[BUG] If you lose access to your Steam files, Proton cannot be deactivated.

[Kyuyrii]

Describe the bug

If I enable the use of Proton, and for some reason the Steam folder is no longer available, it is no longer possible to disable the use of Proton, preventing the use of Wine.

Steps to Reproduce

Go to the settings, in the compatibility section, choose a version of Proton, go to the $HOME/.local/share folder and rename the Steam folder or remove it, close Rare and open it again, go to the compatibility section again and try choosing the option not to use Proton.

Expected behavior

The use of Proton will be disabled if there are no versions of Proton available to use.

Screenshots

System information

• Operating system: Xubuntu 25.10
• Version: 1.12.0
• Installation method: https://github.com/RareDevs/Rare/releases/download/1.12.0/Rare-1.12.0.0-linux.zip
• Python version: (if installed through pip or your package manager)
  Please complete the following information

Additional context

Error message

OS	Path
Windows	C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Rare\Rare\cache\logs
Linux	/home/<username>/.cache/Rare/Rare/logs
masOS	/Users/<username>/Library/Caches/Rare/Rare/logs

[loathingKernel]

Huh, interesting bug. How did you come across it? I.e. out what circumstances will the steam folder get lost?

[Kyuyrii]

I was trying to understand what would cause Rare to unlock the use of Proton, because I didn't want to have to install the Steam .deb file to be able to use Proton.

Then I discovered this bug when I decided to go back to using Wine.

[loathingKernel]

I have haphazardly fixed the symptoms of the issue, but not the underlying problem of an automated fallback. In general I am considering completely removing wine integration as it is now, and instead create protonified wine wrappers that can work with the proton codepath or even umu, something along these lines d71d9f7 . These wrappers are meant to be re-usable and configurable though a dedicated form, i.e. the user will be able to configure any wine they might have present on their system by providing its paths. This is relevant because right now Rare there are two distinct paths, one for wine and one for Proton (in reality for what legendary calls a wrapper which is how Rare uses Proton), and this not only will allow me to have just one path instead of two, but it will also simplify the order of fallbacks in case a proton or wine or whatever other compatibility tool goes missing.