Steam overlay no longer works - "...gameoverlayrenderer.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded"

[minimagicmoose]

Your system information

• Steam client version (build number or date): Steam Version: 1718904662 (From RPM Fusion repo)
• Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Fedora Linux 40 (KDE Plasma 6.1 (Wayland), Kernel Version: 6.9.5-200.fc40.x86_64 (64-bit))
• Opted into Steam client beta?: No
• Have you checked for system updates?: Yes
• GPU: AMD Radeon RX 5700XT (Mesa Version 24.1.2)
• Steam Logs: steamlogs.tar.gz

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

When running any game (Both native and through Proton), the overlay refuses to display. The operating system, Steam, and games are all up to date, and have had file integrity verified. All overlay settings are enabled.

When checking the terminal when running the game (Portal 2 in this instance), the following error comes up:

ERROR: ld.so: object '/home/user/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/gameoverlayrenderer.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32): ignored.
ERROR: ld.so: object '/home/user/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/gameoverlayrenderer.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64): ignored.
ERROR: ld.so: object '/home/user/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/gameoverlayrenderer.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32): ignored.
ERROR: ld.so: object '/home/user/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/gameoverlayrenderer.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32): ignored.
pid 20219 != 20218, skipping destruction (fork without exec?)
ERROR: ld.so: object '/home/user/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/gameoverlayrenderer.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32): ignored.
ERROR: ld.so: object '/home/user/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/gameoverlayrenderer.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64): ignored.

This issue was only noticed after opting into the current Steam Client Beta for Steam Game Recording. When trying to access the Overlay to review recorded footage, the overlay was not working. After attempting multiple things to fix, I opted out of the Beta and went back to Stable, however the issue still persists.

I last played a game around a week ago, so I can't be entirely sure whether the Beta is the cause of this issue, or perhaps some other Steam or system update, but the overlay was working fine then and this issue has only just been noticed now.

Steps for reproducing this issue:

1. Opt in to Steam Beta for Steam Game Recording
2. Run game
3. Overlay fails to show up in-game
4. Opt out of Steam Beta
5. Run game

[sonic2kk]

Updating to Beta caused this breakage for me on Arch Linux, as the Steam Overlay worked for me earlier today before downloading this update. I have not tried reverting back to Stable.

The LD_PRELOAD issue you are mentioning is fairly common though. I have seen this many times before so I am not sure if it is related.

[sonic2kk]

Update: Starting Steam from the commandline allows the Overlay to work on Arch Linux.

[minimagicmoose]

Update: I nuked my Steam install (including deleting all the leftover Steam folders afterwards) and reinstalled Steam (still using the RPM Fusion version). Still having the exact same problem. I've also tried reinstalling the game itself, also doesn't work.

[minimagicmoose]

Update 2: Installed the Flatpak version of Steam to test, and now the overlay works perfectly fine from what I've tried so far.

[odinu]

I don't have the LD_PRELOAD issue but I don't have an overlay either. It was working when recording was 1st introduced, then one day it stopped. Arch on Steam beta.

[smcv]

ERROR: ld.so: object '/home/user/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/gameoverlayrenderer.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32): ignored.
ERROR: ld.so: object '/home/user/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/gameoverlayrenderer.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64): ignored.

These error messages look bad, but they are usually harmless and do appear even on systems where everything is working correctly. It continues to be a valid bug that the overlay doesn't work for you, but it is unlikely to be related to these messages, and these messages do not tell us why the overlay is not working for you.

(Steam tries to load both the 32- and 64-bit overlays into every process, because this is the only simple cross-distro way to make the overlay work as intended for both 32- and 64-bit games. Unfortunately, this means that every 32-bit game logs a message "wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64", and every 64-bit game logs a message "wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32". The Steam Linux Runtime container environment mitigates this by doing more elaborate platform-dependent setup, otherwise you would see even more error messages than this, but that doesn't prevent the first few error messages from appearing.)

[CoryOwens]

Update: Starting Steam from the commandline allows the Overlay to work on Arch Linux.

I have this same issue on Fedora 42 Wayland. Same workarounds: either launch from commandline, or install Flatpak.

Unfortunately, the Flatpak has some issue for me right now where all games just display black screens, so commandline it is.

[nm004]

#10310 (comment) I encountered a similar issue with Torchlight II. The launcher (built with FLTK) did not appear when gameoverlayrenderer.so was enabled. However, when I set LD_PRELOAD=, the launcher appeared as expected. This issue is specific to Fedora Workstation (Fedora 42) -- the launcher worked fine on Ubuntu 25.04 without any problems.

EDIT: The launcher did not appear with LLVMpipe OpenGL renderer either.

[Nukecraft5419]

@minimagicmoose After days of searching, I found your problem, which is similar to mine. In my case, after trying House Flipper for 40 minutes, it crashes and the kernel goes into read-only protection mode. Reading the journalctl, I thought it was GE-Proton, but it also happens with the official Proton, until I searched for the error:

ERROR: ld.so: object ‘/home/***/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/gameoverlayrenderer.so’ from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32): ignored.

So I understood everything and I also think that maybe it has to do with Steam overlay support for Wayland, but I'm not sure.

OS: Fedora Workstation 42
Kernel: 6.15.9
DE: KDE Plasma 6.4.4+Wayland
Hardware: AMD GPU+CPU
Steam: 1.0.0.83
GE-Proton: 10-10
Steam launch options: gamemoderun %command%
Gamemode: 1.8.2

[WilliamDATaylor]

I had the same issue with the both the 64-bit and 32bit binaries failing to load upon launch of several games (Black Mesa & Factorio). It does appear to be an issue with Wayland because I switched from Cinnamon Wayland to the stock Cinnamon WM and it immediately resolved my issue.

OS: CachyOS
Kernel: Linux 6.19.9-1
DE: Cinnamon 6.6.7
WM: Muffin (X11)