steam mouse interference

[BETLOG]

• Steam client version (build number or date): Steam Version: 1689034492 Steam Client Build Date: Tue, Jul 11 09:59 UTC +10:00 Steam Web Build Date: Tue, Jul 11 03:48 UTC +10:00 Steam API Version: SteamClient020

• Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Kubuntu 23.04

• Opted into Steam client beta?: [Yes/No] no

• Have you checked for system updates?: [Yes/No] yes

• Steam Logs: [generate by running this command in a terminal tar -zcvf ~/Desktop/steam-logs.tar.gz ~/.steam/steam/logs] 2023-07-30--23-13-35_steam-logs.tar.gz

• GPU: Nvidia/Intel/AMD nvidia - Asus GeForce RTX 2060 TUF 6G OC

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

Steam interferes with mouse movement for about a minute after starting steam, and also for several minutes during the time a new proton prefix is generated/pre-game DX etc is being installed. This interferes with selecting library/menu items and does not inspire confidence in the efficiency of the steam interface.

video: Moving the mouse continuously in a circle shows frequent disruption of mouse input.

Mouse: Logitech G502 LOL Hero Piper 0.7 installed Steam System Information 2023-07-18

Steps for reproducing this issue:

1. start steam

2. immediately start continuously moving mouse over the steam window

3. wait for mouse interference to subside (several minutes)

4. install a game using proton forced comptibility

5. move mouse continuously

[kisak-valve]

Hello @BETLOG, this looks more like general window manager behavior while the system has disk IO pressure than a Steam client issue. It would be a good idea to check the health of your drives / filesystems as a precaution.

[swz-git]

I can confirm this happens to me as well on Arch + Gnome, sometimes only for a couple of seconds and sometimes I have to restart my system to fix it. Disk does not seem to be at 100%.

[BETLOG]

Hello @BETLOG, this looks more like general window manager behavior while the system has disk IO pressure than a Steam client issue. It would be a good idea to check the health of your drives / filesystems as a precaution.

I wouldnt have thought so, but at 200K; system inode usage might be a factor.

My OS (and steam client install) is on one M.2, all my steam data is on another M.2, they arent totally new, but both are >60% estimated lifespan remaining. Neither seem to have any smartctl issues, and I doubt either are ever really bandwidth-loaded anywhere near capacity. If any; the OS m.2 may be a possible thermal issue (image related), but its a drive I'd need to order, so switching that out is only medium priority of my todo list.

You are the expert, certainly not me, but drive media loading is the last thing I would have ever suspected. I will however attempt to rule that out over time. Short term I can switch my steamdata drive out to a significantly faster m.2 i just received, the current one is comparatively old and slow, but I have previously had steamdata on a 7400MB/s m.2 (which barely even registered the data it loaded when starting steam/games) and iirc the mouse interference was exactly the same as it is now. But as i indicated above, this drive probably is lower on the list of causes than the OS (and steam client install) m.2.

The issue is dramatic enough that it seems more like USB is toggling on-mouse profiles, but the mouse leds do not reflect anything like that. This machine is running VMs, and encoding h264 24/7 when i'm not playing games, so I know how it behaves when 100%CPU and slightly I/O-loaded (<2MB/s reads and significantly lower writes to a sata platter drive). But even without any loading; nothing except steam interferes with the mouse.

[hyultis]

Hello, i think i have the same problem for weeks (months ?).

The system hang severely went steam start, or on game launch. I was thinking it was because of nvidia driver (535), but its look exactly like BETLOG video.

video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIL8rSAHoVk system info : https://gist.github.com/hyultis/1e79d3a2bee80b015a362e0840969b54 (kubuntu 23.04) running environment : https://gist.github.com/hyultis/f5b88abef1b448f446109c4bf6ffdcb8 steam log on launch : https://gist.github.com/hyultis/92050f3ed0607ace50f2da304772cd89

From my experiment :

• SSD and I/O don't seems overloaded/affected when the problem appear.
• On wayland, freeze seems greatly reduced (but steam wayland is borked for me actually)
• closing steam can completely crash xorg
• a SNAP "intellij idea" (EDI), seems have a equivalent starting problem
• problem appeared after a fresh install of kubuntu 23.04

[GRBL-F]

I've had this issue since the beta of the now released reworked steam ui.

system info from steam: https://gist.github.com/Agreeable-f/5b2486c827cc80637747b61654bc39ee

same steps to reproduce as the original post from @BETLOG however i haven't noticed it when creating a prefix. only on steam launch, or some games launching. It does seem to have some tie to directx as the games that do cause it to happen are usually demanding directx titles.

it's not my disk being overloaded or pinned at all. booting off a samsung 970 evo ssd and all my games on a wd black 4tb. neither of which are pinned or should be pinned.

Here in the box shows the total read/write for both drives while the issue happens from steam opening. (first two are read/write for boot drive. second two are read/write for game drive)

it's not just my mouse it's interfering with. audio is laggy and stuttery on discord. taking screenshots (with spectacle) takes a while for the selection tool to open. it seems to be a system wide thing instead of just mouse.

[hyultis]

i recently found i was missing 2 packages :

• linux-objects-nvidia-535-6.2.0-32-generic
• libnvidia-egl-wayland1

with them, i can launch steam on wayland and i can confirm i don't have any system hang/crash with wayland. system hang/crash still occur if i go back to x11.

[supertin]

Adding a +1...

I'm running Mint (ubuntu flavor) with KDE, and the mouse entirely stops moving when Steam starts up, for periods of about 3-4 seconds. It will then jump to a new location before freezing again.

This occurs during Steam startup, both at login, or when reloading after quitting Steam. It will also occur sometimes during some games loading, but I haven't noticed a specific pattern. And finally, it happens while adding a new game or DLC, but only during that initial folder creation bit just prior to the download starting.

It also seems to not matter which drive I am using - it happens just the same with my NVME (where the OS and Steam program live), my SATA HDD, and my ZFS SATA SSD array.

This freezing does NOT happen, however, with things like file copying from one drive to another, or even just within the same drive. It doesn't happen when I'm downloading large files in a browser, ripping DVDs, or opening other large programs or games (not in Steam). It only happens when Steam is trying to do stuff.

[BETLOG]

Despite I/O bottlenecks being suggested by a professional contributor, I seriously doubt that the real cause is even remotely related. :}

[supertin]

For anyone who's finding something that sounds like this... Check your compatibilitytools.d folder for old versions of things like the Glorious Eggroll builds of Proton.

Turns out my issue was GE 7.0 and 8.0 both starting up what looked like a fairly standard Windows desktop environment, with dozens of processes each going 100% CPU for a few moments as they loaded (just a second or 2 each). With a few dozen of those, it would take a minute or so to get it all done, and there's the freezing. Removed the compatibilitytools.d folder entirely and the problem went away.

Still feels like a bug though... Why's it running all those on startup of the Steam client itself? Shouldn't it wait for a game to need them?