Steam deck causing my steam client on PC to log out randomly

[gangor]

I could understand if I'm prevented from launching games while a game is running on the other device, but it's an incredible pain in the backside to have to log in all the time. This seems to happen even when I'm not trying to run a game on deck, although that is the primary cause.

[my new friend]

Odd. It shouldn't log you out of Steam even if you are playing a game on another device. It should always stay logged in. I mean, how else are you supposed to use Remote Play?
Are you in the beta or stable?

[gangor]

Stable

[Make0urDay]

i am experiencing this issue as well. i am on the stable channel.

[DaVince]

Could it be an account security bug? Try deauthorizing all devices in the Steam Guard settings, then signing in once again (making sure the little "stay signed in" checkbox is checked).

[deadwishd]

Same here whenever i launch firefox to watch youtube, or i launch moonlight to stream my pc screen it logs me of on other steam clients. Saying that i can't play on both. in the 4 days i have had the steam deck i needed to re-login about 9 times.

[aebrer]

I'd like to chime in to say the same thing happens to me. The game seems to keep playing, but in the bottom right corner there is a steam popup asking me to log in again. Then, after I'm done streaming, I have to go to my PC and log in again if I want my cloud saves to sync.

Quite annoying! Hopefully someone fixes this soon! :)

[ProKamikadze]

I think this is by design... But what if I'm not sharing my account with anyone, just playing on deck, while I wait for game on main pc to load or find CS:GO match.. Maybe Steam could let two pcs run games at the same time if they're in the same network?

[gangor]

Originally posted by ProKamikadze:

I think this is by design... But what if I'm not sharing my account with anyone, just playing on deck, while I wait for game on main pc to load or find CS:GO match.. Maybe Steam could let two pcs run games at the same time if they're in the same network?

if it's by design then Valve should reconsider. I could understand it preventing the same game being played in two sessions at once but why not different games?

[Boblin the Goblin]

Originally posted by gangor:

Originally posted by ProKamikadze:

I think this is by design... But what if I'm not sharing my account with anyone, just playing on deck, while I wait for game on main pc to load or find CS:GO match.. Maybe Steam could let two pcs run games at the same time if they're in the same network?

if it's by design then Valve should reconsider. I could understand it preventing the same game being played in two sessions at once but why not different games?

This is a security measure that is implimented to prevent account sharing. It will not be changed because doing so would require either publishers to impliment their own DRM on everything, or complete renegotiations with their contract with developers.

[rampaging bunny]

Why is this a thing still in 2023?

I had a game running on Deck when I put it to sleep last night, then today I was playing a CSGO match on PC and while being dead wanted to start a game download to my deck so I turned it back on.

I immediately, no warnings or questions, get fully logged out of Steam on PC, kicked out of the game, the game quits and I get presented with a login-from-scratch screen with the QR code. Midway through a competetive match.

This is NOT a security measure, this is a very bad design. I should, at the very least, be asked what I want to do rather than just getting completely kicked out of the Steam client in full on PC (especially that it's literally expected to be logged into both at the same time for i.e. local game downloads)

[Fantasy]

This

Originally posted by SlowMango:

Originally posted by gangor:

if it's by design then Valve should reconsider. I could understand it preventing the same game being played in two sessions at once but why not different games?

This is a security measure that is implimented to prevent account sharing. It will not be changed because doing so would require either publishers to impliment their own DRM on everything, or complete renegotiations with their contract with developers.

OK. If this is TRUE I now have buyer's remorse for this piece of crap. What is the point of being able to play my games on the go with my main rig or my deck if one or the other bumps the other one off what it was doing? This is total bullcrap that I, having a PC AND Steam Deck, cannot log into both and use them under my credentials. I mean, literally, what is the fear? I will let someone have my ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ STEAMDECK to access my account/games/credit card? That is ridiculous.

[DaVince]

Originally posted by Fantasy:

This

Originally posted by SlowMango:

This is a security measure that is implimented to prevent account sharing. It will not be changed because doing so would require either publishers to impliment their own DRM on everything, or complete renegotiations with their contract with developers.

OK. If this is TRUE I now have buyer's remorse for this piece of crap. What is the point of being able to play my games on the go with my main rig or my deck if one or the other bumps the other one off what it was doing? This is total bullcrap that I, having a PC AND Steam Deck, cannot log into both and use them under my credentials. I mean, literally, what is the fear? I will let someone have my ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ STEAMDECK to access my account/games/credit card? That is ridiculous.

You should totally be able to log into both; I'm logged into three different devices including the Steam Deck. What you can't do is have games running on two different systems at the same time that belong to the same account, but for the most part, that's not going to happen. Unless you like having an idle game running on your main desktop while you play games on the go?

If you keep getting logged out of one system when logging into another, I have no clue what's happening there.

[Mahjik]

Originally posted by Fantasy:

This is total bullcrap that I, having a PC AND Steam Deck, cannot log into both and use them under my credentials. I mean, literally, what is the fear? I will let someone have my ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ STEAMDECK to access my account/games/credit card? That is ridiculous.

Just FYI, it's not a Steam Deck issue. It's a Valve limitation of their Steam platform. You'd have the same limitation with a PC and a ROG Ally, or a PC and a laptop, etc...

[DaVince]

Is there some kind of miscommunication in this thread? Of course you can be logged into several devices. Steam even has unique features for it like streaming a game to the other logged in system.

[rampaging bunny]

There's no miscommunication here. It's a horribly bad implementation where

1. You can theoretically be logged in on multiple devices at a time
2. You can't have a Steam game running on more than one device when logged in on them and online.
3. With a Steam game running on PC i.e. Dota, waking up a steam deck with any running game/app (even a non-steam shortcut) will completely boot you out of your Steam account on PC and force you to enter your password and log in again. If you interact with the warning, your game will also crash on PC, regardless if you're in a competitive match or not.
4. Once your game crashes and you finally eat all the swear words and be forced log back in on PX devices, you'll be able to start Dota on PC and the custom shortcut on the Deck and both will work fine.

The force logout doesn't always happen.

Valve needs to fix this but they haven't acknowledged it for months.