Local Network Game Transfer rarely works

[Ozwald]

Anyone have some ideas or tips? It works maybe 5% of the time.

Both systems are on the beta channel. I've opened the ports in the firewall. I've rebooted, deleted the download cache, verified the files & rebooted again. I've tried desktop mode, I've tried game mode. I can't really thing of anything else. It's completely random when it decides to work.

I got it to work last night, & with nothing changed I can't get it to work this morning.

[shadowboy813]

Go to Settings->Downloads, under "Game File Transfer over Local Network, set "Allow transfers from this device to.." to anyone. (this should be on the desktop PC you're transferring files from, not your Deck).

That said, I usually get faster transfers from Steam to my deck than I do over the local network.

[Ozwald]

That's already been done, on both devices. Also I forgot to add that I've triple check that the games are fully up to date.

I live in a very rural mountain village. The fastest internet I can get is 18Mb down which never delivers more than 12 down & 0.9 up. We don't even get mail delivery here.

A 20GB download takes 2+ days. Over LAN it can be less than 10 minutes.

[Mahjik]

I only have one game which is on both my PC and Deck. If my PC has updated before my Deck, it always transfers from my PC for that game. I'm rarely in Desktop Mode so it never goes from my Deck to the PC.

[Ozwald]

Originally posted by Mahjik:

I only have one game which is on both my PC and Deck. If my PC has updated before my Deck, it always transfers from my PC for that game. I'm rarely in Desktop Mode so it never goes from my Deck to the PC.

I have problems either direction. I've heard that to host from the Deck you need to be in Desktop mode. When it worked last night I was in game mode, so if that was even true, it's not anymore.

Edit: and yes, I obviously tried anyway. No joy.

[Zef]

Local network transfer using steam goes sloooow.

I just put games i want to transfer on my NAS and access it on steam deck using a mounted NFS share.

Goes way faster to transfer data but ofc you need some kind of network storage.

[Ozwald]

Originally posted by Zef:

Local network transfer using steam goes sloooow.

I just put games i want to transfer on my NAS and access it on steam deck using a mounted NFS share.

Goes way faster to transfer data but ofc you need some kind of network storage.

12 downloading vs 300+ using the LAN Transfer? 2 days of downloads vs 7 minutes? Yeah. Real slow. Thanks for the input.

[Mahjik]

Originally posted by Ozwald:

Originally posted by Mahjik:

I only have one game which is on both my PC and Deck. If my PC has updated before my Deck, it always transfers from my PC for that game. I'm rarely in Desktop Mode so it never goes from my Deck to the PC.

I have problems either direction. I've heard that to host from the Deck you need to be in Desktop mode. When it worked last night I was in game mode, so if that was even true, it's not anymore.

Edit: and yes, I obviously tried anyway. No joy.

You only have to be in Desktop Mode for the Deck to be the Host for a local transfer. For the Deck to be receiver, that works in both modes.

Valve has never fully explained how it works but it seems there is something they do to determine whether to transfer locally or internet. With that, if it determines that your WIFI isn't fast enough, it will pick the internet.

Maybe Valve will (eventually) provide and option just to say local transfers only in the future.

[Ozwald]

Originally posted by Mahjik:

Originally posted by Ozwald:

I have problems either direction. I've heard that to host from the Deck you need to be in Desktop mode. When it worked last night I was in game mode, so if that was even true, it's not anymore.

Edit: and yes, I obviously tried anyway. No joy.

You only have to be in Desktop Mode for the Deck to be the Host for a local transfer. For the Deck to be receiver, that works in both modes.

False. It worked just fine as a host in game mode the last time it worked. Again, if that was ever true (I only saw users talk about it, it's not stated on anything official from Steam that I can find) it is not anymore.

Yes, I tried desktop mode as well, but it doesn't make any difference.

But, yes, it transferred 35GB last night hosting from Game Mode.

Edit: FYI, FWIW, I've been building & coding since the 80's. I picked up Linux/*nix in 1995 & completely abandoned Windows over 20 years ago. I've only got 3 or 4 years dealing with KDE, but it's bones aren't that different from Debian, Mint, Ubuntu... I had Kubuntu machine about 15 years ago which is where a few years of that KDE experience came from.

[Mahjik]

It literally states in the FAQ:

https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/46BD-6BA8-B012-CE43

"A Steam Deck, or a PC running in Steam desktop mode can host network transfers. PCs in Big Picture mode, and custom launchers can't transfer their files out over the local network."

Maybe the terminology is being mistaken.

[Mahjik]

Originally posted by Ozwald:

Edit: FYI, FWIW, I've been building & coding since the 80's. I picked up Linux/*nix in 1995 & completely abandoned Windows over 20 years ago. I've only got 3 or 4 years dealing with KDE, but it's bones aren't that different from Debian, Mint, Ubuntu... I had Kubuntu machine about 15 years ago which is where a few years of that KDE experience came from.

No need to post e-credentials.

[Lala Satalin Deviluke]

while mahjik is a reg linux elitest with little dumbed down explains, topic mc doesnt explain well enough either, r u talking about remote play? as for game/file updates keeping steam on pc live while using deck, steam prefers client/game updates to windows so any game updates go there first with file sharing updates that r paired with deck/pc can come from pc to deck first, if steam pc is closed completely then deck gets first updates if user chooses when update option happens, if ur remote play, have no idea what to what, but as deck isnt friendly to non linux eliestest users, if just basic deck user then any game that u have for pc runs, is steam recog, runs on from steam, ....sadly ask an eliest to properly explain how u command promp x or whatever since theres no explaination for non linux/steam elitest

[Mahjik]

Originally posted by Mahjik:

It literally states in the FAQ:

https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/46BD-6BA8-B012-CE43

"A Steam Deck, or a PC running in Steam desktop mode can host network transfers. PCs in Big Picture mode, and custom launchers can't transfer their files out over the local network."

Maybe the terminology is being mistaken.

Originally posted by Ozwald:

False. It worked just fine as a host in game mode the last time it worked. Again, if that was ever true (I only saw users talk about it, it's not stated on anything official from Steam that I can find) it is not anymore.

I stand corrected. I just did a quick test and my PC did transfer from my Deck while in Game Mode. Either Valve's information is out of date or that's not intended.

Granted, that doesn't help you now.

[Drak3]

In my experience with 8 systems, local transfer has never worked for 100% of my library. It works most of the time, if there's only one version of the game or if the operating systems on the two machines in question are in the same family, but there are still instances where sometimes it either just doesn't try local transfer or it only transfers a small bit of data before falling back to regular downloads.