Error: Steam "needs at least 250MB" free space when plenty of space

[apiontek]

Your system information

• Steam client version (build number or date): 1:1.0.0.54+repack-2ubuntu5
• Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Ubuntu Gnome 17.04
• Opted into Steam client beta?: [Yes/No] Yes but fresh install
• Have you checked for system updates?: [Yes/No] Yes

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

Running Steam for the first time on fresh install, system fully updated. My homedirs are ZFS datasets. This has worked in the past, on an Ubuntu 16.04 system, same ZFS homedir setup, but that may have been over 6-10 months ago, last time I used it.

In current environment, running steam I get error window "Steam - Fatal Error" "Fatal Error: Steam needs at least 250MB of free disk space to update." Running from terminal produces output (gist)

df -h output (gist) -- every partition available has plenty of space.

apt-cache policy steam output (gist)

i also see in the terminal output, "Steam needs to be online to update" -- I have an active network connection. It is non-standard, being a bridge on top of a bonded interface, but this also worked in the past.

Steps for reproducing this issue:

1. install Ubuntu Gnome 17.04, ensure up-to-date
2. have a ZFS dataset, with e.g. tank/homes mounted to /home -- and in my case, tank/homes/userX as separate datasets mounted to /home/userX
3. try to run steam for the first time

[kisak-valve]

Hello @apiontek, as a test, can you remove both the distro and valve variants of the steam package, then move ~/.steam and if it is there, ~/.local/share/Steam somewhere out of the way. Then add either the distro-provided or valve-provided steam package, but not both and re-run steam.

[apiontek]

I had already done that. I originally had distro-provided steam package installed. I removed ~/.steam and ~/.local/share/Steam, then did a find ~/ -iname "steam" and removed ~/.steampid, ~/.steampath, and ~/Steam I think. I then purged the distro-provided steam, downloaded steam-latest.deb, and installed that. Upon getting the same error, I submitted this issue.

Just now however, I tried again, running sudo apt purge steam-launcher after a dpkg -l | grep -i steam and removing ~/.steam and ~/.local/share/Steam again.

This time I reinstalled the distro-provided package and had the same result.

Tried again and reinstalled the valve-provided package, and have the same result. I get the error with both.

[kisak-valve]

Thanks for the confirmation @apiontek.

[apiontek]

As an update, since my root system is on ext4, I created a temporary /opt/steam folder with subfolders for .steam, local-share-Steam, and Steam, and did ln -s for each of them into the appropriate places in my homedir.

Then, the steam installer worked fine. But when I remove the symlinks and move the folders into position, although Steam starts up fine, I can't install games because it reports 0 space free.

So it seems I could run games with folders symlinked to an ext4 partition, but this isn't optimal for me. My root partition is a small SSD. I wonder if I can create a ZFS block device formatted ext4, and symlink again? I'll try that.

Editing to add: creating an ext4-formatted zvol and symlinking the steam folders to folders on that volume, does work and allow me to install & run games. Not ideal, but I can run games for now!

[dark-saber]

Same problem on Arch Linux when trying to add new Steam Library folder located on ZFS volume: Steam shows 0 bytes free space in such folders.

[kermeat]

Got same problem on gentoo
STEAM_DEBUG=1
DEBUGGER=strace
steam_debug.txt
steam.strace.txt

[tgoodyear]

Same problem on Xubuntu 17.04

[cybik]

Chiming in, Gentoo user here.

• I can run some games, but not install any new ones.
• Steam reports 0MB free for my ZFS partition, but enough for my homedir.

cinu cybik # uname -a; equery list zfs zfs-kmod spl
Linux cinu 4.12.1-gentoo-cybik #1 SMP Sat Jul 15 00:10:04 PDT 2017 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790K CPU @ 4.00GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
 * Searching for zfs ...
[IP-] [  ] sys-fs/zfs-0.6.5.11:0

 * Searching for zfs-kmod ...
[IP-] [  ] sys-fs/zfs-kmod-0.6.5.11:0

 * Searching for spl ...
[IP-] [  ] sys-kernel/spl-0.6.5.11:0

My specific console error:

../tier1/fileio.cpp (3264) : Assertion Failed: Failed to determine free disk space for /media/Games/cybik/Steam, error 75
../tier1/fileio.cpp (3264) : Assertion Failed: Failed to determine free disk space for /media/Games/cybik/Steam, error 75
../tier1/fileio.cpp (3264) : Assertion Failed: Failed to determine free disk space for /media/Games/cybik/Steam, error 75
GameAction[AppID 2820, ActionID 1] : RunGame failed with NotInstalled with ""
../tier1/fileio.cpp (3264) : Assertion Failed: Failed to determine free disk space for /media/Games/cybik/Steam, error 75
../tier1/fileio.cpp (3264) : Assertion Failed: Failed to determine free disk space for /media/Games/cybik/Steam, error 75
../tier1/fileio.cpp (3264) : Assertion Failed: Failed to determine free disk space for /media/Games/cybik/Steam, error 75

[soredake]

Gentoo user x2, Steam Beta, same problem as with @cybik

[soredake]

@kisak-valve when will this be fixed (or at least an option that allows you to skip checking free space)? It's a bit(very) annoying that i cannot use steam.