How to get a log from Proton when not running in Steam

Question

The Proton README says that setting the environment variable PROTON_LOG=1 will create files at ~/steam-*.log with debug information. However, when running Proton without the Steam client (for example, by installing the AUR package), no log file is created.

Answer 1

You have to set the SteamGameId environment variable in addition to PROTON_LOG. For example:

export SteamGameId=not-steam
export STEAM_COMPAT_CLIENT_INSTALL_PATH=$HOME/.local/share/Steam
export STEAM_COMPAT_DATA_PATH=$STEAM_COMPAT_CLIENT_INSTALL_PATH/steamapps/compatdata/$SteamGameId
export PROTON_LOG=1
mkdir -p $STEAM_COMPAT_DATA_PATH
/usr/share/steam/compatibilitytools.d/proton/proton run winecfg

Presto, now you have ~/steam-not-steam.log.