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I know of two possible causes to this problem on Linux.

One is if you've used the Snap or Flatpack installs of Steam, which do not work well with our games. You need to use the native Linux client from Valve:
http://store.steampowered.com/about/
"Install Steam Now"

The other is an issue with Steam when you have Proton installed; Steam sometimes thinks you have the game on WIndows not Linux so installs the wrong version. If you see ck3.exe (ie the Windows executable) in your Steam folder for this game, that is the problem!

You can get past that as described here:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ork-linux-compatibility.1623688/post-29408827

All the best!
 
I have the same behavior since 1.16.1 patch (1.16.0 worked without any issue).
I did have Steam native client and no windows version installed :
Code:
/steamapps/common/Crusader Kings III$ ls -a binaries/
.    crash_reporter      libboost_atomic.so.1.69.0  libboost_thread.so         libdxcompiler.so.3.7  libfmodstudio.so     libpops_api.so
..   libBink2x64.so      libboost_chrono.so         libboost_thread.so.1.69.0  libfmod.so            libfmodstudio.so.13  libsteam_api.so
ck3  libboost_atomic.so  libboost_chrono.so.1.69.0  libdxcompiler.so           libfmod.so.13         libnakama-cpp.so     steam_appid.txt

Also note there is no crash log, nor any message when launching the game in command line :
Code:
/steamapps/common/Crusader Kings III$ ./binaries/ck3
Setting breakpad minidump AppID = 1158310
Steam_SetMinidumpSteamID:  Caching Steam ID:  76561199030274529 [API loaded no]
Warning: 2 log categories not defined in log_settings_live.json
Game AI
Game Tests

/steamapps/common/Crusader Kings III$
 
I have the same behavior since 1.16.1 patch (1.16.0 worked without any issue).
I did have Steam native client and no windows version installed :
Code:
/steamapps/common/Crusader Kings III$ ls -a binaries/
.    crash_reporter      libboost_atomic.so.1.69.0  libboost_thread.so         libdxcompiler.so.3.7  libfmodstudio.so     libpops_api.so
..   libBink2x64.so      libboost_chrono.so         libboost_thread.so.1.69.0  libfmod.so            libfmodstudio.so.13  libsteam_api.so
ck3  libboost_atomic.so  libboost_chrono.so.1.69.0  libdxcompiler.so           libfmod.so.13         libnakama-cpp.so     steam_appid.txt

Also note there is no crash log, nor any message when launching the game in command line :
Code:
/steamapps/common/Crusader Kings III$ ./binaries/ck3
Setting breakpad minidump AppID = 1158310
Steam_SetMinidumpSteamID:  Caching Steam ID:  76561199030274529 [API loaded no]
Warning: 2 log categories not defined in log_settings_live.json
Game AI
Game Tests

/steamapps/common/Crusader Kings III$
Odd to not get any error at all. What distro is this? If you revert to 1.16.0 in the Steam betas tab, does that still work?


Please attach here your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Crusader Kings III/pdx_settings.txt .
From your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Crusader Kings III/logs/ folder, attach here system.log , error.log

Also in Steam please click on Steam-Help-System Info, and paste everything there into a text file and attach that here.
 
Odd to not get any error at all. What distro is this? If you revert to 1.16.0 in the Steam betas tab, does that still work?


Please attach here your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Crusader Kings III/pdx_settings.txt .
From your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Crusader Kings III/logs/ folder, attach here system.log , error.log

Also in Steam please click on Steam-Help-System Info, and paste everything there into a text file and attach that here.

I am on Debian 13 (Trixie), strange that something is broken because this release is soft locked (feature change halted) since a month for a future official release.
But no, even the 1.16.0 does not work (exact same behavior) so might be a change in the distro.

Please find attached :
.local/share/Paradox Interactive/Crusader Kings III/pdx_settings.txt
.local/share/Paradox Interactive/Crusader Kings III/logs/error.log
But last logs only refer to error from additional game rules added by mods, but in all my last tests (1.16.1, 1.16.2 and 1.16.0) I did not load any mods.

I also added .local/share/Paradox Interactive/Crusader Kings III/logs/setup.log because last log entry seems to be incomplete :
Code:
[13:59:30][W][provincetemplate.cpp:160]: Province 8837 has no pixels!
[13:59:30][W][provincetemplate.cpp:160

.local/share/Paradox Interactive/Crusader Kings III/logs/system.log is empty, so I ignored it.

Ordinateur :​

Fabriqué par : ASRock
Modèle : Z590M Phantom Gaming 4
Type : ordinateur de bureau
Aucun écran tactile détecté

Processeur :​

CPU fabriqué par : GenuineIntel
Marque du processeur : 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-11600KF @ 3.90GHz
Famille du processeur : 0x6
Modèle du processeur : 0xa7
Révision du processeur : 0x1
Type de processeur : 0x0
Fréquence : 4900 Mhz
12 processeurs logiques
6 processeurs physiques
HyperThreading : pris en charge
FCMOV : pris en charge
SSE2 : pris en charge
SSE3 : pris en charge
SSSE3 : pris en charge
SSE4a : non pris en charge
SSE41 : pris en charge
SSE42 : pris en charge
AES : pris en charge
AVX : pris en charge
AVX2 : pris en charge
AVX512F : pris en charge
AVX512PF : non pris en charge
AVX512ER : non pris en charge
AVX512CD : pris en charge
AVX512VNNI : pris en charge
SHA : pris en charge
CMPXCHG16B : pris en charge
LAHF/SAHF : pris en charge
PrefetchW : non pris en charge
BMI1 : pris en charge
BMI2 : pris en charge
F16C : pris en charge
FMA : pris en charge

Version du système d'exploitation :​

Debian GNU/Linux trixie/sid (64 bits)
Nom du noyau : Linux
Version du noyau : 6.12.25-amd64
Serveur X distribué par : The X.Org Foundation
Version du serveur X : 12401006
Gestionnaire de fenêtres X : GNOME Shell
Version d'exécution Steam : steam-runtime_1.0.20250307.120442

Informations du client :​

Version : 1745876290
Navigateur — accélération matérielle : activé
Navigateur — Canvas : activé
Navigateur — Canvas out-of-process rasterization : activé
Navigateur — Direct Rendering Display Compositor : désactivé
Navigateur — Compositing : activé
Navigateur — Multiple Raster Threads : activé
Navigateur — OpenGL : activé
Navigateur — Rasterization : activé
Navigateur — Raw Draw : désactivé
Navigateur — Skia Graphite : désactivé
Navigateur — Video Decode : activé
Navigateur — Video Encode : désactivé
Navigateur — Vulkan : désactivé
Navigateur — WebGL : activé
Navigateur — WebGL2 : activé
Navigateur — WebGPU : désactivé
Navigateur — WebNN : désactivé

Carte graphique :​

Pilote : AMD AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT (radeonsi, navi24, LLVM 19.1.7, DRM 3.61, 6.12.25-amd64)
Version du pilote : 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 25.0.4-1
Profondeur de couleur du bureau : 24 bits par pixel
Taux de rafraichissement du moniteur : 59 Hz
ID fabricant : 0x1002
ID périphérique : 0x743f
Révision non détectée
Nombre de moniteurs : 2
Nombre de cartes vidéos logiques : 1
Résolution de l'écran principal : 1920 x 1080
Résolution du bureau : 3840 x 1080
Taille de l'écran principal : 18.90" x 10.63" (21.65" diag), 48.0cm x 27.0cm (55.0cm diag)
Mémoire vidéo principale : 4096 Mo

Carte son :​

Périphérique audio : Realtek ALC897

Mémoire :​

RAM : 31951 Mo

Matériel de VR :​

Casque VR : aucun détecté

Divers :​

Langue de l'interface : Français
LANGUE : C.UTF-8
Espace disque total disponible : 843742 Mo
Plus grand bloc disponible sur le disque dur : 135705 Mo

Espace disque :​

Nombre de SSD : 4
Taille du ou des SSD : 1000G,1000G,0B,0B
Nombre de disques durs : 0
Nombre de médias amovibles : 0
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Attachments

  • pdx_settings.txt
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  • error.log
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  • setup.log
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Sorry, I see no reason for this problem in those files at all. You could try disabling Vsync and capping the refresh rate to 60 in the launcher-game settings tab, but I frankly doubt that will help.

Do you have access to any Linux support resources that might point you to OS logs that could have recorded why the executable is failing without apparent error?
 
I did not find any relevant indication in OS logs.

But in my most recent test, the game started with this additional prompt (launching from command line) :
Code:
steamapps/common/Crusader Kings III$ ./binaries/ck3
Setting breakpad minidump AppID = 1158310
Steam_SetMinidumpSteamID:  Caching Steam ID:  76561199030274529 [API loaded no]
Warning: 2 log categories not defined in log_settings_live.json
Game AI
Game Tests

IPC function call IClientUserStats::GetAchievementDisplayAttribute took too long: 62 msec
 
Presumably that is due to not being launched from Steam, as that is where the achievements are stored. So nothing to do with your problem.

I don't really have anything else to suggest, I am sorry! The fact that a game version that used to work no longer does points to some local problem, but we see nothing to indicate even the general area of the issue.

Do you happen to have access to a Ubuntu installation to check it works okay there?
 
I am not sure, because I launch the game with steam launched, and they successfully communicate (there are other specific messages if steam is not found).

It seems that know I can reliably launch the game from command line successfully.
But it still crash when launching from steam.

I agree it seem to be a local problem, probably linked to the recent change of my linux distro (debian 13 trixie) interacting with the game and steam.
I did not expect help now, I just wait for the distro to stabilize, and letting you (and any other user in same case) know the evolution of my tests.

Unfortunately no Ubuntu installation available, but I have other Debian on previous version (debian 12 bookworm), I will check on it.
 
I was having issues too starting CK3, this time on Archlinux, after a year without playing. I managed to fix the issue doing two things:
* I changed the start command to: "%command% --ozone-platform-hint=x11"
* I had set SDL_VIDEODRIVER="x11,wayland", which I had to unset.

With these two changes, I successfully managed to launch CK3.