Steamdeck hostname should be randomized!

[SoulHunter]

I do not know exactly where to report this but all steamdecks have the same hostname.

Not a problem until you have two decks on the same LAN and they randomly disconnect from the network and you have no idea why! :).

I would suggest all deck owners to just change the hostname to something random from the deck's settings menu, but this should be addressed by steamos.

[SoulHunter]

Anyone know if this should be reported to SteamOS github issue tracker or somewhere else?

[Nathan]

Originally posted by SoulHunter:

Anyone know if this should be reported to SteamOS github issue tracker or somewhere else?

This is probably the best way to do it, or at least the 'Feature requests' section of this forum.

[Bee🐝]

I'd say either report it or add it to the suggested features section. The latter is most likely the best place.

Anyway, thanks for bringing this up. We're going to have two Decks in the house and I can see how this might cause "issues".

[mcnichoj]

Thanks for the heads up, I renamed mine to "mcsBigDeck".

[Skoobie]

Good call. Mine's being shipped soon and definitely renaming it first thing. Thanks.

[Man's Best Friend]

I thought at this point all modern OS could temporarily change their names specifically to avoid this.

Then again, the name that the OS reports has nothing to do with maintaining a network connection except for certain computer to computer connections like Windows file sharing. And even then, that's just a friendly thing for the end user. Nothing stops you from connecting to an SMB or AFP share via IP address if you know what it is. Plus general networking doesn't care at all. Routers don't care about the system name (which isn't even always reported correctly) and more cares about the MAC address.

[MJ711]

not sure how it is possible to be disconnected because of the hostname because names have (almost) nothing to do with the network...
I have 5 PCs on my LAN with same name and my router does a proper job assigning proper IPs and everything else.

[miji]

Nice catch!

[SoulHunter]

I encountered issues with remote play together with two steamdecks (mine and a friends) connected to the same LAN. I assume steam uses some sort of auto-discover that relies on DNS, because we did not had issues any more after we left the same network.

@418 you are right, once they resolve the name to an ip network connections should no longer care about the name. I just know it's good to never have the same hostname in the network to avoid unexpected behavior. That's good enough for me :).

[retrogunner]

ditto. other manufacturers have been doing this for years.
* Dell appends using a hyphen & service tag (6-8 chars at base36 = 0-9a-z).
* Others use a hyphen & last four of the networking MAC address (4 char at base16 = ffff).
* Even a "Discord PIN" of -1234 would reduce the odds of namespace collision (except at the 1st ever DeckCON LAN Party. \m/ hint hint. Maybe have custom Valve Deck game exclusive for attendees to play and rank up they get to keep and play even after the CON. Oh ya. With iFixit part bins, workbenches, and assistance on site too.)