Steam Deck TV Color Bars/SMPTE Color Bars fix?

[Sir Raffy]

Does anyone have a solution to this? I'm desperate.

So I've been using my Steam Deck for a week now with no problems. And just today, ALL of my games suddenly show these color bars in sections where a game is supposed to play a video file. The audio for that video runs fine. No specific game. Happens to all of them. (the bars one mentioned in the title. You can Google it to see what I mean and what they look like).

Now before anyone says it's a codec issue and video file types that Linux/Steam OS does not support, let me stop you right there. That's not it. ALL these videos played for me with no problems prior to this issue. It's not the resolution either as I've seen someone mention somehwere. Because I'm playing in the same resolution as I have sonce day 1 when the videos actually played. Someone also mentioned that if you press the steam button at this time, you will see another window open where the video is actually being played. That's not the case for me.

Things I've tried:

1. Change proton in the compatibility settings. Nothing.
2. Restart Deck. Nothing.
3. Shut down Deck. Nothing.
4. Reinstall my games. Nothing.
5. Everything is up-to-date/updated.

I also don't think changing proton versions would work here because it is happening on ALL games. Some report that this worked for some of them, but I noticed that this only worked for those who are experiencing this issue on specific games, like Spyro.

[deaddoof]

Linux/Steam OS does not support, let me stop you right there. That's not it. ALL these videos played

You do not understand. Valve cannot run Window Media Foundation code due to copyright issues. Valve has to covert them to another format.

Please list all your games.

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/issues

Report it here or there and label it as a regression. Your case will probably bump up in priority.

[deaddoof]

I believe newer wine changed the situation a bit.

https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=49692

Remember, please provider OS and game version numbers. They will need it to diagnosis your case.

[Sir Raffy]

Originally posted by deaddoof:

Linux/Steam OS does not support, let me stop you right there. That's not it. ALL these videos played

You do not understand. Valve cannot run Window Media Foundation code due to copyright issues. Valve has to covert them to another format.

Please list all your games.

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/issues

Report it here or there and label it as a regression. Your case will probably bump up in priority.

So you're implying that it IS a codec issue? If so, then why did it work before for a whole week? Because of linux or SteamOS converting them? Ok. So then why did that stop working lall of a sudden? You'll see on YT many different people playing the same games I did and are not experiencing this issue. Please do not just disregard what I said THAT THEY WORKED FOR A WEEK WITHOUT PROBLEMS.

I can't list all 200+ games of mine, but here are three where videos PLAYED FINE FOR A WEEK then stopped working today:

1. Resident Evil Village
2. Resident Evil 3
3. Days Gone
4. Final Fantays VII Remake Intergrade

[deaddoof]

Originally posted by Sir Raffy:

So you're implying that it IS a codec issue? If so, then why did it work before for a whole week? Because of linux or SteamOS converting them? Ok. So then why did that stop working lall of a sudden? You'll see on YT many different people playing the same games I did and are not experiencing this issue. Please do not just disregard what I said THAT THEY WORKED FOR A WEEK WITHOUT PROBLEMS.

I can't list all 200+ games of mine, but here are three where videos PLAYED FINE FOR A WEEK then stopped working today:

1. Resident Evil Village
2. Resident Evil 3
3. Days Gone
4. Final Fantays VII Remake Intergrade

Yea. If its this widespread for you, then you would need to list a lot more steam version numbers. Go to the github and list your issue there. They would ask for more information. From the sounds of it, they would need to revert a few patches to allow your games to be working again.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1675200/discussions/0/5267542371382034427/?ctp=2#c5267542371382459815

I never experience this issue myself, but I heard this issue exists. Please go to the github issue page. They will no doubt help you and the response time would be faster. Please label it as a regression.

[deaddoof]

Steam OS in general does things quite differently.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/va8fnn/tv_color_barsstatic_in_place_of_ingame_videos/

It might be a gamescope bug too.

[Sir Raffy]

I just went ahead and factory reset my Steam. Updating it only takes a few minutes anyway. Thank god for Steam Cloud. This makes resetting to factory an easier decision to make. I mean since they worked fine for a whole week, it means whatever was needed for those videos to play are already right there kn the deck. So something definitely happened that caused whatever those "needed things" are to stop doing their job. There have been no updates the past week. The only I had to do was the initial update so it's not the fault of a new update bug.

[deaddoof]

Originally posted by Sir Raffy:

I just went ahead and factory reset my Steam. Updating it only takes a few minutes anyway. Thank god for Steam Cloud. This makes resetting to factory an easier decision to make. I mean since they worked fine for a whole week, it means whatever was needed for those videos to play are already right there kn the deck. So something definitely happened that caused whatever those "needed things" are to stop doing their job. There have been no updates the past week. The only I had to do was the initial update so it's not the fault of a new update bug.

Software is complicated. Great you resolve your issue. The color bars is just a random error message implemented by Valve. It is unfortunate you experience it, but enjoy your games.

[deaddoof]

OP? Are you playing on a sdcard? This bug seems like data corruption to be honest.

[Sir Raffy]

Originally posted by deaddoof:

OP? Are you playing on a sdcard? This bug seems like data corruption to be honest.

Nah. I'm playing on an SSD

[WarnerCK]

Originally posted by Sir Raffy:

lSo something definitely happened that caused whatever those "needed things" are to stop doing their job.

Did you turn off the downloaded shaders?

[Dynamonic]

I've also recently noticed this same issue with Resident Evil 7. (A Verified title)

I have played the game recently with no issues on the Deck, but went to play it this past week after someone else on here mentioned the colour bars issue, and those vertical coloured bars as the OP describes do indeed now appear as early as the intro movie (which appears as a TV test screen with a white noise segment in the corner). The first part of first-person gameplay where you're in the car, also has colour test bars in place of the outside environment.
All Proton versions I tested (Experimental, 9, 8 and 7) have exactly the same issue.

It does seem like there's been some form of regression somewhere in a recent update, as I've now tested the game on both my OLED and LCD Decks and the issue is present in both of them. (Both set to the Stable update channel)

[Sir Raffy]

Ok this is so weird. Resetting to factory settings did NOT help at all. What's weird is that all these sections where the color bars appear all used to play fine for all 7 days since I got my Deck which means the Deck had what it needed to play them. If it's just the intro movies, that's fine with me. BUT it happens on all sections where a video file is played. This is normally not much of a problem for recent AAA games since they mostly use in-engine cutscenes meaning they are rendered in real-time, just like actual gameplay. But for many low budget games and older games, they rely on video files for their cutscenes. Like they are literally playing a video on yiur screen which has mp4 or whatever video file type they used. This issue makes these games unplayable for me as cutscenes still play a big role in immersion.

[deaddoof]

Originally posted by Sir Raffy:

Ok this is so weird. Resetting to factory settings did NOT help at all. What's weird is that all these sections where the color bars appear all used to play fine for all 7 days since I got my Deck which means the Deck had what it needed to play them. If it's just the intro movies, that's fine with me. BUT it happens on all sections where a video file is played. This is normally not much of a problem for recent AAA games since they mostly use in-engine cutscenes meaning they are rendered in real-time, just like actual gameplay. But for many low budget games and older games, they rely on video files for their cutscenes. Like they are literally playing a video on yiur screen which has mp4 or whatever video file type they used. This issue makes these games unplayable for me as cutscenes still play a big role in immersion.

How did you factory reset?

[Sir Raffy]

Originally posted by deaddoof:

Originally posted by Sir Raffy:

Ok this is so weird. Resetting to factory settings did NOT help at all. What's weird is that all these sections where the color bars appear all used to play fine for all 7 days since I got my Deck which means the Deck had what it needed to play them. If it's just the intro movies, that's fine with me. BUT it happens on all sections where a video file is played. This is normally not much of a problem for recent AAA games since they mostly use in-engine cutscenes meaning they are rendered in real-time, just like actual gameplay. But for many low budget games and older games, they rely on video files for their cutscenes. Like they are literally playing a video on yiur screen which has mp4 or whatever video file type they used. This issue makes these games unplayable for me as cutscenes still play a big role in immersion.

How did you factory reset?

From the system settings on game mode

[deaddoof]

Originally posted by Sir Raffy:

Originally posted by deaddoof:

How did you factory reset?

From the system settings on game mode

Are you running the stable branch?

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1675200/eventcomments/4338726151304267515/

Triggering a Factory Reset will now install a clean version of the OS in addition to deleting user data if the OS image has been modified.

They just release a new version that actually factory reset. The old behavior is to leave /home alone I believe.

You should be considering manually deleting games and associate proton files to see if it fixes your issue.