Can't launch Steam games

[vitor251093]

Describe the bug
While all my Steam games were detected properly, I can't launch any of my Steam games. I press the Play button, a toast notification says the game launched, but it never does. The game does launch normally if I do it using Steam.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Open Cartridges
2. Select the game (example: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion)
3. Press Play

Expected behavior
The game should have opened.

Screenshots

System:

• OS: Debian 12 (Bookworm)
• Installation method: Flatpak

Additional context

• My Steam library is not in the default location; it's located at /data/SteamLibrary, while /data is a different partition; it was properly configured that way using Cartridges preferences;
• Cartridges was installed using Flatpak. More specifically flatpak install flathub hu.kramo.Cartridges;
• Steam was installed using apt;
• All Steam games I've tested are games running though Proton;
• RetroArch (native, added manually with the command flatpak run org.libretro.RetroArch) opens normally when I press the Play button;
• My Cartridges version is 1.5.4

[kra-mo]

Hi,

Could you please run Cartridges from the terminal via flatpak run hu.kramo.Cartridges, try to launch a game and then post your output?

[vitor251093]

Sure thing. This is the output:

vitor@vitor-debian:~$ flatpak run hu.kramo.Cartridges
gio: steam://rungameid/22330: Operation not supported

It's worth noting that the command below also fails, so it seems like the URI scheme is not associated with Steam for some reason.

vitor@vitor-debian:~$ xdg-open steam://rungameid/22330
gio: steam://rungameid/22330: The specified location is not supported

The Steam generated Desktop files have the following exec line:

Exec=steam steam://rungameid/22330

EDIT: It may be related with that issue:
ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux#7076

If that's the case, it may not be a Cartridges issue. But still, an error message explaining the issue would be useful in case somebody else has that problem. It's worth saying I still don't know how to fix it.

[vitor251093]

Curiously enough, there is also this:

vitor@vitor-debian:~$ xdg-mime query default x-scheme-handler/steam
steam.desktop

So the scheme is associated to the Steam desktop file, which does exist.

Using the command below, it works:

vitor@vitor-debian:~$ steam steam://rungameid/22330
steam.sh[7028]: Running Steam on debian 12 64-bit
steam.sh[7028]: STEAM_RUNTIME is enabled automatically
setup.sh[7097]: Steam runtime environment up-to-date!
steam.sh[7028]: Steam client's requirements are satisfied
[...]

And if I try to open the steam://rungameid/22330 scheme in my browser, it tries to open it with xdg-open, and fails as well.

[kra-mo]

Yeah, this is an issue on Steam/Debian's side.

But still, an error message explaining the issue would be useful in case somebody else has that problem.

I don't currently have a mechanism to do this and I think you understand why I could not add hard-coded error messages for specific bugs on specific distros.

The best thing you could do now is either manually change the executable inside of Cartridges from xdg-open to steam or try this solution.

[vitor251093]

My steam.desktop exec line actually looks like that:

Exec=/usr/games/steam %U

So that solution won't work for me.

The best thing you could do now is either manually change the executable inside of Cartridges from xdg-open to steam

Oh, I didn't figure I could update games that were imported automatically. Just tried that and it worked btw.

I don't currently have a mechanism to do this and I think you understand why I could not add hard-coded error messages for specific bugs on specific distros.

Makes perfect sense to me. Still, considering that replacing xdg-open with steam worked in my case, maybe that could be added as a fallback while importing the Steam library? If the Steam scheme doesn't work, it uses "steam" instead of "xdg-open" automatically.

I don't know if that would be simple to implement, since apparently the scheme is associated with Steam, and it still doesn't work, but that may be a possibility worth investigating if other people report the same issue in the future.

Until then, in case anyone stumbles with that issue in the future, that works:

change the executable inside of Cartridges from xdg-open to steam