Steam on PlayOnLinux no longer working?

Yesterday I was trying to install Steam on a new PlayOnLinux prefix but every time, after completing the download, the program crashed.

There was a bug reported on Wine 1.7.7 which is now apparently fixed, but this does not explain the crashes which happened to me several times no matter what version of Wine I was using.

I posted this information on reddit.com/r/linux_games (there was another thread on r/steam) asking what about older versions of Wine on PlayOnLinux and a guy wrote the following:

Yeah, Steam won't work with older versions of Wine anymore. You'd have to backport the patch and recompile if you need to use an old version of Wine. Generally newer Wine is more compatible, if you find regressions it's helpful to submit bugs about them.

Well, what do you guys think?

Just an update.

At PlayOnLinux they are aware of the problem and are working to solve it.

On this thread "urbanshadow" wrote basically that they will build a wine git version, whatever that means.

The git version is basically what they are currently developing, but have not released in a wine version yet. Git is, roughly explained, a system that allow developers to work together in submitting code to the project, and someone is usually in charge of looking over submitted code and either accepting it into the project or refusing it.

So if the wine team have fixed a bug, but the fix is not in the newest released version, then the git version will have the bug fix.

But if this is true, it means some steam games might stop working, or will actually play worse. I am thinking of my recent batman guide, those games had mouse capture issues on newer wine versions. I suppose I will have to edit my guides that involve steam once some more clarity has been shed in this issue.

I just tested this myself, and can sadly report that it crashes for me too. I will be following this closely and as soon as a new wine version is released that works with steam again, I will get to work updating my guides involving steam, and hoping that the games still work well.

I believe the crashes occur if Steam inside the single POL prefix has been updated, which of course happens automatically if a particular game is started while being online.

My Steam on POL games still work because they were not updated and only used in offline mode, but this obviously is useless if the multiplayer mode is needed.

I wonder if the POL guys will have to patch every single version of Wine, or if a simpler and faster alternative is available.

Edit: when I was writing this comment I had not seen yet Booman's, which basically asks the same question.
And yes, this problem was clearly caused by the Steam update.

The problem is the new updated steam client, and since it seems that the wine team have to do a specific fix to make it work, I really doubt it will be able to get this working in older wine versions.

I completely agree that this is very frustrating because there are many regressions in wine that make some games unplayable, and for many games there have not been a fix to reported bugs. Depending on how large the fix is, it might be possible to compile an old wine version with the fixed steam code, but chances are it will depend too much on the current state of wine to be easily applied to older versions.

The only thing PlayOnLinux devs could do about this, would be to provide patched versions of older wine that work with the updated steam client, but as I said, I have not idea how difficult that might be.

Actually, I would not even call this a bug. We are using windows software on Linux. The new update probably works well on Windows, the intended platform, so I doubt making it more compatible with wine is anything valve would consider.

Well, it worked great in Wine too until a couple of days ago.
And by the way, how many computers do you have?

P.S.: I think I am almost certain I saw you on Reddit.com (linux_gaming) yesterday.

I don't see a Linux Mint listed there. I thought you used Mint?

Well, the first upvote you received on Reddit was mine.

1.7.8 is available in PoL. I'm getting ready to try it out with my WinSteam Path of Exile.