After several days of troubleshooting, Steam games running through Proton suddenly stopped launching on Linux Mint 22.3. Bottles can still run other Windows executables, but Steam games fail. The system uses an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 with the proprietary 595.91.07 driver, alongside Intel integrated graphics. Steam detects the NVIDIA GPU as the default, and 32-bit NVIDIA OpenGL support appears to be installed. The Proton log includes "Application tried to create a window, but no driver could be loaded" and "The explorer process failed to start." The games are installed on a separate ext4 partition mounted under /mnt, not on a drive carried over from another operating system. What should I check next before reinstalling the OS?
2 Answers
What filesystem is the game library using? Windows compatibility tools can have problems with some filesystems or mount options, so it’s worth checking the partition type and how it’s mounted. In this case, though, the library is on ext4, which generally shouldn’t cause this particular problem.
Were these games copied from an earlier Windows installation, or were they installed fresh after switching to Linux? A reused library can sometimes retain incompatible prefixes or permissions. The test game was reinstalled twice and wasn’t transferred from another OS, so that explanation seems unlikely here.
They weren’t carried over from another operating system, and I reinstalled the test game twice. It should be a clean installation.
The games are stored on an ext4 partition mounted at /mnt. As far as I know, that shouldn’t be an issue.