[Bug] Race condition during launch causing black game screen

[InfinityJammyyy]

Have you read our FAQ/Wiki/#before-you-ask ?
Yes

Describe the bug
When launching the compiled game regularly the game spawns and nothing else happens, there is just a black screen and the process falls asleep.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Compile the game from source on an unsupported linux distro like Arch linux
2. launch the game the usual way (./BeamMP-Launcher)
3. Nothing happens and the launched games process falls asleep

Expected behavior
The game launches with the mod enabled

Video
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzlHOsDGZnY

Desktop (please complete the following information):

• Arch Linux Kernal version 6.12.41-1-lts

Additional context
Strace is a program that rights everything a program does to a user-specified file, this slows down the program by quite a bit and can solve certain problems like race-conditions in code.

[OfficialLambdax]

I am honestly not sure. The launcher starts the game and then does nothing with it. no process patching no nothing. Its no different then as if you just started the game over its binary yourself. Afterwards the launcher just waits for a connection from the lua mod, which isnt active by that point either. I dont see how the speed of the launcher could prevent the game from starting. What does the beamng.log in your userfolder contain on information when the start fails?

[InfinityJammyyy]

beamng.log

[InfinityJammyyy]

Also in there it says "0.40025|D|Steam| Could not initialize Steam functions" but Steam is running so I don't know why it is complaining, it is a weird bug.

[OfficialLambdax]

I think the steam error is irrelevant. The game is made to be able to run without steam. Just checked it. Otherwise im not seeing anything in the log, its also incomplete. Might have to give it some time

[InfinityJammyyy]

I let it run for 10m and btop says the process is sleeping, the only further addition to the log file is this at the end:

VK_EXT_exte

[InfinityJammyyy]

actually mb theres more

VK_EXT_swapchain_maintenance1, VK_EXT_device_fault, VK_EXT_exte

I think there was a sudden crash as in the previous log it was this

VK_EXT_vertex_input_dynamic_state, VK_KHR_maintenance4, VK_KHR_external_memory_fd, VK_EXT_swapchai

[OfficialLambdax]

Still cant grasp how this is by any means caused by beammp. The logs or video doesnt give me a indicator

[InfinityJammyyy]

Running the game regularly works perfectly, running it with strace and its a similar story (for some reason), but running just the launcher and it is screwed up, using a tad bit of google I think (and I could be wrong here as I know little of programing) that:

program initializes-> sets up the server that talks to the game and opens ports -> then asks steam to launch the game -> There is some race condition that strace somehow fixes at this point (because steam does launch the game but it crashes almost instantly)

Also in the logs there was this VK_EXT_device_fault meaning according to (https://vkdoc.net/extensions/VK_EXT_device_fault)

"Device loss can be triggered by a variety of issues, including invalid API usage, implementation errors, or hardware failures. (...) GPU faults which may have caused device loss, and to generate binary crash dumps, which may be loaded into external tools for further diagnosis."

I prodded deeper and used gemini pro 2.5 for a tad bit of help starting now as I am venturing past my linux hobbist knowledge.

I viewed the dmesg log and got this:

[Aug 7 21:37] traps: BeamNG.drive.x6[3316] trap invalid opcode ip:70235f98cd1d sp:7ffc889c7380 error:0 in libcef.so[298bd1d,70235f4a2000+a589000]
[Aug 7 21:57] traps: BeamNG.drive.x6[41124] trap invalid opcode ip:70e84d58cd1d sp:7ffcac530750 error:0 in libcef.so[298bd1d,70e84d0a2000+a589000]

According to the AI:

traps: BeamNG.drive.x6[41124]: The operating system kernel caught a fatal error (a "trap") from the BeamNG.drive process.

trap invalid opcode: This is a very specific and serious CPU-level error. It means the CPU was told to execute a piece of machine code that is not a valid instruction. This is like trying to read a sentence where one of the words is complete gibberish; the process can't continue and crashes instantly.

in libcef.so: This tells us exactly where the crash happened. libcef.so is the Chromium Embedded Framework. It's essentially a version of the Google Chrome web browser packaged as a library. BeamNG.drive, like many modern games, uses it to render its entire user interface—the main menu, the vehicle selector, the repository, everything.

Furthermore it said the following:

The core issue is a race condition or an environmental conflict within the Chromium UI framework (libcef.so), which is triggered by the specific way the BeamMP launcher starts the game.

The black screen is not a graphics driver failure; it's the result of the entire UI engine crashing and burning before it can even draw the main menu.

Maybe that could help?

[InfinityJammyyy]

Also here is proof it is repeatable and even did not work on my hdd (until I used strace, again, for some reason)
Most of these are from BeamNG some are from other programs over the course of a few days when I first started playing with some friends.

coredumpctl:

Tue 2025-08-05 05:59:12 PDT 52170 1000 1000 SIGABRT missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Tue 2025-08-05 06:05:57 PDT 77815 1000 1000 SIGABRT missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Tue 2025-08-05 06:08:26 PDT 87204 1000 1000 SIGABRT missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Tue 2025-08-05 06:11:58 PDT 95259 1000 1000 SIGABRT missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Tue 2025-08-05 06:21:40 PDT 126622 1000 1000 SIGABRT missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Tue 2025-08-05 06:42:30 PDT 4336 1000 1000 SIGTRAP missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/steamwebhelper >
Tue 2025-08-05 07:01:21 PDT 140306 1000 1000 SIGTRAP missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/steamwebhelper >
Tue 2025-08-05 18:32:01 PDT 5416 1000 1000 SIGTRAP missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/steamwebhelper >
Tue 2025-08-05 18:35:56 PDT 9166 1000 1000 SIGSYS missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Tue 2025-08-05 18:39:47 PDT 9540 1000 1000 SIGABRT missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Tue 2025-08-05 18:58:50 PDT 56741 1000 1000 SIGSYS missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/compatibilitytools.d/UMU-Proton-9.0-4e/files/bin/wine64-preloa>
Tue 2025-08-05 19:08:11 PDT 85923 1000 1000 SIGILL missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Tue 2025-08-05 19:20:36 PDT 8271 1000 1000 SIGTRAP missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/steamwebhelper >
Tue 2025-08-05 19:24:26 PDT 109286 1000 1000 SIGTRAP missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/steamwebhelper >
Tue 2025-08-05 19:59:47 PDT 297715 1000 1000 SIGABRT missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Tue 2025-08-05 20:20:46 PDT 298995 1000 1000 SIGABRT missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Tue 2025-08-05 20:22:18 PDT 131964 1000 1000 SIGSEGV missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/steamwebhelper >
Tue 2025-08-05 20:39:15 PDT 12849 1000 1000 SIGABRT missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Tue 2025-08-05 21:33:08 PDT 18155 1000 1000 SIGABRT missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Tue 2025-08-05 21:34:57 PDT 18499 1000 1000 SIGABRT missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Tue 2025-08-05 21:40:33 PDT 19165 1000 1000 SIGABRT missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Tue 2025-08-05 21:42:09 PDT 19884 1000 1000 SIGABRT missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Tue 2025-08-05 21:48:44 PDT 22090 1000 1000 SIGABRT missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Tue 2025-08-05 22:10:08 PDT 23084 1000 1000 SIGILL missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Tue 2025-08-05 22:52:41 PDT 26985 1000 1000 SIGABRT missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Tue 2025-08-05 22:56:44 PDT 29591 1000 1000 SIGABRT missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Tue 2025-08-05 23:11:25 PDT 32804 1000 1000 SIGSEGV missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Wed 2025-08-06 00:04:02 PDT 35039 1000 1000 SIGABRT missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Wed 2025-08-06 00:06:47 PDT 36361 1000 1000 SIGABRT missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Wed 2025-08-06 02:15:16 PDT 42564 1000 1000 SIGABRT missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Wed 2025-08-06 03:16:33 PDT 45682 1000 1000 SIGABRT missing /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Wed 2025-08-06 03:20:52 PDT 48569 1000 1000 SIGABRT present /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Wed 2025-08-06 03:28:33 PDT 3601 1000 1000 SIGABRT present /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Wed 2025-08-06 03:45:49 PDT 39773 1000 1000 SIGABRT present /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Wed 2025-08-06 06:32:35 PDT 43308 1000 1000 SIGSEGV present /mnt/hdd4tb/SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/Portal 2/portal2_linux >
Wed 2025-08-06 07:05:35 PDT 83697 1000 1000 SIGSEGV present /usr/bin/sdrpp >
Wed 2025-08-06 07:11:40 PDT 85331 1000 1000 SIGSEGV present /usr/bin/sdrpp >
Wed 2025-08-06 07:33:04 PDT 85692 1000 1000 SIGSEGV present /usr/bin/sdrpp >
Wed 2025-08-06 08:27:46 PDT 87652 1000 1000 SIGSEGV present /usr/bin/sdrpp >
Wed 2025-08-06 20:50:13 PDT 150407 1000 1000 SIGABRT present /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Wed 2025-08-06 20:58:40 PDT 4143 1000 1000 SIGABRT present /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Wed 2025-08-06 23:00:39 PDT 6223 1000 1000 SIGSEGV present /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Thu 2025-08-07 06:12:39 PDT 8109 1000 1000 SIGQUIT present /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Proton - Experimental/files/bin/wine64-preloa>
Thu 2025-08-07 11:11:15 PDT 38135 1000 1000 SIGILL present /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Thu 2025-08-07 11:46:27 PDT 48999 1000 1000 SIGSEGV present /usr/bin/melt-7 >
Thu 2025-08-07 11:47:46 PDT 49089 1000 1000 SIGSEGV present /usr/bin/melt-7 >
Thu 2025-08-07 11:49:39 PDT 49216 1000 1000 SIGSEGV present /usr/bin/melt-7 >
Thu 2025-08-07 11:51:37 PDT 45981 1000 1000 SIGSEGV present /usr/bin/kdenlive >
Thu 2025-08-07 21:33:59 PDT 59394 1000 1000 SIGTRAP present /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Thu 2025-08-07 21:37:27 PDT 3316 1000 1000 SIGILL present /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Thu 2025-08-07 21:53:37 PDT 37400 1000 1000 SIGABRT present /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Thu 2025-08-07 21:57:11 PDT 41124 1000 1000 SIGILL present /home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >
Fri 2025-08-08 10:03:21 PDT 910579 1000 1000 SIGABRT present /mnt/hdd4tb/SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64 >

I tried reading from some of the corefiles but it was mostly (No symbol table info available.) so I can't really go from there to see what exactly caused the crash.

[OfficialLambdax]

That is all cool, but again beammp just launches the game as is. It doesnt manipulate the process in any way that could break the game from starting, nor does it add arguments. Its identical to if you where to start the binary by just double clicking it yourself. Try this. Start the game binary yourself as is, not over steam, but just as is. See if that works.

If not then you can start beammp with a dev option where it wont start the game for you and you can then start the game over eg steam. But we get to that then

[InfinityJammyyy]

Fair point sorry running this command:
/mnt/hdd4tb/SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64

Launches the game perfectly fine on my hdd, I switched the game back to my ssd just to make sure that it isn't my hdd fixing it:
/home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64

If you want here are the log files for both ssd and hdd, though it booted up fine so they probably won't help, I launched the game a couple times on both hdd and ssd:

hdd.log

ssd.log

[OfficialLambdax]

Ok im kind of out of ideas as of what the cause for this is. Since the game starts normally for you when you do it yourself do this.

1. Start the BeamMP Launcher with the --no-launch -v argument (this will prevent the launcher from starting the game and will also enable logging)
2. Then start the game yourself (any method, steam or by running the binary)

This should make beammp playable for you

[InfinityJammyyy]

That sadly does not work, the BeamMP mod is just not loaded when I do that, for now I will just use strace to play BeamMP.

[InfinityJammyyy]

I could just make the game take a second before it launches, move the game binary somewhere else, and write a bash script to do this:

❯ cat ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.x64

#!/bin/bash
sleep 1
exec "/home/exos/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/BeamNG.drive/BinLinux/BeamNG.drive.real" "$@"

After doing this it works every time. Until the game updates or something that causes it to delete my file and reinstall the game.