[BUG] Steam Deck complete crash after 1 minute after update to SteamOS 3.6 Stable

[positiveoctopus]

Complete system freeze and crash resulting to have to hard reboot the Steam Deck after update to SteamOS 3.6 Stable, i have no logs unfortunately

• OS: [e.g. SteamOS]
• Version [3.6.19]
• Device [e.g. Steam Deck]
• chiaki-ng Version [e.g. 1.9.0]

[streetpea]

@positiveoctopus Without any sort of logs it’s basically impossible to tell what happened since I can’t replicate on 3.6 with my Steam deck oled.

[rseifert838]

I have the same issue on SteamDeck. Just updated to SteamOS 3.6.19 and now Chiaki-ng crashes after a few seconds to minutes after connecting to PS5. Never had issues prior to SteamOS update. One of the crashes went to the Steam Deck boot menu.

chiaki_session_2024-10-26_15-27-13-638638.log
chiaki_session_2024-10-26_15-20-29-467467.log
chiaki_session_2024-10-26_15-04-27-943943.log
chiaki_session_2024-10-26_10-28-26-669669.log

Logs attached.

[streetpea]

@rseifert838 I don’t see anything from a chiaki-ng perspective. It’s possible it’s a bug with steamOS 3.6.

[rseifert838]

@rseifert838 I don’t see anything from a chiaki-ng perspective. It’s possible it’s a bug with steamOS 3.6.

Really? That is a shame. I'll have to see how to roll back from 3.6.19. Any idea what kind of setting would cause the bug?

Chiaki-ng connects and I can launch a game but after about 30 second to 2 mins the steam deck hard crashes requiring power off and once it went straight to the boot menu. When it crashes the screen freezes on whatever frame is there and the deck no longer responds. Doesn't seem to affect the PS5 (game still running) and doesn't seem to matter if a game is running or not. Prior to the update, chiaki ran smoothly.

Thanks for investigating.

[streetpea]

@rseifert838 since Chiaki-ng runs across many os and has at least a half million users across platforms and this one particular issue hasn’t been reported before, and then 2 ppl run into it in close succession after an os update with no change to the program, the likely culprit is the os update. Without seeing a crash report from the os it’s hard to say exactly what’s happening though. It’s also possible you have a plugin installed that is causing this as I I’ve played multiple sessions for several hours and don’t get the crash on my Steam deck oled on 3.6.

[streetpea]

@positiveoctopus @rseifert838 if you can reproduce then it would be helpful to create a script to launch Chiaki-ng and log all output to a file (this will output the logs from other programs/utilities in addition to Chiaki-ng itself) so we can see if something Chiaki-ng connects to throws an error as well.

1. Create a script to launch Chiaki-ng and log all output to a file (save as Chiaki-logger.sh or whatever you prefer to name it)

   #!/usr/bin/env bash
   flatpak run io.github.streetpea.Chiaki4deck > /home/deck/chiaki-ng-all-logs-$(date -u).txt 2>&1

2. Make it executable in konsole

chmod +x path_to_file

where path_to_file is the actual path to the file
3. Add file to Steam as a non-Steam game
4. Launch this script and reproduce the crash with Chiaki-ng
5. Find the corresponding log in /home/deck and upload here.

[rseifert838]

Thanks for the script. Done and log attached.
log.txt

The only plugin I have is Decky with the cover art plugin which I will next remove and try again before rolling back to SteamOS 3.5. Thanks again.

[streetpea]

@rseifert838 nothing is showing up there as crashing or even erroring as a result of chiaki-ng. Can you take a look at the system errors and see if there is anything reported there with:

journalctl -p err

you should see it organized by each boot

[rseifert838]

Here's the system error log.
log2.txt

Additionally:

• I purged Decky, rebooted and ran Chiaki. Played for about 10 minutes then it hard crashed again.
• I rolled back to SteamOS 3.5.19, which has previously be zero errors for Chiaki. It hard crashed after about 2 minutes. Rebooted then reloaded back into 3.5.19 and this time it hard crashed before I could even shut down the PS5.

I have no idea at this point unless there is a hardware problem with my deck that has not manifested in any other game. Any insight from this log?

[streetpea]

@rseifert838 I noticed in a lot of these logs it says server shutting down at the end? Are you shutting off your ps5? If so are those just extra logs when the error doesn’t occur. Since it seems like Chiaki-ng is closing cleanly. Or does your steamdeck crash after closing Chiaki-ng?

Also @rseifert838 when you say it’s crashing your steam deck do you mean the system turns off completely?

[rseifert838]

When I say crashing my steam deck I mean whatever frame chiaki has up from a game or whatever while it is running freezes and the deck becomes unresponsive requiring a hard reset. Once or twice now the steam deck has restarted itself while running chiaki. The deck has only crashed with chiaki running as far as I can tell.

The PS5 as far as I can tell has been unaffected. I've restarted it a couple times in replicating the above crash. One of the crashes you may be seeing is that I logged back in with Chiaki to just power off the PS5 and I think that was successful then chiaki crashed the steam deck again.

I don't think chiaki has ever exited successfully during a crash or at least I cannot tell because the entire steam deck becomes unresponsive.

[streetpea]

@rseifert838 I doubt this will help based on your previous comments but if you want, you can try the current version of chiaki-ng (that hasn't been released yet) and see if it behaves any better for you: https://github.com/streetpea/chiaki-ng/actions/runs/11536234317/artifacts/2108337395

You can first unzip it to your downloads folder and then make it executable with:

chmod +x ~/Downloads/chiaki-ng.Appimage

and then open it with:

~/Downloads/chiaki-ng.Appimage

Then, close it and you can copy settings from the flatpak with

cp ~/.var/app/io.github.streetpea.Chiaki4deck/config/Chiaki/Chiaki.conf ~/.config/Chiaki/Chiaki.conf

[rseifert838]

I might try it, or just wait for the official package to drop to flatpak. In the mean time, I'll try uninstalling/reinstalling a few things again. I think I may do a complete re-image of the deck which will take time. I think it's gotta be a problem on my end. It might still just be 3.6.19 and maybe when I rolled back some aspects of it, like drivers, didn't roll back.

[positiveoctopus]

I might try it, or just wait for the official package to drop to flatpak. In the mean time, I'll try uninstalling/reinstalling a few things again. I think I may do a complete re-image of the deck which will take time. I think it's gotta be a problem on my end. It might still just be 3.6.19 and maybe when I rolled back some aspects of it, like drivers, didn't roll back.

i have the same issues, i don't think it's hardware related, steamos 3.6 is just a buggy mess

[rseifert838]

I've reimaged my deck a couple times now to 3.5.7. One problem there is that you have to connect to wifi and reboot as part of the setup process and this immediately updates your deck to 3.6.19 anyway. But the issue persists. On top of that I'm prompted to log in again every reboot. And if the crash occurs while proton or anything is downloading in the background that version of proton is broken and I have to re-image again. t
I can confirm this is entirely a 3.6 steam os problem and not a chiaki problem. Since re-imaging I now experience the same crashing in any app including just navigating SteamOS.
Steam support suggested that the update to the bios breaks fan control and had me disable the "updated fan control setting" in the System -> settings menu but this did not fix the issue and the deck crashes, requiring a hard reset a minute or so into any game and sometimes in the menu.

[rseifert838]

I think I got it fixed.

1. Not sure if re-imaging was necessary but I did it.

2. Disabling the "enable updated fan controls" didn't appear to fix it but I have that currently disabled.

3. Resetting the BIOS following this procedure fixed the issue. I kept the deck plugged in the whole time regardless of what the below instructions from steam support said.

   Ensure the device is fully powered down by holding the power button for 10 seconds or if possible, select shutdown from the Power menu.
   Once the device is shutdown, hold down both the volume - button and the "..." button, then press the power button once. Then you can release all the buttons.
   You will hear a chime and then the white LED light will begin to blink (it may take 5 or more seconds before the blinking begins), which confirms this process is working.

   Note: This process may take 1-2 minutes to start the unit up again during which the display will remain black.

Once it's done, then plug the Steam Deck in using the provided power supply and turn on the Steam Deck and retest the issue.

Chiaki-ng re-installed, re-paired with the PS5 and running as normal.

Thank you again, dev, for your time on this one.

[positiveoctopus]

I think I got it fixed.

1. Not sure if re-imaging was necessary but I did it.
2. Disabling the "enable updated fan controls" didn't appear to fix it but I have that currently disabled.
3. Resetting the BIOS following this procedure fixed the issue. I kept the deck plugged in the whole time regardless of what the below instructions from steam support said.
   Ensure the device is fully powered down by holding the power button for 10 seconds or if possible, select shutdown from the Power menu.
   Once the device is shutdown, hold down both the volume - button and the "..." button, then press the power button once. Then you can release all the buttons.
   You will hear a chime and then the white LED light will begin to blink (it may take 5 or more seconds before the blinking begins), which confirms this process is working.
   Note: This process may take 1-2 minutes to start the unit up again during which the display will remain black.

Once it's done, then plug the Steam Deck in using the provided power supply and turn on the Steam Deck and retest the issue.

Chiaki-ng re-installed, re-paired with the PS5 and running as normal.

Thank you again, dev, for your time on this one.

what if i don't want to reset the bios? we still need a fix from Valve

[streetpea]

@positiveoctopus resetting the bios should just reset the bios to default unsetting changes you or other softwares made to the deck, putting it back to what Valve provides. This implies the issue isn’t with valves settings but some change made by a user or software or a software update that changes the bios. In those cases, a reset of the bios would be the fix from Valve. It also shouldn’t affect your games on your deck or other stuff you have saved on there if you’re worried about that.

[streetpea]

@rseifert838 are you on 3.6 now or 3.5?

[rseifert838]

3.6.19

[positiveoctopus]

@positiveoctopus resetting the bios should just reset the bios to default unsetting changes you or other softwares made to the deck, putting it back to what Valve provides. This implies the issue isn’t with valves settings but some change made by a user or software or a software update that changes the bios. In those cases, a reset of the bios would be the fix from Valve. It also shouldn’t affect your games on your deck or other stuff you have saved on there if you’re worried about that.

Never touched my bios so that's not the problem

[positiveoctopus]

@rseifert838 are you on 3.6 now or 3.5?

I'm on 3.6.19 too

[rseifert838]

I never made any changes to the bios or used 3rd party stuff to overclock. But it worked. I think 3.6.19 includes a bios update and my guess is that when it was deployed, it got messed up. Otherwise I can't explain why it is working now.

[rseifert838]

Maybe I spoke too soon. I was able to run games for a few hours last night, including Chiaki. But just now trying to install a larger game it crashed. Same as before, requiring a hard reset.

[positiveoctopus]

Maybe I spoke too soon. I was able to run games for a few hours last night, including Chiaki. But just now trying to install a larger game it crashed. Same as before, requiring a hard reset.

I don't know man, only chiaki doesn't work for me, I have some crashes with some other things too but they don't happen so frequently like it goes for you

[rseifert838]

It started with just chiaki and then became everything. The BIOS reset made me think I was in the clear but this morning it's crashed twice just browsing SteamOS, nothing running. I'm stumped. Steam support is talking in circles too, just asking me the same questions over and over.

[positiveoctopus]

It started with just chiaki and then became everything. The BIOS reset made me think I was in the clear but this morning it's crashed twice just browsing SteamOS, nothing running. I'm stumped. Steam support is talking in circles too, just asking me the same questions over and over.

SteamOS 3.6 is just borked then