Steamdeck doesn't work with my home wifi but works with every other wifi I tested

[TTR]

Hi,

Something about my router, the Netgear AC2600 is causing my steamdeck to drop and timeout from the wifi. I've tried pretty much everything I had access to in the router's admin page: toggling WMM, toggling Beamforming, toggling MU-MIMMO, toggling airtime fairness, changing the channels and changing the rates.

On the SD I tried disabling wifi power management and it did not change anything.
It works fine with my phone's hotspot or the wifi at work. This issue is just with my home network. I have a feeling it might be driver related.

It just doesn't play nice with my wifi. I'm considering re-imaging my SD to see if that will help. Did anyone have the same issue and attempt re-imaging?

Any advice is welcome. Thanks.

[lowcalcalzonezone]

Is this while downloading or just connecting in general? If the former, I'm also having issues. I only have a 5ghz network and my 2.4ghz is disabled. I do not have any channel congestion. I have experimented with throttling and found some success.

Without a throttle, my device will download at 30MB/s but quits after, at most, 30 seconds. However after applying a 15MB/s download throttle (120000Kbps), downloads work without issue. I'm guessing there is some sort of throughput issue on the deck maybe causing a hardware throttle. It appears to trigger when the disk usage hits ~25MB/s (which can still be reached with the network throttle during unpacking.

[TTR]

Just connecting in general. I was able to download my games just fine. (Mind you it might've been dropping the entire time but it wasn't noticeable)

But if I try to launch discord on my home network it will be stuck in a "failed to update" loop indefinitely and if I try to run Sea of Thieves I can't load into a game because it's so spotty. I just get disconnected every 5-10 seconds.

If I do the above from my phone's hotspot or my work's wifi then it works just fine.

[Wraith_1421]

Same issue here, also a netgear router. Basically anything that isn't a steam service struggles to do anything online

[Gingertips]

Asus router here, but 5ghz network never worked - had to use 2.4ghz

[Ahri]

Hello,

I'm having nearly the exact same issue. Currently, the issues are

Anything with a web browser or on desktop mode seems to not work or loads incredibly slowly if it does.

Wifi connects most of the time but sometimes connects with no network connection

Both my 5GHZ and 2.4 GHZ seem to work but still have the same random failure to connect or lack of actual real connectivity

Anything Steam related seems to work mostly fine. Downloads, chat etc. It's primarily web browser, YouTube, Discord, Netflix, etc not working.

I also tested and noticed that connecting to ANY other wifi network besides my home one, and a hotspot fix the issues.


I have narrowed down the issue to a few different things. It is most definitely a combination of the router settings, and how the steam deck handles networking.

I have not found out what fixes it on the router but what has fixed it temporarily but then immediately broke again was settings related to DNS. Other settings like IPV4 and IPV6 settings also made it work but randomly broke again.

On the Steam Deck going into desktop mode, clicking on the network, and advanced options, and enabling IPV6 on the particular network you are using fixed all networking issues but ONLY temporarily and while in Desktop mode. As soon as I go back into game mode the network settings revert and break again. I have confirmed that going back into Game mode turns IPV6 off again.

My most educated guess on most of these network issues is related to IPV4 and IPV6 settings. I'm not skilled enough to figure it out.

[lostgoat]

If you are experiencing connection issues outside steam, it would be good to know if disabling dns caching fixes the problem for you.

To do so, you can move the file /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/dns.conf to a different folder and reboot. E.g. in a console run:

sudo mv /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/dns.conf ~/dns.conf

To re-enable dns caching:

sudo mv ~/dns.conf  /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/dns.conf 

If this fixes the problem for you I will probably have some follow-up questions for you.

[Ahri]

Messaggio originale di lostgoat:

If you are experiencing connection issues outside steam, it would be good to know if disabling dns caching fixes the problem for you.

To do so, you can move the file /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/dns.conf to a different folder and reboot. E.g. in a console run:

sudo mv /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/dns.conf ~/dns.conf

To re-enable dns caching:

sudo mv ~/dns.conf  /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/dns.conf 

If this fixes the problem for you I will probably have some follow-up questions for you.

I turned off DNS Cashing (looks like it just deleted the file) and restarted the steam deck.

I forgot and connected the wifi connection.
Restarted the steam deck.

In Chrome on the internet mostly works but some websites are very slow or like Discord does not work still.

On Firefox nothing works.

Discord app download still does not launch

I have also confirmed that it is still just my own network having this issue. At my school, and work network everything works fine.

[ka]

5GHz also does not work on mine. Disabling power management does not fix it. 2.4GHz works snappy and fine.

[TTR]

Messaggio originale di lostgoat:

If you are experiencing connection issues outside steam, it would be good to know if disabling dns caching fixes the problem for you.

To do so, you can move the file /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/dns.conf to a different folder and reboot. E.g. in a console run:

sudo mv /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/dns.conf ~/dns.conf

To re-enable dns caching:

sudo mv ~/dns.conf  /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/dns.conf 

If this fixes the problem for you I will probably have some follow-up questions for you.

Tried this and it did not work.

[Sumner]

Messaggio originale di Ahri:

Messaggio originale di lostgoat:

If you are experiencing connection issues outside steam, it would be good to know if disabling dns caching fixes the problem for you.

To do so, you can move the file /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/dns.conf to a different folder and reboot. E.g. in a console run:

sudo mv /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/dns.conf ~/dns.conf

To re-enable dns caching:

sudo mv ~/dns.conf  /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/dns.conf 

If this fixes the problem for you I will probably have some follow-up questions for you.

I turned off DNS Cashing (looks like it just deleted the file) and restarted the steam deck.

I forgot and connected the wifi connection.
Restarted the steam deck.

In Chrome on the internet mostly works but some websites are very slow or like Discord does not work still.

On Firefox nothing works.

Discord app download still does not launch

I have also confirmed that it is still just my own network having this issue. At my school, and work network everything works fine.

I've seen people report dropping connection and other issues, but what you described is the only time I've been able to say with 100% certainty that I have an identical issue. What model router do you have? Everyone with issues seems to have some model of Netgear. When I get home I will also try to disable the DNS caching but I have little to no hope for that. I recently factory reset my steam deck and the same problem came back. I somehow got it working a few weeks back, with intermittent issues, but now I can't get it to start working with any combination of settings ipv6 related and others

[TTR]

Messaggio originale di sumner:

Messaggio originale di Ahri:

I turned off DNS Cashing (looks like it just deleted the file) and restarted the steam deck.

I forgot and connected the wifi connection.
Restarted the steam deck.

In Chrome on the internet mostly works but some websites are very slow or like Discord does not work still.

On Firefox nothing works.

Discord app download still does not launch

I have also confirmed that it is still just my own network having this issue. At my school, and work network everything works fine.

I've seen people report dropping connection and other issues, but what you described is the only time I've been able to say with 100% certainty that I have an identical issue. What model router do you have? Everyone with issues seems to have some model of Netgear. When I get home I will also try to disable the DNS caching but I have little to no hope for that. I recently factory reset my steam deck and the same problem came back. I somehow got it working a few weeks back, with intermittent issues, but now I can't get it to start working with any combination of settings ipv6 related and others

It's a problem with the steamdeck drivers not playing nice with netgear hardware. And since it affects such a low segment of users valve developers refuse to actually look into fixing their trash drivers.
So you have two options, get a router that is not netgear or put up with the constant disconnects.

Edit: Third option is to return the steam deck.

[Sumner]

Messaggio originale di TTR:

Messaggio originale di sumner:

I've seen people report dropping connection and other issues, but what you described is the only time I've been able to say with 100% certainty that I have an identical issue. What model router do you have? Everyone with issues seems to have some model of Netgear. When I get home I will also try to disable the DNS caching but I have little to no hope for that. I recently factory reset my steam deck and the same problem came back. I somehow got it working a few weeks back, with intermittent issues, but now I can't get it to start working with any combination of settings ipv6 related and others

It's a problem with the steamdeck drivers not playing nice with netgear hardware. And since it affects such a low segment of users valve developers refuse to actually look into fixing their trash drivers.
So you have two options, get a router that is not netgear or put up with the constant disconnects.

Edit: Third option is to return the steam deck.

I was afraid of that, I already planned on getting a new router anyway because I suspected that would fix it

[Ahri]

Messaggio originale di sumner:

Messaggio originale di TTR:

It's a problem with the steamdeck drivers not playing nice with netgear hardware. And since it affects such a low segment of users valve developers refuse to actually look into fixing their trash drivers.
So you have two options, get a router that is not netgear or put up with the constant disconnects.

Edit: Third option is to return the steam deck.

I was afraid of that, I already planned on getting a new router anyway because I suspected that would fix it

After further testing with Steam deck and non Steam Deck hardware It is very likely the router. I have not had a chance to test it and use a non Netgear router but I'm fairly certain that is the issue. Later when I get a chance to test and older but not Netgear device I will post my findings.

[TTR]

Messaggio originale di Ahri:

Messaggio originale di sumner:

I was afraid of that, I already planned on getting a new router anyway because I suspected that would fix it

After further testing with Steam deck and non Steam Deck hardware It is very likely the router. I have not had a chance to test it and use a non Netgear router but I'm fairly certain that is the issue. Later when I get a chance to test and older but not Netgear device I will post my findings.

Yeah it has already been tested. We know it's just netgear routers so far. Wouldn't be too hard to contact netgear directly and see what's so different about their routers. I'm looking at you Valve.

[Sumner]

Messaggio originale di Ahri:

Messaggio originale di sumner:

I was afraid of that, I already planned on getting a new router anyway because I suspected that would fix it

After further testing with Steam deck and non Steam Deck hardware It is very likely the router. I have not had a chance to test it and use a non Netgear router but I'm fairly certain that is the issue. Later when I get a chance to test and older but not Netgear device I will post my findings.

I have findings to provide

Purchased Asus router today
Problem solved.

It may not be Netgear's fault but I really hate them. I can tell just by the routers configuration page that Asus is much better. It also gave me 4x the download speed and it was only a $40 price difference