CrossOver Support - Community Forums

HI,

My Steam client is currently showing a black screen. The only way I can see something is if go to small view to see the list of games. Any one have an idea what could be the problem.

I have tried the following :-

• Removed all GPU based rendering options in the UI tab in Steam client settings.
• Cleared the browser cache in the web browser settings
• Tried running the client with the -no-cef-sandbox

All of the above does not work.

Any suggestions ?

• Ashish

Same issue here. M1 Mac with Big Sur 11.0.1.

I think Crossover should warn new buyers that steam is not working on the front page.

I feel I've wasted $ on the 1 year support version right now. Can't see the library to download anything.

Hi there,

I'm unable to reproduce this issue on either Intel or Silicon hardware.

Ashish, could you please specify your OS, version of CrossOver and bottle type.

Mitchell, what bottle type are you using?

It'd also be interesting to know if there is a difference in behavior with having DXVK enabled or disabled in bottle settings (you'll have to restart steam after changing that setting).

Thanks,
Meredith

Hi Meredith,

Here are the details. Running Cross Over on the following Macbook Pro Specs

• MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2017, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports) running Big Sur

  I created a brand new bottle and reinstalled Steam (to make sure nothing was wrong in the earlier installation)
  The bottle details are :-

  • WIndows 7 - 64 - bit
  • Cross Over version 20.0.2.33166
    Ran the bottle with the following settings:-
  • Performance Enhanced Graphics
    and then tried it with
  • DXVK Backend for D3D11

  The Steam Client ran with the interface settings

  • Enable smooth scrolling in web views
  • Enable hardware video decoding.
  • Enable DirectWrite for improved font smoothing and kerning.

Disabled all the above settings and tied again and still the same black screen

Please see link to the Steam Screen.

Perhaps sign up for the Beta Big Sur 11.1 beta update, it seems to have a lot better compatibility with crossover and gaming on the m1.

Hi Tom,

Are you saying that currently Steam black screen is a issue on Big Sur on Intel Mac's?

Thanks and Regards
Ashish

Hi Ashish,

Do you happen to be using anti-virus software? We've tried to replicate this issue in house on several machines with no luck, and this is the last thing I can think of.

I haven't seen any trouble with Big Sur, so there is no general issue with Steam on that OS.

Thanks,
Meredith

HI Meredith,

I saw the forum post. I have sophos antivirus. I tried steam after disabling all the setting and also checked the logs to see if there has been sites being blocked. Nothing in the logs. And steam was still not displaying anything .

P.S. Disabled sophos via the Webapp

Regards
Ashish

It happened to me on my new Mac Mini, but I started a new bottle as someone already mentioned, by selecting 'Steam' from the install menu, and now it's working fine.

BUT, of course it would be great to know which component was missing instead of having to reinstall it all over again, mainly for games you have to redownload.

I think it is something related to the web browsing renderer or the like.

I'm also experiencing this issue with Crossover 20.0.2 after applying a steam client update. I've tried opting in to the beta Steam client, disabling gpu acceleration for the browser, clearing steam's browser cache, in addition to deleting my steam bottle and installing from scratch. Steam was installed from within Crossover's application browser into the default bottle settings (Win 7 64bit). I read in another post that disabling antivirus software helped resolve the issue. I use Avast and after disabling webshield the blank screen persisted.

Kind of irritated that the primary reason that I've been paying for Crossover upgrades, Steam, often ends up breaking for one reason or another. I feel like the better option would be to enable Proton support within Steam's native Mac client.

2014 Macbook Pro, Intel w\ MacOS 11.1
Crossover 20.0.2.33166
Steam client build December 7, 2020.

Hi Robert,

We have a tutorial outlining several steps for users of Avast to follow. If you haven't already, please make sure you've done all of suggested items:

https://www.codeweavers.com/support/wiki/mac/mactutorial/bitdefender

Thanks,
Meredith

After a couple of Steam updates Steam reverts to being a black screen again, it’s almost like the needed hack is no longer being injected into the Steam process.

Sometimes manually adding the command for Steam working again but this isn’t always the case.

Hi Dean,

How long has this been happening for you, and are you using the beta or non-beta steam client? And just to double check, are you using any AV software? And are you referring to the the -no-cef-sandbox command? If so, it sounds like this might be a new issue that I can't seem to reproduce over here :/

Meredith

Meredith Johnson wrote:

Hi Dean,

How long has this been happening for you, and are you using the beta
or non-beta steam client? And just to double check, are you using
any AV software? And are you referring to the the -no-cef-sandbox
command? If so, it sounds like this might be a new issue that I
can't seem to reproduce over here :/

Meredith

This has been happening since CrossOver-19 and still happens within the latest CrossOver-20.0.2, this also happens with my own patched to hell compiles.

I was adding -no-cef-sandbox for CX19 but now changes to the newer hack to force the 32Bit CEF for Steam.

Yes I have Steam using the Beta client, it seems after so many updates or refresh ran on the wineprefix/bottle the Steam client become back again.

Edit;
I forgotten to mention but no I don’t run any anti virus on my systems but if do need to I have a nicely maintained whitelist to avoid any issues

Does this continue to happen for you with new bottles installed with CrossOver 20, or just with old bottles installed with 19? And what OS are you using? None of us are seeing this internally, and all issues with Steam turning black EXCEPT for AV issues should have been resolved with 20 :/

Thanks,
Meredith

Meredith Johnson wrote:

Does this continue to happen for you with new bottles installed with
CrossOver 20, or just with old bottles installed with 19? And what
OS are you using? None of us are seeing this internally, and all
issues with Steam turning black EXCEPT for AV issues should have
been resolved with 20 :/

Thanks,
Meredith

I’d created a new bottle using CrossOver-20 and installed Steam into the default bottle (Win7 64Bit) seemed to have no issues at first but eventually it does break.

To speed up the process I created a new Steam Bottle again, then swapped to my own compile and used the new Steam bottle as the wineprefix. After a Steam client update and a couple of wineboot refreshes were ran on the bottle it’s now a black screen.

This remained whether it’s ran using CrossOver-20.0.2 or my own compile (WineCX-20.0.2).

It seems after so many refreshes are ran on the wineprefix it somehow gets broken when that shouldn’t be the case.

I’m running macOS Mojave on this system, I could also retest on another macOS version or even my M1 Mac mini if needs be but this seems to be a common problem.

I don’t have homebrew installed into /usr/local (it’s in my home directly for casks) so it’s not possible for that to interfere with the wine_dlopen wrapper

Robert Wills wrote:

I'm also experiencing this issue with Crossover 20.0.2 after
applying a steam client update. I've tried opting in to the beta
Steam client, disabling gpu acceleration for the browser, clearing
steam's browser cache, in addition to deleting my steam bottle and
installing from scratch. Steam was installed from within Crossover's
application browser into the default bottle settings (Win 7 64bit).
I read in another post that disabling antivirus software helped
resolve the issue. I use Avast and after disabling webshield the
blank screen persisted.

Kind of irritated that the primary reason that I've been paying for
Crossover upgrades, Steam, often ends up breaking for one reason or
another. I feel like the better option would be to enable Proton
support within Steam's native Mac client.

2014 Macbook Pro, Intel w\ MacOS 11.1
Crossover 20.0.2.33166
Steam client build December 7, 2020.

I had the same issue with Avast on a Macbook Air M1 on macOS 11.1. The trick was not to disable the "Web Shield" in Avast, but only the "File Shield". It works for me after that. I tried to list a lot of exceptions (even the ones in the Support Tutorial) to let the File Shield on, but no one works fine. At least, it could be a temporary solution.

Have you tried letting CrossOver repair all of the Bottles? I found a while ago when running AVG owned and operated by AVAST that after setting the file filter the way I wanted it, that running REPAIR BOTTLES, which took a long time, the problems were solved. This action by CrossOver is really effective in correcting damage created by anti-virus apps. 😎 MERRY CHRISTMAS to ONE and ALL!!!

Have you tried letting it sit for a while on the black screenafter it finishes the update? It may look like it isn't doing anything, but eventually it loaded for me (after being on the black screen for 5 minutes or so, this is on Catalina with a 2020 MacBook Pro).

I hadn't revisited that since I set up the exceptions for Crossover 19 so thanks for asking about that. I made sure I had all the listed file and path exceptions in the right locations for Avast, rebuilt bottles within Crossover 20, and started Steam again. The Steam client still displayed nothing but a black screen. Nicholas, a user below, replied to my first post stating that for him anyway, disabling Avast's fileshield all together was the only way he got it to work correctly. I tried that and Steam loads as you'd expect with no issues. Could there be another file or path that needs to be excluded so that file shield or real-time scanning like file shield can remain on?

Thanks,

Rob

Meredith Johnson wrote:

Hi Robert,

We have a tutorial outlining several steps for users of Avast to
follow. If you haven't already, please make sure you've done all of
suggested items:

https://www.codeweavers.com/support/wiki/mac/mactutorial/bitdefender

Thanks,
Meredith

I hadn't revisited that since I set up the exceptions for Crossover 19 so thanks for asking about that. I made sure I had all the listed file and path exceptions in the right locations for Avast, rebuilt bottles within Crossover 20, and started Steam again. The Steam client still displayed nothing but a black screen. Nicholas, a user below, replied to my first post stating that for him anyway, disabling Avast's fileshield all together was the only way he got it to work correctly. I tried that and Steam loads as you'd expect with no issues. Could there be another file or path that needs to be excluded so that file shield or real-time scanning like file shield can remain on?

Thanks,

Rob