Black Screen when using Proton on Ubuntu

[EricGrahamMacEachern]

System Information

• Steam client version (build number or date): 1726604483
• Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS
• Opted into Steam client beta?: [Yes/No] No
• Have you checked for system updates?: [Yes/No] Yes
• Steam Logs: Steam_logs.zip
• GPU: AMD Radeon RX 580 Series (radeonsi, polaris10, LLVM 18.1.7, DRM 3.58, 6.8.0-41-generic)

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

I have identified a new Proton Bug that started in June of 2024. The bug is a black screen when the game starts running after the start menus. It seems like a Window Manager crash since the screen goes black and I can’t even access a terminal. It has the same black screen behavior on X and Wayland. Since then, I have been unable to play the following Steam Games: Atomic Heart, Ark, Dune: Spice Wars, RAGE 2, Deadlock, Black Myth Wukong Benchmark Tool, and Astro Colony. RAGE works, but RAGE 2 doesn’t work. I think this is a fairly good clue since they are closely related games. The Windows games that I can play with Proton include Space Engineers, Civilization VI, Command & Conquer Remastered, Mass Effect, all of the Deus Ex Games, North Gard, Fallout New Vegas, Borderlands, Borderlands 2. There are some more games I would like to buy this year, especially Black Myth Wukong, but I am reluctant to spend more money until this is fixed.

I know this isn’t a GPU issue because I installed the latest version of amdgpu from amdgpu-install_6.2.60200-1_all.deb. I installed it using the ‘amdgpu-install -y –usecase=graphics’ setting. This is called the “All-Open” use case in AMD’s documentation and it’s the configuration I always use since it never causes problems. I did purge and reinstall amdgpu and amdgpu-install, so I am absolutely certain that this is not a GPU driver issue, especially since the problem never occurs on Linux native games. All of this is happening on a fresh install of Ubuntu 24. I had all of the same problems on Ubuntu 22, which is why I decided to upgrade to Ubuntu 24.

Steps for reproducing this issue:

1. Install one of these games on Ubuntu with the same hardware and software.
2. Make sure the game is using Proton.
3. Start the game and get past the start menus.
4. Actually try to play the game, at which point the screen will turn black and the computer will become unresponsive.

Additional system information:

Proton Versions used:
Proton Experimental
GE-Proton-9-11
Proton 9.0-3
Proton 8.0-5
Proton 7.0-6
Proton 6.3-8
Proton 5.13-6
Proton 5.0-10
Proton 4.11-13
Proton 4.2-9
Proton 3.16-9
Proton 3.7-8
Proton Hotfix

Linux kernel version: 6.8.0-41-generic

Vulkan Information:
Vulkan Instance Version: 1.3.275
driverInfo: Mesa 24.2.3 (git-b235da6791)
driverName: radv
apiVersion: 1.3.289

Video Card:
Driver: AMD Radeon RX 580 Series (radeonsi, polaris10, LLVM 18.1.7, DRM 3.58, 6.8.0-41-generic)
Driver Version: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 24.2.0-devel
OpenGL Version: 4.6
Desktop Color Depth: 24 bits per pixel
Monitor Refresh Rate: 59 Hz
VendorID: 0x1002
DeviceID: 0x67df
Revision Not Detected
Number of Monitors: 1
Number of Logical Video Cards: 1
Primary Display Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Desktop Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Primary Display Size: 45.28" x 25.59" (51.97" diag), 115.0cm x 65.0cm (132.0cm diag)
Primary VRAM: 8192 MB

Operating System Version:
Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS (64 bit)
Kernel Name: Linux
Kernel Version: 6.8.0-41-generic
X Server Vendor: The X.Org Foundation
X Server Release: 12302006
X Window Manager: GNOME Shell
Steam Runtime Version: steam-runtime_0.20240806.97925

Computer Information:
Manufacturer: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
Model: ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING
Form Factor: Desktop
No Touch Input Detected

Processor Information:
CPU Vendor: AuthenticAMD
CPU Brand: AMD Ryzen 5 2600X Six-Core Processor
CPU Family: 0x17
CPU Model: 0x8
CPU Stepping: 0x2
CPU Type: 0x0
Speed: 3600 MHz
12 logical processors
6 physical processors
Hyper-threading: Supported
FCMOV: Supported
SSE2: Supported
SSE3: Supported
SSSE3: Supported
SSE4a: Supported
SSE41: Supported
SSE42: Supported
AES: Supported
AVX: Supported
AVX2: Supported
AVX512F: Unsupported
AVX512PF: Unsupported
AVX512ER: Unsupported
AVX512CD: Unsupported
AVX512VNNI: Unsupported
SHA: Supported
CMPXCHG16B: Supported
LAHF/SAHF: Supported
PrefetchW: Unsupported

Sound card:
Audio device: ATI R6xx HDMI

Memory:
RAM: 15909 Mb

VR Hardware:
VR Headset: None detected

Miscellaneous:
UI Language: English
LANG: en_US.UTF-8
Total Hard Disk Space Available: 111044 MB
Largest Free Hard Disk Block: 40271 MB

Storage:
Number of SSDs: 4
SSD sizes: 4000G,2000G,2000G,120G
Number of HDDs: 0
Number of removable drives: 0

[Metastopheles]

I have the same issue.
Not sure where to actually post this. Most others who have experienced the same issue post to their OS distro.
This occurred last week and there have been Proton experimental and hotfix updates along with the new Proton 10. None have fixed my issue.
note, I have two monitors, so my computer does not become unresponsive, I am able to switch to the other screen and stop the game from steam. But I cannot do anything on the main monitor.

It all started after playing Farm Simulator 25. I Quit the game and next day got only the black screen when I launch the game, but I have audio.
Steam update overnight was Proton 10.0 (beta). I have not subscribed to any beta versions which is why I noticed it. I uninstalled this in an attempted fix, which did not work. No other updates occurred that I can find. There where no system updates at the time.
I get the same issue on inZOI, Starfield, Surviving Mars: Relaunched (recently installed after issue started), Roadcraft, Manor Lords, Anno 1800, and Timberborn
Slightly different examples, Cyberpunk 2077 launches the launcher fine, but game is black screen with audio. Same with Cities: Skylines II and Skyrim SE.
The Sims 4 displays a white blank screen with audio. I also run this in a window mode, all others are full screen.

(edit) If the game has it's own mouse cursor (inZOI, The Sims 4) the mouse cursor changes. I can also click the "skip" in the inZOI intro, even though I can't see it. Haven't tried in others as I can't see the hot spots.

The Sims 1 and The Sims 2 legacy collection work fine on pretty much any Proton
The Sims 3 and The Sims Medieval run in wine and work fine. I don't run them from Proton. These are the only wine apps I run.
Native games are working. Surviving Mars, Tropico 6, Euro Truck Simulator, Tiny Life, and others.

I have many other games but didn't want to try every single one I have installed as there's a few.

I have installed the latest MESA drivers (kisak) from the distro version, tried reinstalling the Proton prefix directory, verified files and tried numerous other recommendations offered around the web, but it appears to be a small impact issue to minor individuals. And nothing has worked.
I am loath to reinstall the OS, Kubuntu, which seems to be the most common fix method.

My instincts think that a flag has been set in Proton that applies regardless on version running. And since I maintain my ~home directory I don't think a reinstall will actually fix it if it is a flag setting somewhere located in the home directory.

Computer Information:
Manufacturer: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd.
Model: B550M PRO-VDH WIFI (MS-7C95)
Form Factor: Desktop
No Touch Input Detected

Processor Information:
CPU Vendor: AuthenticAMD
CPU Brand: AMD Ryzen 5 5600 6-Core Processor
CPU Family: 0x19
CPU Model: 0x21
CPU Stepping: 0x2
CPU Type: 0x0
Speed: 3500 MHz
12 logical processors
6 physical processors
Hyper-threading: Supported
FCMOV: Supported
SSE2: Supported
SSE3: Supported
SSSE3: Supported
SSE4a: Supported
SSE41: Supported
SSE42: Supported
AES: Supported
AVX: Supported
AVX2: Supported
AVX512F: Unsupported
AVX512PF: Unsupported
AVX512ER: Unsupported
AVX512CD: Unsupported
AVX512VNNI: Unsupported
SHA: Supported
CMPXCHG16B: Supported
LAHF/SAHF: Supported
PrefetchW: Unsupported
BMI1: Supported
BMI2: Supported
F16C: Supported
FMA: Supported

Operating System:
Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS (64 bit)
Kernel Name: Linux
Kernel Version: 6.8.0-87-generic
X Server Vendor: The X.Org Foundation
X Server Release: 12101011
X Window Manager: KWin
Steam Runtime Version: steam-runtime_1.0.20250723.149234

Client Information:
Version: 1759461205
Browser GPU Acceleration Status: Enabled
Browser Canvas: Enabled
Browser Canvas out-of-process rasterization: Enabled
Browser Direct Rendering Display Compositor: Disabled
Browser Compositing: Enabled
Browser Multiple Raster Threads: Enabled
Browser OpenGL: Enabled
Browser Rasterization: Enabled
Browser Raw Draw: Disabled
Browser Skia Graphite: Disabled
Browser Video Decode: Enabled
Browser Video Encode: Disabled
Browser Vulkan: Disabled
Browser WebGL: Enabled
Browser WebGL2: Enabled
Browser WebGPU: Disabled
Browser WebNN: Disabled

Video Card:
Driver: AMD AMD Radeon RX 6600 (radeonsi, navi23, LLVM 20.1.8, DRM 3.57, 6.8.0-87-generic)
Driver Version: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 25.2.7 - kisak-mesa PPA
Desktop Color Depth: 24 bits per pixel
Monitor Refresh Rate: 60 Hz
VendorID: 0x1002
DeviceID: 0x73ff
Revision Not Detected
Number of Monitors: 2
Number of Logical Video Cards: 1
Primary Display Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Desktop Resolution: 3840 x 1080
Primary Display Size: 20.94" x 11.97" (24.09" diag), 53.2cm x 30.4cm (61.2cm diag)
Primary VRAM: 8192 MB

Sound card:
Audio device: ATI R6xx HDMI

Memory:
RAM: 32013 Mb

VR Hardware:
VR Headset: None detected
No VR configuration with trackers detected
Most number of trackers in a session: 0

Miscellaneous:
UI Language: English
LANG: en_AU.UTF-8
Total Hard Disk Space Available: 1593210 MB
Largest Free Hard Disk Block: 97956 MB

Storage:
Number of SSDs: 3
SSD sizes: 2000G,500G,62G
Number of HDDs: 0
Number of removable drives: 0