Steam Deck stuck on verifying installation. Only external screen turns on

[#1 Jovial Merriment Fan]

I recently tried to turn on my steam deck, but it hasn't seemed to work. I left it charging with the official wall charger for about an hour, but it still is having problems. I assumed that the battery had depleted since I hadn't used it in a couple of weeks. The whole time, the screen has been black and the startup sound had been playing, but no display was present.

After trying to restart it by holding the power button it did not change anything. Eventually, I plugged in an external monitor and could actually see the steam deck updating. As soon as it got to the screen that says something along the lines of "update complete, loading steam" it got stuck for around a half an hour.

Now every time that I restart the deck, it is stuck on a grey loading bar with a "verifying installation" screen. The steam deck screen has still yet to turn on and it will not get past the verifying installation screen.

Any help would be much appreciated!

[Canadian Gamer]

how long did you wait after turning it on?

[#1 Jovial Merriment Fan]

Originally posted by Canadian Gamer:

how long did you wait after turning it on?

Somewhere between 20-30 mins

[NuLife]

U may need to re image/reinstall staemOS

[Cat]

Does it work if you disconnect and reconnect the screen? If that's the case you have the same issue as me. It's not stuck, only the image is. I only have that problem when setting the external screen as 4K 60 hz. Auto resolution or 1080p both work fine.

[Nezzzyntg]

This has done the same with me the same error too , hopefully we can find a solution

[Mahjik]

Try this:

Originally posted by notboxbot:

Anyways, you can try rolling back to the previous OS version by:
- powering down
- holding down the "..." button and switching the Deck on
This should display a menu that allows selecting the previous OS image.

[NovaProgression]

I'm running into the same error. Trying above comment now, will report back later today

[NovaProgression]

Above solution didn't solve anything. Still running into the same "verifying installation screen. Gonna keep trying a few things and report back if I have any luck outside of just doing a factory reset. (Praise be to cloud saves)

[#1 Jovial Merriment Fan]

Originally posted by NovaProgression:

Above solution didn't solve anything. Still running into the same "verifying installation screen. Gonna keep trying a few things and report back if I have any luck outside of just doing a factory reset. (Praise be to cloud saves)

FYI - Ended up just getting a replacement Steamdeck from support. Didn't end up having any luck fixing the problem across chats with steam support, so they just sent me a new one

[Vico]

Originally posted by Mahjik:

Try this:

Originally posted by notboxbot:

Anyways, you can try rolling back to the previous OS version by:
- powering down
- holding down the "..." button and switching the Deck on
This should display a menu that allows selecting the previous OS image.

This worked perfectly thank god.....

[Arpegia]

Originally posted by Mahjik:

Try this:

Originally posted by notboxbot:

Anyways, you can try rolling back to the previous OS version by:
- powering down
- holding down the "..." button and switching the Deck on
This should display a menu that allows selecting the previous OS image.

This worked for me as well, thanks

[Megara]

I have the same error. Use previous versions does not work. Any ideas how to solve the problem?

[Falkentyne]

Originally posted by Megara:

I have the same error. Use previous versions does not work. Any ideas how to solve the problem?

I had this problem last night, after switching from desktop to game mode to desktop to game mode too many times (without rebooting). Then it just hung when switching to game mode and then permanent "verifying installation" on the next reboot.

I fixed it by choosing an older image (late september) that was on OS 3.5.1, and it booted.
When I rebooted it again, it switched back to 3.6 (main) but booted properly this time.

[Garrun]

For me, plugging it in to a generic USB3 dock -> wired ethernet got it to boot. It appears that it had started an update when I was at home on WiFi but got itself into a boot fail situation when it couldn't finish. Unfortunately, when on that verifying screen, it doesn't have a way to get on WiFi, but the wired ethernet workaround worked. Pretty bad design oversight for a portable device. Twice now, I've grabbed it to go on a trip (which is about the only time I use it) and it wouldn't work when I pulled it out. I like the device, but I wouldn't recommend it to most due to issues like this. I don't like my 'grab a quick game' time to wind up being Google+troubleshooting time. Please make this thing more resilient to changing connections and loosing connectivity.

[quickllama]

Originally posted by Mahjik:

Try this:

Originally posted by notboxbot:

Anyways, you can try rolling back to the previous OS version by:
- powering down
- holding down the "..." button and switching the Deck on
This should display a menu that allows selecting the previous OS image.

This worked for me as well, thank you!