxxx.

I was unable to reproduce the issue with either of the common configurations for /var/lib/dbus/machine-id (either a copy of /etc/machine-id, or a symlink to /etc/machine-id).

[Panda-Code-Master]

Replying to #688 (comment)

i did as told with STEAM_LINUX_RUNTIME_VERBOSE=1 steam here is the new logs
steam-logs.tar.gz

[smcv]

Here's the culprit:

pressure-vessel-wrap[44395]: D: 'XDG_DATA_DIRS=/home/pranav/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share:/var/lib/:/var/local:/usr/local/share/:/usr/share/:/var/lib/flatpak/exports/share'

This will make pressure-vessel try to make the host system's /var/lib and /var/local available inside the container, but then when it's time to set up /var/lib/dbus/machine-id, it can't do that. We should make the container runtime more robust against this, by making it refuse to do things that won't work.

Workaround: run Steam with /var/lib (and probably also /var/local) removed from your XDG_DATA_DIRS.

Why are those two directories in your XDG_DATA_DIRS to begin with? This is not a typical configuration for Debian.

[Panda-Code-Master]

#688 (comment) i tried that work around and it worked as for why it was there was it was required for flatpak to load desktop entries i think i had done it improperly

[smcv]

Having /var/lib/flatpak/exports/share as an item in your XDG_DATA_DIRS is necessary for Flatpak users. It shouldn't trigger this issue, as far as I know.

Having /var/lib as an item in your XDG_DATA_DIRS is unusual, and that's what's triggering this issue. This shouldn't be necessary to make .desktop files load, unless you have /var/lib/applications/*.desktop?

[smcv]

We should make the container runtime more robust against this, by making it refuse to do things that won't work

This is in progress, and will hopefully be part of a future beta.

[smcv]

We should make the container runtime more robust against this, by making it refuse to do things that won't work

For the copy of the container runtime that is used in games, this robustness improvement was released as a beta on 2024-08-20 and promoted to stable on 2024-09-17.

For the copy of the container runtime that is used for steamwebhelper, the same change is expected to be part of the next major update to the Steam client beta.

[Note for maintainers: the relevant version is sniper 0.20240820.99315 or later]

[smcv]

For the copy of the container runtime that is used for steamwebhelper, the same change is expected to be part of the next major update to the Steam client beta.

This is is included in the 2024-10-02 beta (1727910361).