Can't open external links from Steam Proton

Help
1

Hi,

I am trying to run Elder Scrolls Online on NixOS but cannot log in because the portal seems broken inside proton. Whenever I click the account button, it opens a window saying cannot open link accounts.elderscroll…

How do I see what proton is missing? And how do I pass xdg-utils to it?

NixOS: 25.11
DE: Cosmic

2

Hey :slight_smile: Steam on NixOS runs inside an FHS sandbox, so it can’t see your system’s xdg-open by default. This was fixed upstream in nixpkgs PR #423959, so make sure your system is up to date first (sudo nixos-rebuild switch --upgrade).

If that doesn’t fix it, try adding xdg-utils manually:

programs.steam.extraPackages = with pkgs; [ xdg-utils ];

Since you’re on Cosmic, also make sure you have xdg-desktop-portal set up, as Proton uses that to open external URLs:

xdg.portal.enable = true;

More info: NixOS Wiki – Steam, nixpkgs Issue #423871

Hope that helps!