Why doesn't Steam start?

When I try to start Steam nothing happens. Reinstall doesn't help.

$ steam
Running Steam on ubuntu 13.04 64-bit
STEAM_RUNTIME is enabled automatically
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1378500910_client)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1378500910_client)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1378500910_client)
unlinked 0 orphaned pipes
removing stale semaphore last operated on by process 7278 with name 0eBlobRegistryMutex_DC7EBB4AEA41D3C6C74E5EFFD6757CEC
removing stale semaphore last operated on by process 7278 with name 0eBlobRegistrySignal_DC7EBB4AEA41D3C6C74E5EFFD6757CEC
removing stale semaphore last operated on by process 7278 with name 0emSteamEngineInstance
removing stale semaphore last operated on by process 7278 with name 0eSteamEngineLock
Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "overlay-scrollbar"
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1378500910_client)
[0913/182910:WARNING:proxy_service.cc(958)] PAC support disabled because there is no system implementation

How to fix it?

Solution 1:

I was having the same problem. To solve it, just delete the .steam/steam/appcache directory. You can do this from the terminal:

rm -Rf ~/.steam/steam/appcache

You have to run this every time you want to start steam until Valve fix this problem.

Solution 2:

It stopped working 4 hours ago for my part too.

I reinstalled steam even redownloaded dota2, and it still doesn't work. I'm pretty sure that this is a steam related issue... and they will fix it pretty soon I guess.

For the time being, you can bypass this issue by removing $HOME/.steam/steam/appcache.

Solution 3:

For those who cannot solve this issue with the other suggestions on this page, you can go into home/username/.steam/steam/SteamApps/common and all of your game folders will be in there. In each game folder is an executable. Just find the executable and run it to bypass Steam.