Steam Linux "disk write error" when trying to install games on a secondary hard drive partition

[EGWolfwood]

I did find this topic here, but it sadly didn't help.
viewtopic.php?p=2384501&hilit=Steam+fil ... r#p2384501

=============

I never had this issue before.
The drive partition is formatted to Ext4 for use with Linux.
Steam sees the drive well enough, but when the drive location is added for Steam use,
Steam sees it as a removable drive. I'm not sure if that matters.
I've tried setting the permissions, & even tried taking ownership of the partition through the Disks tool.
But nothing is working.

I'm only able to install games on the main system drive where Steam is installed.
I just don't want to take up the system drive with my games.

I'm open to any suggestions & help fixing this issue.

Thanks ^.^

[xenopeek]

Can you share output of this command run from Terminal:

Code: Select all

lsblk -o +FSTYPE,UUID

Which in the output is the 2nd drive for Steam?

If the 2nd drive is internal, or permanently attached, it's probably best to automatically mount the drive during boot through /etc/fstab if not done already. The general steps: viewtopic.php?p=2437440#p2437440. That was for setting the mount directory to /drive2 but you can also use /home/yourusername/SteamDrive or whatever you want -- so long as:
1) you create the mount directory
2) ensure it is owned by you
3) and it's not in /media (for removable storage) or /mnt (for temporary mounts) as these are treated special by the system
Then you can set it up the 2nd drive to be mounted at boot with /etc/fstab as per the link.

[EGWolfwood]

Here is the output of lsblk -o +FSTYPE,UUID for the drive & partition in question.
================================================================

Code: Select all

NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS              FSTYPE UUID
sdb           8:16   0   3.6T  0 disk -----------------------------------------------------------------------> The drive in question.
├─sdb1        8:17   0   1.2T  0 part                          ntfs   D47232E97232CFCA
├─sdb2        8:18   0   700G  0 part                          ntfs   F07C78BA7C787D62
├─sdb3        8:19   0  93.1G  0 part                          ext4   2fc5bd9f-76d2-4237-9d31-e7a046cb35d4
└─sdb4        8:20   0   1.7T  0 part /home/elim/MintGameDrive ext4   63618963-e42c-461e-9208-49b10a78dc08 --> The Partition in question.

I looked at the link you gave, but I think I need clearer set of steps to follow please, as I don't want to mess things up or cause another issue. . .

[xenopeek]

Looks like your drive is already mounted from /etc/fstab. Can you share the output of these 5 commands? To check some more things.

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grep MintGameDrive /etc/fstab
findmnt /home/elim/MintGameDrive
ls -ld /home/elim/MintGameDrive
lsattr -ld /home/elim/MintGameDrive
getfacl /home/elim/MintGameDrive

[EGWolfwood]

Here is what I got from each command.

"grep MintGameDrive /etc/fstab"
No Output
---
"findmnt /home/elim/MintGameDrive"
No Output
---
"ls -ld /home/elim/MintGameDrive"
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Mar 13 21:55 /home/elim/MintGameDrive
---
"lsattr -ld /home/elim/MintGameDrive"
/home/elim/MintGameDrive Extents
---
"getfacl /home/elim/MintGameDrive"
getfacl: Removing leading '/' from absolute path names
# file: home/elim/MintGameDrive
# owner: root
# group: root
user::rwx
group::r-x
other::r-x

If I'm not mistaken, shouldn't it be as follows for the last one.?

# file: home/elim/MintGameDrive
# owner: elim
# group: elim
user::rwx
group::rwx
other::r--

Or something like that.?

[xenopeek]

You should indeed change the ownership of the directory. With this command:

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sudo chown -Rv $USER: /home/elim/MintGameDrive

That leaves the curiosity that the partition does not look to be mounted through /etc/fstab, at least not when you ran the command.

I'd suggest to edit /etc/fstab (command xed admin:///etc/fstab) and add this line at the end:

Code: Select all

UUID=63618963-e42c-461e-9208-49b10a78dc08	/home/elim/MintGameDrive    	ext4      	rw,relatime	0 2

Save and close the file. Then run sudo mount -av to test the configuration. If it's okay, it will mount the partition during boot in the future.

[EGWolfwood]

Thank you for the steps. ^.^
Here are the outputs below.

"sudo chown -Rv $USER: /home/elim/MintGameDrive"
changed ownership of '/home/elim/MintGameDrive' from root:root to elim:elim

"xed admin:///etc/fstab"
I pasted/added "UUID=63618963-e42c-461e-9208-49b10a78dc08 /home/elim/MintGameDrive ext4 rw,relatime 0 2" at the end.

"sudo mount -av"
/ : ignored
/boot/efi : already mounted
none : ignored
/mnt/F094E7CE94E794FE : already mounted
/mnt/Mint\x20Game\x20Drive : already mounted
/home/elim/MintGameDrive : successfully mounted

------------

Then I redid the the previous 5 commands & got the following outputs.

"sblk -o +FSTYPE,UUID"
sdb 8:16 0 3.6T 0 disk
├─sdb1 8:17 0 1.2T 0 part ntfs D47232E97232CFCA
├─sdb2 8:18 0 700G 0 part ntfs F07C78BA7C787D62
├─sdb3 8:19 0 93.1G 0 part ext4 2fc5bd9f-76d2-4237-9d31-e7a046cb35d4
└─sdb4 8:20 0 1.7T 0 part /home/elim/MintGameDrive ext4 63618963-e42c-461e-9208-49b10a78dc08

"grep MintGameDrive /etc/fstab"
UUID=63618963-e42c-461e-9208-49b10a78dc08 /home/elim/MintGameDrive ext4 rw,relatime 0 2

"findmnt /home/elim/MintGameDrive"
TARGET SOURCE FSTYPE OPTIONS
/home/elim/MintGameDrive /dev/sdb4 ext4 rw,relatime

"ls -ld /home/elim/MintGameDrive"
drwx------ 4 elim elim 4096 Mar 13 14:48 /home/elim/MintGameDrive

"lsattr -ld /home/elim/MintGameDrive"
/home/elim/MintGameDrive Extents

"getfacl /home/elim/MintGameDrive"
getfacl: Removing leading '/' from absolute path names
# file: home/elim/MintGameDrive
# owner: elim
# group: elim
user::rwx
group::---
other::---

However Steam still sees the drive as a removable drive/media, & i still get the "Disk Write Error" when I try to install a Steam game to it.

[xenopeek]

Do you maybe have Steam installed as flatpak instead of as system package? Check with:
flatpak list --app

Is Steam in the list of installed flatpak apps?

I don't know but I assume by default it is configured to not allow access to extra storage. Flatpak runs Steam in a container with limited access to your system. You could either install the Flatseal flatpak which will let your configure what access the Steam flatpak has to your system (to add r/w access to your game drive) or you could install the Steam system package to replace the flatpak. If you go to https://store.steampowered.com/about/ you can download a .deb file. Double-click it in your file manager to start the installer. But check first which of the 2 you have.

[EGWolfwood]

It is, because I downloaded it through the Software Manager.

"latpak list --app"
Name Application ID Version Branch Installation
Justin Dailey com.github.dail8859.NotepadNext v0.7 stable system
Heroic Games Launcher com.heroicgameslauncher.hgl v2.13.0 stable system
OBS Project com.obsproject.Studio 30.1.0 stable system
Valve Corporation com.valvesoftware.Steam 1.0.0.79 stable system
Minecraft Bedrock Launcher io.mrarm.mcpelauncher v0.13.0 stable system
Lutris net.lutris.Lutris 0.5.16 stable system
GNU Image Manipulation Program org.gimp.GIMP 2.10.36 stable system
Damir Porobic org.ksnip.ksnip 1.10.1 stable system
John Preston org.telegram.desktop 4.15.2 stable system
VLC org.videolan.VLC 3.0.20 stable system

I read somewhere that the Flatseal flatpak can cause issues or even make Steam not run after.
Do you know if this is or still is an issue?

Will the .deb file install over the flatpak of Steam?

[xenopeek]

I do not know of issues that Flatseal can cause for Steam. Flatseal doesn't modify anything in the flatpak configuration other than what you change, the same which you could do with the flatpak command. Under the Filesystem section you would add your /home/elim/MintGameDrive and that's it.

You can install the .deb Steam side-by-side with the flatpak Steam. So you can try them out both. The default install location for games is different so by default they don't share game libraries; you will have to download games anew. I don't know if it will work well to share game libraries between them so I would add the /home/elim/MintGameDrive only to one of them.

[EGWolfwood]

(((SOLVED))) ^.^

I installed Flatseal & added the Game Drive to the Steam Flatpak drive/file access, but sadly the Steam Flatpak still sees the Game Drive as a removable media, & the "Disk Write Error" continued to happen with every install attempt I made.

So I downloaded the "steam_latest.deb" directly from https://store.steampowered.com/about/ & installed Steam that way.
Magically the Game drive was seen as an internal drive by the new steam instillation & I was able to install to the game drive without any issues.

So in my particular case, the Steam Flatpak was somehow causing the issue. Once I installed Steam from the .deb file I downloaded from the Steam website, everything worked as it should.

I want to thank you for all the help & guidance. It was quite a learning experience to say the least.

Thanks again. ^.^