SteamVR error 497 - Swapchain failed to be created: fffffffc

[Markosha2004]

Describe the bug
SteamVR can't connect to window manager after switching to Fedora 43 in the recent Nobara Linux update

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Launch SteamVR

Expected behavior
SteamVR to launch

System Information (please complete the following information):
Please use the latest Steam beta client and SteamVR beta for your bug reports!

• Steam client version (build number or date): 1763795278
• SteamVR version: 2.14.3
• Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Nobara Linux 43
• Steam runtime diagnostics: [generate via Help -> Steam Runtime Diagnostics in the Steam client]

runtime_diag_nobara_nov_24.tar.gz

• Steam and SteamVR logs: [generate by running this command in a terminal tar -zcvf ~/Desktop/steam-logs.tar.gz ~/.steam/steam/logs]

steam-logs.tar.gz

• Minidumps: [run the following command: tar -zcvf ~/Desktop/steam-minidumps.tar.gz /tmp/dumps]

steam-minidumps.tar.gz

Screenshots
If applicable, add screenshots to help explain your problem.

Additional context
Add any other context about the problem here.

[kisak-valve]

Hello @Markosha2004, from your vrcompositor.txt:

Mon Nov 24 2025 17:11:30.135775 [Info] - HMD swapchain mode:2 count:3
Mon Nov 24 2025 17:11:30.135797 [Info] - Swapchain failed to be created: fffffffc
Mon Nov 24 2025 17:11:30.135813 [Error] - CHmdWindowSDL::CreateSwapChainBufferResources - Invalid swapchain
Mon Nov 24 2025 17:11:30.164121 [Info] - HMD swapchain mode:1 count:4
Mon Nov 24 2025 17:11:30.165885 [Info] - Direct mode: disabled
Mon Nov 24 2025 17:11:30.166270 [Info] - Mirror swapchain mode:0 count:4
Mon Nov 24 2025 17:11:30.168322 [Error] - CHmdWindowSDL: VR requires direct mode.
Mon Nov 24 2025 17:11:30.168348 [Error] - CHmdWindowSDL: Failed to inititalize X presentation support
Mon Nov 24 2025 17:11:30.168432 [Error] - Error making window!

There is a mesa regression starting with https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/merge_requests/6173 that needs to be evaluated by a mesa dev. Until something is figured out, the workaround would be to use the mesa 25.2 series or older.

[Markosha2004]

Thanks for explaining the issue... somehow...

Anyway, I cannot seem to downgrade, no matter what I try the terminal of my choosing says that "Nothing provides mesa-filesystem needed by [insert a mesa component here]"

[p-zilla]

Replying to #836 (comment)

Hi, The fix for this MR was merged for mesa 25.3 which is what the User is using with Nobara 43. So this fix is not quite correct. I have confirmed downgrading to 25.2.6 does fix the issue.

[kisak-valve]

I intentionally omitted https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/merge_requests/36325 from my routine driver testing for brevity. This merge request changes SteamVR's failure symptom from SteamVR error 496 - Cannot DRM Lease Display to the above. While bisecting the driver regression, I attempted to apply !36325 directly to !6173 when it was merged on July 21, but changes in between prevented a trivial, sane build of mesa. This leaves some months of other changes to src/vulkan/wsi_common_display.c between !6173 and !36325 that are in limbo and someone would need to spend some effort detangling. It's not clear where in that timeframe the swapchain issue was introduced, from !6173 or after.

The above paragraph is functionally noise until there's a better understanding as to what's going on, !36325 was targeting a different near-match use case.

[anholt]

drm logs show a series of successfull calls related to initialization, then vrcompositor closing its drm fd. So, the thing we still need is some debugging inside of Mesa of where an error is occurring -- enabling wsi_display_debug as before, then adding additional logging in swapchain init's error paths to find what's going wrong.

[GloriousEggroll]

I tried doing some reverts to see if I could at least figure out if there's a way to make 25.3 work, I had to do a few minor adjustments but reverted these MRs in order and steamVR is working again:

37880
70e3af188d61375f7d8440a149136710c81d94c9
b777384e993de71341ed96d962f531f1d73a36c6
c4e0f4d917615db1be61aa3b3fd918977362c324

36325
a7b866617a8f9810dc2d68310c57a3f4884832c1
bd57e48249acca3bb216e3e42416c55b6c7fb7b1

37026
8abfd26534c6cfcacc2dd3080181a6e7b901095b

36607
ba92104b564514117a0bcc4120dff6089965eabc

35461
94619a0f4ba733d0141793e46417aa0ecec3298d
d977951d64cdc9fc477f4f2193880a4ae4e4299b
13137393f67b3da41d97a18b7a1961a40ef469f1
2c870bbe20ccaed9d8c85bb3144075025d3c9a01
1ed78dd7ec4add7c62e26e6200910d0d3b3e300f
b4176393a0aa5af547aa3f0ddfd03817e99a2588
b465d144ca329315fb640e4b765d8a4090e09e51

36341
a8e9af2ce98e69ab44c47b1859be89e4d2891639
0c0d9c05e08aa5ad0a57f7f425a223c4f5735f19
fe7652eae91f51e42b3e4238b5aab7cabb777bf1
b16a6a56d87bf748e06fda0e115926a43cbb9db6

6173
055d5759a7e6bb80c652f20f4fa96480547ca1a1
3c302d29a486f471d78f241ce9252a95a97537fe
513ffea1d366c82e50975fd430d012ff8e652a79
baa9b4225b198fb9567da8c6d7a5a072fc69df58
09058ccbdb5138432af4fee9aa5263e4a4943157

I'm going to try re-applying 6173 and its fix 36325 next to see if it works. if so then we know its one of the other changes in this list. if not then we know its 6173 still.

[GloriousEggroll]

6173 is still the problem. Reverting to only 6173 applied then adding 36325 on top of it does not resolve the issue. I've opened a bug in mesa: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/issues/14382

[Martmists-GH]

Downgrading to mesa 25.2.7 or 25.2.6 does not fix the issue on Arch Linux.