Launcher/desktop shortcuts missing

[VNovotna]

Your system information

• Steam client version (build number or date): 1496344747, built Jun 1 2017 at 18:41:15
• Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Ubuntu 16.04.2 and Arch
• Opted into Steam client beta?: No
• Have you checked for system updates?: Yes (on both distros)

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

When installing game no "start menu" or desktop shortcut is created. Even when requested.

Manual creation: RMB -> create desktop shortcut also doesn't work. Could not create shortcut. A shortcut to this game is probably already on the desktop. Which is not true. Desktop folders empty as well as ~./local/share/applications.

Steps for reproducing this issue:

1. Install game, make sure Create desktop shorcut and Create start menu shortcut are ticked
2. Check desktop and start menu. Icons are missing.

another

1. Right click on any installed game
2. Select Create Desktop Shortcut
3. Error message as described above.

[EBaisleyJr]

I'm having the same issue: Steam will no longer create menu shortcuts when I install a game. This compounds the long extant problem of not being able to create any desktop shortcuts. What I have to do now is to open one of the shortcuts Steam has already created with a text editor, update the app ID and name to reflect the game I'm installing, save under a different name, and make the new shortcut executable. This just started happening with the newest client update. I'm running 64-bit Kubuntu 17.04, with an AMD A10-5800K and an NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti.

[janw-me]

Same, ubuntu 17.04 cleanly installed sunday.

[ghost]

I have been having this issue since the latest Steam client patch. I have tried several common troubleshooting methods. Nothing has worked to remedy this issue.

Ubuntu Gnome 17.04

I received Steam support that suggested a fix. I was told to run the follow command on Terminal:

steam --reset

However this did not fix the issue, but display this result:

Error: Couldn't find bootstrap, it's not safe to reset Steam. Please contact technical support.

I reported this back to Steam support whom which told me:

"We're sorry you're having issues with Steam on Linux. Please submit all issues and bugs to the bug database using a GitHub account. This database is regularly reviewed by the Valve developer team."

UPDATE
My Steam controller stop working as well. I was able to get it working again by running these commands:

sudo apt-get purge steam
sudo apt-get purge steam-devices
reboot

This command installed steam and created a desktop launcher for the steam client!

sudo apt-get install steam

sudo apt-get install steam-devices
reboot

Unfortunately, that was the only icon that was/can be created as installations of games still do not create desktop launchers or or menu(s) launchers.

[DrDoctor13]

FWIW: output from strace steam: https://paste.pound-python.org/show/NMi6ZCjApYTDXzYKk4bs/

Line 610 is when I tried creating a shortcut.

[tgagor]

Same issue here. Ubuntu 17.04.

[efeciftci]

Same issue here. Kubuntu 16.04.2. Steam package version 1497895186 (built on Jun 16, 2017).

I actually don't get why the desktop is checked before creating a shortcut. If there is not a previous shortcut, let Steam client create one. If there is a previous shortcut, let Steam client overwrite it. In fact, this is actually how Steam client behaves under normal conditions. IMHO it would not make any difference if this control was removed from the source code or not (apart from being broken from time to time).

[ProbDenis]

I have the same issue (Xubuntu 17.04) Menu entries for newly installed games are not created any more. This worked before, but I'm not sure when exactly it stopped working.

[Sil3ntPr0digy]

I have also been having the issue since last updated (Gentoo 4.9.16). Hopefully it gets addressed soon as it is very annoying to buy games and then to have to manually create shortcuts every single time.

[MasterSergius]

The same issue (Xubuntu 16.04). It stops create Desktop Icons after some Steam update few months ago. Can't find solution.

[fish-dots]

Same problem. Steam was previously able to make shortcuts a few months ago, but currently is unable to make new desktop and menu shortcuts for games.

Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon (3.0.7) 64-bit

[sidro]

Same here on Arch Linux x64.

[Culted]

same issue on fedora 25 64bit

[DigiAngel]

Same here...16.04.

[sudopluto]

Same here on ubuntu xenial (16.04), ever since the update steam does not create desktop shortcuts

[m5tuff]

Same Linux Mint 18.2 64-bit

[sudopluto]

even after july 11th update, same problem

[bidinou]

Occurs under KDE Neon as well (based on Ubuntu 16.04). Tried both beta and stable clients.

[amikot]

Same problem: Debian 9 KDE 64-bit

Can someone approve is that bug related somehow to another one?
I have also another problem #5030 that seems to be caused by the same general problem of permissions. Steam probably cant save anything in user folder - just games folder is accessible.

[tleydxdy]

Same, Arch x64

[vgnmnky]

Me too, Mint 18.2 KDE 64-bit, freshly installed today.

[mensinda]

Same here on my Arch Linux 64bit and a fresh install of Ubuntu 17.04.

[tgagor]

Hi again,

are there any developers listening? A lot of people have problem. We could help to debug this issue - just say what you need? How could we help to get it fixed?

[pw00t]

openSUSE Tumbleweed and Leap 42.3, installed Dota 2 but nowhere I can see the launcher icon.

[astreyn]

Same problem! Linux Mint 18.1

[rudevdr]

Can confirm this on arch linux 64bit.

[mhalano]

This bug should tested against beta release.

[bidinou]

It also occurs with the latest beta.
Bad workaround : install Lutris, allow Lutris to sync Steam collection, create shortcut from Lutris.

[louis-irl]

Same issue in Mint 18.2

[efeciftci]

If I had to guess, I'd say Valve has decided to kill the Linux client. You can see this in the changelogs of the latest client updates. They are very busy fixing stupid bugs for other platforms but not a single bug has been fixed for Linux in the last month.

"macOS: Improved support for various mouse cursors in the In-Game Overlay"
Wow. Good job Valve. I can't find words to describe what an important issue you have solved. Now fix my desktop shortcuts too.

"General: Fixed some cases where the Steam UI would not notify users about the availability of a new Steam client update as promptly as it should"
Thanks Valve! We the Linux users get notifications about client updates that are irrelevant to our platform!

[louis-irl]

@DrDoctor13 Was there? according to this, there hasn't been an update since Sept 7th.

[kisak-valve]

@DrDoctor13, it should be a trivial adjustment to fix #5190.

[DrDoctor13]

I'm a grown man, I'm in college, I'm pursuing a career in IT, yet I can never remember that August is the 8th month of the year, not the 9th.

[louis-irl]

@DrDoctor13 Haha, it's cool. Now let's continue yelling at Valve :^)

[ghost]

Please, Valve get your software together...

[ilazgo]

Same problem on elementary OS loki

[VNovotna]

Still present at build Oct 17 2017, at 13:11:22 after more than 4 months.
Does it means end of Linux support? I already stopped buying new games, but still have considerably large library which I would like to fully use.

[mensinda]

Seriously Valve, it has been 2 Months since I posted my strace results. How hard can it be to write a single file (that you can already correctly generate) to the correct directory?

I am not working at Valve, so I obviously can't be 100% certain about my conclusion, but because there was NOT A SINGLE statement about the nature/status of this issue I can only rely on my debugging efforts.

Furthermore, if any Program writes a file to the root dir (/) when it is supposed to be somewhere else (like in $HOME/.local/share/applications/) the solution, or at least a strong hint about what is going wrong, seems obvious.

[bidinou]

IMHO, there are two possible explanations (considering the bug is absolutely trivial)

• either Valve is indeed sending us a signal (but that would be strange as I guess there is still work carried out for the platform in much more demanding areas)
• either the bug was not triaged properly and is falling behind the radar. In that case maybe one should open a new one or get in touch with the triagers team

[mensinda]

I wrote a simple workaround script that can automatically copy the .desktop files form / to any destination.

You have to change the owner / flags of / for this to work with sudo chown $(whoami):root /.

⚠️ Note: ⚠️

This should not brake anything. You still can't remove the contents of /usr for instance (without sudo) but you can rename all files and directories directly in /.

The damage you can do with this change is minimal, but you should revert this change once this bug is fixed or you have all desktop shortcuts you want.

You can undo this change with sudo chown root:root /.

The bash script:

Use this script to launch steam

#!/bin/bash

CHECK_INTERVAL=2                              # sleep time for the main loop
DESTINATION="$HOME/.local/share/applications" # where to move the files
STEAM_EXEC="$(which steam)"                   # the steam executable / start script
SKIP_CHECK=0                                  # set to 1 to check stat of /

checkLoop() {
  while true; do
    sleep $CHECK_INTERVAL
    for i in /*.desktop; do
      [ ! -f "$i" ] && continue # make sure the file exists
      mv -f "$i" "$DESTINATION"
      echo "Moved '$i' to $DESTINATION"
    done
  done
}

if [[ "$(stat -c %U /)" != "$(whoami)" && "$SKIP_CHECK" != "1" ]]; then
  echo "Please chanche owner of / with 'sudo chown $(whoami):root /'"
  exit 1
fi

[ ! -d "$DESTINATION" ] && mkdir -p "$DESTINATION"
checkLoop & # start the main loop
PID=$!

$STEAM_EXEC "$@" # run steam

kill $PID # kill the loop

[cob16]

Just threw a site together to generate these files, might be useful for some until this gets fixed.

example:
http://circularlogic.pythonanywhere.com/shortcut/?appid=440&name=Team+Fortress+2

[johnv-valve]

should be fixed in the current beta http://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta#announcements/detail/1456213434738131018

[sudopluto]

Praise Be! Thank you @johnv-valve !

[bidinou]

Thank you very much for the fix !

However, is there a distinct bug report about the fact most games have the generic Steam icon instead of the game one ? This is quite annoying as well as one has to manually change to icon, not to have tons of Steam icons on one's desktop :)

[bidinou]

Well, I say "most", that's actually kinda random.

[VNovotna]

@bidinou generic icon means that application vendor (not valve) did not provided correct Linux icon.

[bidinou]

@VNovotna : ah, you're right. I thought win icons could get automatically converted. I thought a generic png icon had to be provided...
What bothers me is that I noticed I have many recent games missing the Linux icon. Older games almost all have one... I mean, even some pretty well known titles. (ie : Talos, Wasteland, Hand of Fate, Thimbleweed, Infinifactory...).

[samuel-phan]

As a workaround meanwhile, you can create a desktop shortcut yourself.

Replace the game ID by your game ID. You can find it on the store page of your game, in the URL. For example, for LIMBO, the URL is this: http://store.steampowered.com/app/48000/LIMBO/

(cosmetics) If you're lucky, you will have an icon for the game in the installation files, otherwise, you must search on the net.

[mhalano]

I think the only viable fix to this problem is use the icons for other platforms on Linux, like if there is no icon for Linux so uses the Windows icon.

[Verwalter2017]

I had this issue after updating to Ubuntu 17.10. In my case the .desktop were just hidden. Renaming them and then setting them as executable made them reappear and usable after clicking mark as trusted and launch on the dialog when clicking the link.

[jedenastka]

I made simple script for making Steam game launchers.
https://github.com/jedenastka/steamlg

[zvbarev]

Confirm for Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS

[gasinvein]

@jedenastka I've made one, too https://github.com/gasinvein/steam-desktop-updater
It automatically creates launchers for all games in your library, and also extracts icons.
It was intended for Flatpack'ed Steam, but maybe someone here finds it useful, too.

[kisak-valve]

The newer issue is currently being tracked at #5590. Please continue the discussion there.