Steam deck is stuck on "starting deck update download..."

[Kool Aid]

Just got my steam deck yesterday I tried hard reset and re imagine because it's stuck looping. So I decided to leave it on "starting steam deck update download... " It's still looping 13 hours later. Any reccomded fixes I already email valve support just waiting for a reply.

[Marlock]

try the usual workarounds for wifi issues on the Steam Deck... one of those might help it finish downloading the updates it needs to actually get started

1) enable developer mode, then go to the new "developer" tab in steam settings and disable wifi power savings

2) unhide your wifi ssid if hidden (hiding it is well know to not really be useful for privacy nor for security, by the way)

3) if 2,4GHz and 5GHz bands are joined in a single ssid, split them in the router configs and use only one of them

4) choose a fixed wifi channel instead of leaving it in auto (configure the same channel in both the router and the deck)

5) try a different router brand/model or a smartphone wifi hotspot... some people have issues only with certains devices but not with others

6) try an ethernet dongle instead of the deck's wifi

7) try a wifi dongle with well-known good linux support instead of using the built-in wifi chip

[darrenphillips666]

Hold the power button for 7 seconds to shut down, and then restart the deck.
Mines done that a few times after an update

[Daxxter]

I have a similar issue and could find out that the network interface for the wifi card is not listed when I run "ip addr" in a terminal when booted the recovery image.

https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/1B71-EDF2-EB6D-2BB3

Usually it should look like this but there was only the loopback interface shown.

1: lo:
2: wlan0:

I somehow was able to get it fixed again by re-imaging the Steam Deck and doing some magic stuff. But at some point the wifi got dropped again and "no networks found" error was displayed when I switched back to the network selection of the setup wizard.

When the Steam Deck arrived yesterday it worked pretty well and I downloaded a lot of games until the evening when I tried to connect my headphones via Bluetooth. I've some feelings that this might caused the connectivity issues but I have no evidence.

Unfortunately my Steam Deck is now unusable and hope that Valve is working on a fix.

[Johnny Arcade]

Well got my Steam Deck from the mail and this is happening to me even after rebooting Steam OS, didn't even let me signed in on Steam... Bogus!

[nikescar]

Mine gets stuck there on reimage too. I let it sit there for about 5 minutes then hit the B button (back), then hit the A button (continue) and it started installing the updates and rebooted as it should.

[Huron Wayne]

Same issue. Recieved, charged, powered on, says "you have a steam update" but never completes, just got stuck on 1 second left at about 25% progress bar. The bar continued to slowly fill so i let it run it's course. Hours later, still says 1 second and topped out at 80% progress bar. Still there at 80% hours later again.

[Marlock]

Originally posted by Huron Wayne:

Same issue. Recieved, charged, powered on, says "you have a steam update" but never completes, just got stuck on 1 second left at about 25% progress bar. The bar continued to slowly fill so i let it run it's course. Hours later, still says 1 second and topped out at 80% progress bar. Still there at 80% hours later again.

try the list of wifi workarounds posted previously...

being held up during initial setup due to unsuccessful download of updates is probably due to interrupted download

random short drops are one of the common manifestations of the Deck's wifi instabilities, which can look like what you described during that update download

when the download stagnates you should also check wether the wifi is disconnected and unable to auto-reconnect (another common behaviour)

[HellaNerdy]

What if this is happening with an ethernet adapter? I have a solid wired connection and it’s still stuck on “starting update download” and going back and forward again won’t install the update, it just installs steam again. The last re-image before this one, it just got stuck at login. After doing 2FA, it would say “loading person data” then say failed to connect and just reboot. And I tried putting in a support ticket with valve and haven’t gotten a reply yet. Only had it for 6 days……

[Marlock]

try grabing a newer image and reimaging the deck...

if that doesn't work and Valve support gives you a hard time, you can rule out some hardware issues by flashing a linux liveboot .iso to an usb stick anb booting to a "normal" linux PC distro on the deck from usb paired with a keyboard and mouse... Linux Mint is very easy to work with:
https://linuxmint.com/

edit: i just remembered some people fixed initial setup issues by placing the deck back in battery storage mode then booting it again... not sure it helps your issue but not hard to try

[HellaNerdy]

I'm back and typing from it now. I had the newest image of steamOS from the start. I used a GParted drive I had laying around to delete the partitions and made one big ext4 partition (quick image, yes I know) and then re-imaged using the steam recovery drive. After steamOS installed, It either installed a bunch of updates back to back or it had a complete meltdown and kept installing the same update over and over again. Like 15 times. The progress bar would get to the end and then it would reset back to the beginning with no reboots. After a few times, I got to the login screen. No problems after Login screen this time.

Hope this helps

[8BitKid]

Has anyone managed to get the Restore Image V4 to work reliably? I've tried...
- Wiping everything with a GParted live iso before restoring
- Connecting to a hard-wired ethernet jack with a USB-C adapter
- Using my phone as a hotspot
- Switching my router to 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz exclusively
- Assigning a static IP to my wireless connection

[pixillious]

December 9th and this system is still a buggy mess. How is everyone fine with this "its a known bug you just can't use the thing." Did this out of the box, still doing this after a re image. Still cannot check for updates or download anything off the discover store. But hey it's the "bEsT haNDheLd oN tHe mArKeT." yeah right.
Returning this craphole and gonna hold out for a switch 2

[pixillious]

Also this is my THIRD steam deck with this same issue.

[Marlock]

Originally posted by pixillious:

Also this is my THIRD steam deck with this same issue.

that's unfortunately not surprising... it's not a manufacturing flaw in some units, it's an interoperability issue between the Deck's wifi stack (hardware+firmware+software) and some other unlucky wifis

a few brands get mentioned more often because tgere are more models doing things the way the Deck can't handle properly, but it's model/revision/firmware-version-specific not everything from brand X and nothing from brand Y

It affects proportionally few people because it works fine with most other hardware, but when you sell millions those things end up being noticed by enough people (looks like hundreds of folks by the amount of buzz in the Steam Deck discussions)...

people who are affected aren't usually willing to change all their other gear to escape the issue (which is totally understandable... it should just work), so it's not going to change until actually fixed, which has proven to be really really hard!

We already have solid info that Valve put their engineers on it since the early days of Decks being shipped and there was even users with related background volunteering to help debug it... there has been noticable improvents (less frequent issues, less people complaining, updates with wifi fixes on the changelogs), but nothing definitive yet after several months...

...hence why I always mention the workarounds

Meanwhile others have zero issues and some have issues only with one other device but not the rest, so are OK living with it. It's probably ok for most folks to change to a better home router if the current one is crap and they were already thinking of changing it before running into the Deck issue, etc, etc

Yes, you're right, this is not a negligible issue. But Valve isn't neglecting it, they're just having their hides flayed by it and unable to end it yet. Given the absurdly nice price vs. performance ratio the Deck offers otherwise, I can't be surprised so many folks chose to live with this, but neither is it surprising that people more completely prevented to use it are returning their units.

Each use-case is different, each user has different priorities, such is the world.

If you're on the more unfortunate group, make your return request. AFAIK they have been honoring those without fuss just like the replacement ones.

[8BitKid]

What fixed this for me was using an old router that had 802.11g on 2.4GHz, and connecting to that via WiFi. That fixed the problem for me, and I did it twice just to make sure it was a reproducible fix.