Steam won't display the GUI and exits on CLI call

[ChristopherBare]

Your system information

• Steam client version (build number or date): 9/12/2017
• Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Ubuntu 16.04LTS
• Opted into Steam client beta?: [Yes/No] NO
• Have you checked for system updates?: [Yes/No] YES

Hello,
I had just recently fixed a similar issue with my steam where it would give an error when I just ran "steam" in terminal. I removed a couple of conflicting libGL files and it worked for a while. Now when I run "steam" it just says:
Running Steam on ubuntu 16.04 64-bit STEAM_RUNTIME is enabled automatically Pins up-to-date!

and exits the program.

I just need a little push in the right direction.

Thanks!

[kisak-valve]

Hello @ChristopherBare, can you check if any 32 bit opengl application works outside of steam? Additionally, what video driver vendor / version are you using?

[rdnetto]

I've started seeing the same thing, on Sabayon (Gentoo derivative) - prints the following and hangs:

Running Steam on sabayon 2.2 64-bit
STEAM_RUNTIME is enabled by the user
Pins up-to-date!
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1504757234)

Driver is nvidia-drivers-384.69. The native (64-bit) glxgears works, as does the one extracted from Ubuntu's i386 package for zesty.

Workaround

Deleting ~/.steam and ~/.local/share/Steam, then running steam to reinstall it seems to fix it.
(Note: you probably want to backup /.steam/steam/SteamApps before doing this)

[ChristopherBare]

I have found a fix and wrote a quick script for the next time it happens:

#! /bin/bash
#Steam fix script

rm ~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6
rm ~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1

cd $HOME/.steam/bin/steam-runtime/i386/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu
mv libstdc++.so.6 libstdc++.so.6.bak
cd $HOME/.steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/amd64/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu
mv libstdc++.so.6 libstdc++.so.6.bak

rm /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/mesa/libGL.so.1
rm /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/mesa/libGL.so.1.2.0 

It was the last part of the script that was what made it work for me.
Hope this helps someone else!

P.S. - You need to run it as root.

[igorsantos07]

This SO answer explains the OP's solution.