This may not be a Linux specific problem as I had the exact same issue earlier with Windows 7 and it’s one of the reasons I installed Linux in the first place.

The specific game I’m trying to play is DayZ but it may not be issue specific to this game. It worked flawlessly untill this point. I had made no changes to anything. Basically when I try to launch the game it starts loading up normally and then just apparently quits and the “Play” button goes back green. No error, no black screen, no freezing or anything. It just stops launching the game.

I’ve tried checking the integrity of files, deleting downloads catche, disabling steam cloud, removing launch options… nothing. Almost like it gets blocked by firewall or something. However I feel like it may be an issue with steam itself or then it’s a hardware issue (I’ve got really old PC)

Few things I’ve noticed that may or may not be related:

  • When opening up steam it almost always used to download some updates first and check the integrity of them or something. Now it doesn’t. It just opens up Steam. When I click “check for updates” it says everything is up to date.

  • The firmware updater shows available updates for my SSD and HDD but no option to update. I also tried with sudo fwupdmgr get-devices but it says “UEFI firmware can not be updated in legacy BIOS mode See https://github.com/fwupd/fwupd/wiki/PluginFlag:legacy-bios for more information.”

  • In the privacy settings it says “checks failed” and gives me this message:

  • I’ve tried reinstalling Proton BattlEye Runtime but it wont let me uninstall it and says “missing shared content”
  • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl
    2·
    10 months ago

    I think this is completely unacceptable and it’s unfortunate that Canonical decided to make this bullshit the first Linux experience for many users.

    This stuff (basically, Snap or the “Ubuntu Software”) is one of the reasons many Linux enthusiasts are so mad at Canonical for pushing their Snap stuff through everyone’s throat. They invented a new software distribution format with significant limitations that power users can weigh the pros/cons of (and in many cases it’s a fine alternative!) but end users like you end up with scenarios where software simply doesn’t work.

    The kicker? The Steam snap package isn’t actually maintained by Steam! It’s maintained by Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu. The package appears in the normal software store UI, but their wiki recommends running a bunch of command line tools to make it work correctly.

    And then the worst part: their own wiki says:

    You should consider disabling snapshotting when uninstalling Steam, as snapshots can be incredibly large and take a long time to create since they will contain your Steam library.

    To uninstall, run either

    # Completely removes Steam and its data, without creating a snapshot
snap remove --purge steam

    or

    # Disables snapshots for ALL snaps on your system, and then removes Steam (you can set this back to 744h after)
snap set system snapshots.automatic.retention=no
snap remove steam

    Basically: for easy updates/downgrades, snapshots of applications are created during installs or uninstalls, and when you clicked “uninstall”, Ubuntu decided to make a copy of your entire Steam install before removing it, in case you want it back. That’s probably why your uninstall is taking forever.

    For future reference: Canonical’s Snap packages have a competitor that just about every other Linux distribution uses: Flatpak. Unfortunately, due to decisions by Canonical, to use it on Ubuntu, you will need to install a second software store. Flatpak has advantages and disadvantages, but at least Steam will work when you install it through that.

    In my personal opinion, the best way to use Ubuntu is to remove Snap, avoid Snap packages, and use Flatpaks instead. The rest of Ubuntu is probably one of the best Linux experiences a newcomer can have, but Canonical’s self-sabotaging through issues like this are making it very hard to try Linux for games.