[BUG] Seemingly bricked my Steam Deck

[hatsoonmike666-byte]

Please confirm

• I have searched existing issues
• This issue is not a duplicate of an existing one
• I have checked the common issues section in the readme file
• I have attached logs to this bug report (failure to include logs will mean your issue may not be responded to).

Bug Report Description

I installed Decky and when I tried to go back into gaming mode it says;
An error occured while rendering this content
Error Reference: undefined_undefined_02aa30fa90a03672
Decky Version: v3.2.1
I've tried pressing the options on the touch screen but none of them seem to do anything.
Disable decky until next boot just leads to a black screen, the retry steam and retry decky options do nothing, retry does nothing, it doesn't let me change from stable
At the bottom it says Error: Minified React error #31; visit https://react.dev/errors/31?args[]=object%20with
at Ja (https://steamloopback.host/libraries/libraries~00299a408.js:2:460477
at m (https://steamloopback.host/libraries/libraries~00299a408.js2:465861

Expected Behaviour

Launch into SteamOS

SteamOS version

Whatever the most recent is, I can't get into my deck to see

Selected Update Channel

Stable

Decky Loader Version

v3.2.1

Plugin Info

I don't know, I just installed it and didn't get into anything

Have you modified the read-only filesystem at any point?

no

Backend Logs

Can't boot deck or do anything

Frontend Logs

Can't boot deck or do anything

[Hatsune-Cthulhu]

Same, can't even get past the boot video to fix it.

[Gwindalmir]

I updated to 3.2.1, and went back to steamos stable from beta, and now I'm in a bootloop.
No error message, just boot animation, and about 5 seconds of game mode, then it hangs and restarts.

I don't know what to do. Is there a way to switch to desktop mode if game mode isn't working? I tried to go through the menu to switch, but it hung and restarted while showing the shutdown/restart logo, then came back up in game mode.

I saw the message "if decky is crashing, uninstall all plugins"... but there's no way I know of to do that due to this bootloop.

EDIT: I managed to try again fast enough and got into desktop mode and uninstalled decky. I'll reinstall it when there's another update.

[kazelin]

Same issue here. I updated Decky Loader installed Deck LSFG-VK and rebooted

1. See startup animation
2. See the PIN enter, I have about ~5 seconds to try to get in
3. SteamOS UI restarts with startup animation at step 1. I can see at least that Decky Loader isn't in the side menu.

I am trying to enter the pin fast enough to enter the desktop mode, but this requires the PIN again and so far haven't succeeded.

Edit: I did a cold startup via hard powering down the steam deck (holding power button). I tried this because I noticed that it was rebooting faster and faster, probably due to some caching. After this, It gave me more time to try to enter my pin twice to get to desktop mode. Once I made it there, I ran the uninstall script and the reboot issue went away. I noticed that I needed a SteamOS update so I ran that first, then reinstalled the latest version of Decky Loader. Typing this from my non-boot cycling steam deck.

I think I fell into the user error of not always updating SteamOS first before updating decky loader/plugins.

[Technohacker]

Managed to recover my Deck too. I had extra trouble from the boot animation because it would stay stuck on the animation and show nothing else, meaning I couldn't get to the desktop. So, for anyone else in this situation, here's how to go about it (you'll want to get a USB keyboard for this):

NOTE: Do pay attention to what's on screen when you go about this process. While there shouldn't be any major issues that can't be fixed with a reboot, it always helps to be careful.

1. Power off the Deck completely
2. Hold the 3 dots button and Power On. This will get you to the Recovery Menu
3. You should see 4 boot options and 1 for wiping all data. Select the option for Booting into "Current SteamOS-A-<version> + Boot Menu"
4. This should get you to GRUB, the bootloader. Press E to edit the SteamOS entry
5. On the longest line containing the boot options, erase ONLY the options that look like "quiet splash plymouth.ignore-serial-consoles". Press Ctrl + X to boot with these changes
6. If successful, it should show several boot messages as it boots. Once it gets stuck, press Ctrl + Alt + F2 to switch to a different TTY. When successful, you should see a login message
7. Enter deck as the username, and your "sudo password" as the password. You should have access to a terminal shell now
8. Enter the command steamos-session-select plasma to have it load into Desktop mode. Proceed as before to uninstall Decky Loader

Strictly speaking, only steps 6 onward should be necessary, but for some reason I wasn't able to access the TTY from that stuck state. All the steps before it are to make sure the boot splash doesn't affect TTY access. If anyone is able to simplify this process, that'd be great.

[Aholicknight]

Thank you @Technohacker this works. Here are some images incase someone gets stuck on editing the GRUB boot entry:

[Gwindalmir]

Managed to recover my Deck too. I had extra trouble from the boot animation because it would stay stuck on the animation and show nothing else, meaning I couldn't get to the desktop. So, for anyone else in this situation, here's how to go about it (you'll want to get a USB keyboard for this):

NOTE: Do pay attention to what's on screen when you go about this process. While there shouldn't be any major issues that can't be fixed with a reboot, it always helps to be careful.

1. Power off the Deck completely

2. Hold the 3 dots button and Power On. This will get you to the Recovery Menu

3. You should see 4 boot options and 1 for wiping all data. Select the option for Booting into "Current SteamOS-A-<version> + Boot Menu"

4. This should get you to GRUB, the bootloader. Press E to edit the SteamOS entry

5. On the longest line containing the boot options, erase ONLY the options that look like "quiet splash plymouth.ignore-serial-consoles". Press Ctrl + X to boot with these changes

6. If successful, it should show several boot messages as it boots. Once it gets stuck, press Ctrl + Alt + F2 to switch to a different TTY. When successful, you should see a login message

7. Enter `deck` as the username, and your "sudo password" as the password. You should have access to a terminal shell now

8. Enter the command `steamos-session-select plasma` to have it load into Desktop mode. Proceed as before to uninstall Decky Loader

Strictly speaking, only steps 6 onward should be necessary, but for some reason I wasn't able to access the TTY from that stuck state. All the steps before it are to make sure the boot splash doesn't affect TTY access. If anyone is able to simplify this process, that'd be great.

Thanks!
I'm familiar with linux, and tried the ctrl-alt-Fx keys with a bluetooth keyboard, but it didn't work. I'm not familiar with wayland though (only X11), so I thought maybe that key combo wasn't supported. I just didn't know how to get into grub on the Deck.

[Technohacker]

Thanks!
I'm familiar with linux, and tried the ctrl-alt-Fx keys with a bluetooth keyboard, but it didn't work. I'm not familiar with wayland though (only X11), so I thought maybe that key combo wasn't supported.

That key combo is handled directly by the Kernel, so it should work independently from any display server stack. I assume there just happened to be a bit of a mess when it had to swap between DRM framebuffer and TTY.

I just didn't know how to get into grub on the Deck.

Same, had to search around for that. I'm honestly really glad Valve thought all of this through!

[AAGaming00]

ctrl alt semicolon can bring you to desktop mode

[runejuhl]

FYI, SSH was still working fine for me, even if Decky crashed on boot, so uninstalling was as simple as running the uninstall script:

curl -L https://github.com/SteamDeckHomebrew/decky-installer/releases/latest/download/uninstall.sh | sh

...or this, if you're not that adventurous:

curl -L https://github.com/SteamDeckHomebrew/decky-installer/releases/latest/download/uninstall.sh > /tmp/uninstall.sh
# inspect script before continuing
sudo bash -x /tmp/uninstall.sh

[karlb379]

Got this issue tonight, really thought I had broken my steamdeck as none of the methods were working, and then I was suddenly able to access the error screen that gave me the option to disable decky, I think it was only for about a second. This allowed me to get in and get to desktop mode to uninstall. Thought maybe it was an issue with the order of operations I did to update the steamdeck and any apps in desktop mode, prior to updating decky. so tried again, same issue. Wasn't a long problem to fix as I also configured SSH for remote access to be able to uninstall it.

Will leave it uninstalled for now until I see a new update available

[fabian57]

I got the same problem yesterday, managed to get it to boot by pressing up arrow and A. I first had Steam OS Beta channel and after managing to boot I tried it with stable but I also get a boot loop there, not sure why this happens. Is there a way to get some logs that might be helpful?

[redredkrovy]

I guess this hasn't been fixed yet since I just installed Decky Loader tonight and had the same issues.

[jurassicplayer]

@redredkrovy @karlb379 @Gwindalmir and everyone else that actually read this.

This may or may not apply since I don't know exactly what any of you are doing, but just uninstalling/reinstalling only decky-loader is not guaranteed to fix plugin-specific issues. Make sure to remove all of the plugins from the ~/homebrew/plugins folder prior to re-testing decky-loader so you can tell that it's actually a decky-loader issue and not just an old/abandoned plugin causing your issue.

Also, if possible, try to provide the backend/frontend logs after the issue occurs. You can get the logs by:

• Providing the file (frontend log): ~/.steam/steam/logs/cef_log.txt
• Providing the file (frontend log): ~/.steam/steam/logs/cef_log_previous.txt
• Running the command (backend log): journalctl -b0 -u plugin_loader.service > ~/decky-backend-log.txt and providing that generated file
• Running the script available here (plugin info): https://github.com/SteamDeckHomebrew/decky-loader/blob/main/scripts/plugin-info.sh
  • This script has a small bug atm, so you will need to manually change it before running. Just open the script in a text editor and change line 5 from directory_to_scan="~/homebrew/plugins" to directory_to_scan="$HOME/homebrew/plugins"

or if you trust me, I have a simple script that can collect the logs into one zip file with the following command:

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jurassicplayer/decky-loader/refs/heads/collect-debug-info/scripts/collect-debug-info.sh && chmod +x collect-debug-info.sh && ./collect-debug-info.sh

[Gwindalmir]

@redredkrovy @karlb379 @Gwindalmir and everyone else that actually read this.

This may or may not apply since I don't know exactly what any of you are doing, but just uninstalling/reinstalling only decky-loader is not guaranteed to fix plugin-specific issues. Make sure to remove all of the plugins from the ~/homebrew/plugins folder prior to re-testing decky-loader so you can tell that it's actually a decky-loader issue and not just an old/abandoned plugin causing your issue.

Also, if possible, try to provide the backend/frontend logs after the issue occurs. You can get the logs by:

* Providing the file (frontend log): `~/.steam/steam/logs/cef_log.txt`

* Providing the file (frontend log): `~/.steam/steam/logs/cef_log_previous.txt`

* Running the command (backend log): `journalctl -b0 -u plugin_loader.service > ~/decky-backend-log.txt` and providing that generated file

* Running the script available here (plugin info): https://github.com/SteamDeckHomebrew/decky-loader/blob/main/scripts/plugin-info.sh
  
  * This script has a small bug atm, so you will need to manually change it before running. Just open the script in a text editor and change line 5 from `directory_to_scan="~/homebrew/plugins"` to `directory_to_scan="$HOME/homebrew/plugins"`

or if you trust me, I have a simple script that can collect the logs into one zip file with the following command:

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jurassicplayer/decky-loader/refs/heads/collect-debug-info/scripts/collect-debug-info.sh && chmod +x collect-debug-info.sh && ./collect-debug-info.sh

This has been more useful than the original help message. I had no ideas where the plugins were located.
"Remove all plugins if decky loader crashes" uh ok, where?

That said, I actually reinstalled decky yesterday without removing the plugins and it loaded just fine.