[2.1.7] Game not launching on Linux, no rewrite of log file

[berggen]

Reproduction steps: Updated to 2.1.7 experimental version on Steam, clicked Play button. Play button quickly becomes green again (~2 seconds). The factorio-current.log file is not overwritten or ammended.

Expected behavior: Even if there was a crash, I'd expect the normal boot process to rewrite the log file.

Normal log rewrite looks like this and pops a window up within a second or two of launch:

Code: Select all

tail: '/home/juckele/.factorio/factorio-current.log' has become inaccessible: No such file or directory
tail: '/home/juckele/.factorio/factorio-current.log' has appeared;  following new file
   0.000 2026-06-23 07:11:39; Factorio 2.0.77 (build 84539, linux64, steam, space-age)
   0.000 Operating system: Linux
   0.000 Initializing Steam API.
   0.000 Program arguments: "/home/juckele/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Factorio/bin/x64/factorio" 
   0.000 Config path: /home/juckele/.factorio/config/config.ini
   0.000 Read data path: /home/juckele/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Factorio/data
   0.000 Write data path: /home/juckele/.factorio [358216/959825MB]
   0.000 Binaries path: /home/juckele/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Factorio/bin
   0.010 System info: [CPU: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2643 v3 @ 3.40GHz, 24 cores, RAM: 64317 MB]
   0.010 Environment: DISPLAY=:1 WAYLAND_DISPLAY=<unset> DESKTOP_SESSION=cinnamon XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP=cinnamon XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=X-Cinnamon SDL_VIDEODRIVER=<unset> __GL_FSAA_MODE=<unset> __GL_LOG_MAX_ANISO=<unset> __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK=<unset> __GL_SORT_FBCONFIGS=<unset> __GL_YIELD=<unset>
   0.033 Display options: [FullScreen: false] [VSync: true] [UIScale: automatic (100.0%)] [Native DPI: true] [Screen: 0] [Special: lmw] [Lang: en]
   0.054 Video driver: x11
   0.054 Available displays: 4
   0.054  [0]: DELL U2719D 27" - {[2880,1440], 2560x1440, SDL_PIXELFORMAT_RGB888, 60Hz}
   0.054  [1]: DELL U2719D 27" - {[1440,320], 1440x2560, SDL_PIXELFORMAT_RGB888, 60Hz}
   0.054  [2]: DELL U2719D 27" - {[0,320], 1440x2560, SDL_PIXELFORMAT_RGB888, 60Hz}
   0.054  [3]: DELL U2719D 27" - {[2880,0], 2560x1440, SDL_PIXELFORMAT_RGB888, 60Hz}
   0.412 Initialised OpenGL:[0] Quadro P4000/PCIe/SSE2; driver: 3.3.0 NVIDIA 580.159.03
   0.412   [Extensions] s3tc:yes; KHR_debug:yes; ARB_clear_texture:yes, ARB_copy_image:yes, ARB_pipeline_statistics_query:yes, ARB_gl_spirv:yes, ARB_ES2_compatibility:yes
   0.412   [Version] 3.3
   0.523 Graphics settings preset: very-high
   0.523   Dedicated video memory size 8438 MB (detected from Quadro P4000; VendorID: 0x10de; DeviceID: 0x1bb1)
   0.590 Graphics options: [Graphics quality: high] [Video memory usage: all] [DXT: high-quality]
   0.590                   [Max threads (load/render): 32/24] [Max texture size: 0] [Tex.Stream.: false] [Rotation quality: normal] [Other: STDCWTl] [B:0,C:0,S:100]
   0.835 [Audio] Driver:pulseaudio, Device:Default device, Depth:16, Frequency:44100, Channels:2, Interpolation:linear
   1.038 Info ModManager.cpp:449: FeatureFlag expansion-shaders = true
   1.038 Info ModManager.cpp:449: FeatureFlag freezing = true
   1.038 Info ModManager.cpp:449: FeatureFlag quality = true
   1.038 Info ModManager.cpp:449: FeatureFlag rail-bridges = true
   1.038 Info ModManager.cpp:449: FeatureFlag segmented-units = true
   1.038 Info ModManager.cpp:449: FeatureFlag space-travel = true
   1.038 Info ModManager.cpp:449: FeatureFlag spoiling = true
   1.068 Loading mod core 0.0.0 (data.lua)
   1.090 Loading mod base 2.0.77 (data.lua)
   1.280 Loading mod elevated-rails 2.0.77 (data.lua)
   1.313 Loading mod quality 2.0.77 (data.lua)
   1.341 Loading mod space-age 2.0.77 (data.lua)
   1.635 Loading mod base 2.0.77 (data-updates.lua)
   1.666 Loading mod quality 2.0.77 (data-updates.lua)
   1.704 Loading mod space-age 2.0.77 (data-updates.lua)
   1.841 Checksum for core: 4187927925
   1.841 Checksum of base: 1879415942
   1.841 Checksum of elevated-rails: 70351106
   1.841 Checksum of quality: 1142589254
   1.841 Checksum of space-age: 1510664043
   2.433 Prototype list checksum: 3295867752
   2.513 Loading sounds...
   2.789 Info PlayerData.cpp:66: Local player-data.json unavailable
   2.789 Info PlayerData.cpp:69: Cloud player-data.json available, timestamp 1782212487
   2.793 Post-data load graphics options: [Light occlusion: YES]
   3.178 Initial atlas bitmap size is 16384
   3.196 Created an atlas bitmap (size 16384x16368) [none]
   3.218 Created an atlas bitmap (size 16384x16380) [none]
   3.243 Created an atlas bitmap (size 16384x16384) [none]
   3.244 Created an atlas bitmap (size 16384x15080) [none]
   3.249 Created an atlas bitmap (size 16384x16384) [low-object]
   3.249 Created an atlas bitmap (size 4096x2496) [low-object]
   3.252 Created an atlas bitmap (size 16384x16324) [corpse-decay]
   3.252 Created an atlas bitmap (size 4096x2848) [corpse-decay]
   3.252 Created an atlas bitmap (size 16384x9316) [decal]
   3.252 Created an atlas bitmap (size 16384x5596) [none]
   3.252 Created an atlas bitmap (size 1676x79) [not-compressed]
   3.253 Created an atlas bitmap (size 16384x4240) [mipmap, linear-minification, linear-magnification, linear-mip-level]
   3.253 Created an atlas bitmap (size 4096x3040) [smoke, mipmap, linear-minification, linear-magnification]
   3.261 Created an atlas bitmap (size 16384x16352) [terrain, mipmap, linear-minification, linear-mip-level]
   3.261 Created an atlas bitmap (size 16384x4944) [terrain, mipmap, linear-minification, linear-mip-level]
   3.261 Created an atlas bitmap (size 8192x5760) [terrain-effect-map, mipmap, linear-minification, linear-mip-level]
   3.261 Created an atlas bitmap (size 8192x2608) [mipmap]
   3.261 Created an atlas bitmap (size 3504x768) [mipmap]
   3.261 Created an atlas bitmap (size 4096x3152) [mipmap]
   3.261 Created an atlas bitmap (size 4096x3152) [mipmap]
   3.261 Created an atlas bitmap (size 4096x3152) [mipmap]
   3.261 Created an atlas bitmap (size 8192x3888) [icon, not-compressed, mipmap, linear-minification, linear-magnification, linear-mip-level]
   3.262 Created an atlas bitmap (size 16384x6120) [alpha-mask]
   3.291 Created an atlas bitmap (size 16384x16384) [shadow, linear-magnification, alpha-mask]
   3.296 Created an atlas bitmap (size 16384x16384) [shadow, linear-magnification, alpha-mask]
   3.296 Created an atlas bitmap (size 16384x3852) [shadow, linear-magnification, alpha-mask]
   3.296 Created an atlas bitmap (size 8192x4016) [shadow, mipmap, linear-magnification, alpha-mask]
   3.296 Created an atlas bitmap (size 4096x336) [icon-background, not-compressed, mipmap, linear-minification, linear-magnification, linear-mip-level, ]
   3.296 Loading 3D bitmaps.
   3.307 Texture processor created (4096). GPU accelerated compression Supported: yes, Enabled: yes/yes. Test passed. YCoCgDXT PSNR: 35.83, BC3 PSNR: 33.82
   3.640 Parallel sprite loader initialized (threads: 23, bitmaps: 8398)
  46.902 Sprites loaded
  46.924 Generated mipmaps (4) for atlas [4] of size 16384x16384   
  46.926 Generated mipmaps (4) for atlas [5] of size 4096x2496   
  46.931 Generated mipmaps (3) for atlas [11] of size 16384x4240   
  46.941 Generated mipmaps (3) for atlas [12] of size 4096x3040   
  47.141 Generated mipmaps (3) for atlas [13] of size 16384x16352   
  47.206 Generated mipmaps (3) for atlas [14] of size 16384x4944   
  47.245 Generated mipmaps (3) for atlas [15] of size 8192x5760   
  47.314 Generated mipmaps (3) for atlas [16] of size 8192x2608   
  47.318 Generated mipmaps (3) for atlas [17] of size 3504x768   
  47.325 Generated mipmaps (3) for atlas [18] of size 4096x3152   
  47.353 Generated mipmaps (3) for atlas [19] of size 4096x3152   
  47.360 Generated mipmaps (3) for atlas [20] of size 4096x3152   
  47.414 Generated mipmaps (5) for atlas [21] of size 8192x3888   
  47.415 Generated mipmaps (3) for atlas [26] of size 8192x4016   
  47.485 Custom mipmaps uploaded (3493)
  47.533 Video memory usage: 3654.54 MB (Atlases: 3524.24 MB, Textures: 130.30 MB)
  47.651 Factorio initialised
  47.654 Game is running on selected version branch on Steam.
  47.654 Steam Storage Quota: 7382/23841

[Loewchen]

That means the game was not actually started so this is a steam issue. Check the steam logs.

[JGJones]

A suggestion - try running the game from the command line with verbose output - maybe it'll help you identify what the cause might be (game launches for me on Linux, but I have graphical issues though).

ie something like:

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 ~/.steam/steam/steamapps/common/Factorio/bin/x64/factorio -v

You would need to exit/close Steam itself first before doing the above otherwise it just pass on the command to Steam and exit without any more output.

[berggen]

Running the steam installed binary directly via

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~/.steam/steam/steamapps/common/Factorio/bin/x64/factorio -v

as well as a binary I downloaded directly from the Wube website procudes the following (or equivalent) output:

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/home/juckele/.steam/steam/steamapps/common/Factorio/bin/x64/factorio: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.36' not found (required by /home/juckele/.steam/steam/steamapps/common/Factorio/bin/x64/factorio)

So seems like a dependency might be missing from the Steam configs? I'll try fixing the dependency issue in the meantime

[berggen]

Quick update before trying to resolve, but it looks like I just need to upgrade my Ubuntu version. It would be nice if an error message or resolution could correctly be surfaced or identified from Steam though.

[berggen]

Updating to 24.04 has fixed the lack of booting, still triaging video performance issues, but I do think this specific crash condition should be getting tagged as a dependency or something in Steam instead of failing silently.

[Prommah]

That means the game was not actually started so this is a steam issue. Check the steam logs.

This is an issue with the standalone Linux version as well.

I'm on a distro based on Ubuntu 22.04 and upgrading is not something I can do right now.

I compiled glibc 2.36 and after a lot of poking I finally got the standalone version to start (haven't tried going past the main menu) with the following: LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/glibc-2.36/lib:/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu /opt/glibc-2.36/lib/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 ./bin/x64/factorio --executable-path /path/to/factorio/bin/x64/factorio. I'm not sure I'd trust this, though.

I've tried this with Steam but no luck. Probably easier to just run the Windows build with Proton. IIRC that caused me some mess with different blueprint library file paths or something when I played around with it years ago, but that might just be something I did wrong.

[raiguard]

Our builds are now based on Debian 13, which uses glibc 2.41. We need Debian 13 for various reasons related to platform integration.

Side note: the headless version is built on Debian 11 instead and should run in many more cases.

[Prommah]

Aw poo

Well, thanks for explaining. My distro version still has a year of support and I can't upgrade right now. But the Windows build with Proton Experimental seems to work fine (minus a few workaround-able quirks that I don't think are Factorio's fault), so it's all good for me at least!

[Sanqui]

Our builds are now based on Debian 13, which uses glibc 2.41. We need Debian 13 for various reasons related to platform integration.

Side note: the headless version is built on Debian 11 instead and should run in many more cases.

In fact, with the exception of headless, we are currently building on Debian 12, and as such linking against glibc 2.36. Headless turned out possible to backport against Debian 11, same as Factorio 2.0.x, hopefully avoiding breaking people's servers. For the full game (with graphics and audio), we were forced to raise the requirements because of SDL3 needing to link against Wayland and WaypipePipewire libraries. Sorry about that -- we really try to support as much as possible but in this case we hope people will be able to keep their desktops up to date.

[raiguard]

Ah, I swore we were on Debian 13, my bad. But now I remember our conversation where we explicitly talked about Debian 12 being the one we support.

[Sanqui]

Ah, I swore we were on Debian 13, my bad. But now I remember our conversation where we explicitly talked about Debian 12 being the one we support.

The trick is: the build servers run Debian 13, but compilation is done inside a Debian 12 Podman container ;)

[raiguard]

The trick is: the build servers run Debian 13, but compilation is done inside a Debian 12 Podman container

Aha, that is subtle!

[muffley]

Debian 12, and as such linking against glibc 2.36

Okay good, I was worried by the glibc 2.41 comment. That would've cut out so many completely up-to-date distros!

[Prommah]

Sorry about that -- we really try to support as much as possible but in this case we hope people will be able to keep their desktops up to date.

Eh, I dunno if it's fair to say an actively supported distro version is out of date. I can't afford to break all my stuff or take the time to fully reinstall at the moment. But if the updated requirement was necessary, it was necessary. And there are a few workarounds.

[raiguard]

The real solution is to switch to llvm libc and make the game a fully static binary. Then it will only have a minimum required kernel version.

[Prommah]

because of SDL3 needing to link against Wayland and Waypipe libraries.

I was so confused by this until I tried it myself. By Waypipe, I'm guessing you meant Pipewire? Because that was the first no-go I ran into trying it on Debian 11. But uhh... just throwing it out there... Ubuntu 22.04 has all the required SDL3 dependency package versions and a lower glibc >.> If you just happen to be masochistic, not mind the 1 year less support remaining, and want to retool your builds for like... the 5 of us that have had an issue. Definitely a good time investment

Jokes aside, thanks again for engaging on this at least and giving the explanations. Nice to get the improvements even if they've got some friction sometimes.

[Sanqui]

I was so confused by this until I tried it myself. By Waypipe, I'm guessing you meant Pipewire? Because that was the first no-go I ran into trying it on Debian 11. But uhh... just throwing it out there... Ubuntu 22.04 has all the required SDL3 dependency package versions and a lower glibc >.> If you just happen to be masochistic, not mind the 1 year less support remaining, and want to retool your builds for like... the 5 of us that have had an issue. Definitely a good time invesetment :D

Jokes aside, thanks again for engaging on this at least and giving the explanations. Nice to get the improvements even if they've got some friction sometimes.

Sorry, Pipewire yeah. That's good to know that Ubuntu 22.04 might work. I'll see what I can do