Steam Deck buttons don't work when offline.

[Zora Mystery]

For the month I've had my Steam Deck, I've had button issues. Whenever I'm in desktop mode and the system can't connect online, none of the controls work except for the touch screen. I have to wait for the Steam window to popup and I can touch the "start offline" button, then the buttons work again.

Today I took my Steam Deck to work, so I could play on my break. For some reason the buttons wouldn't work at all, even when setting "offline mode" and turning off WiFi.

Now I'm back home. I'm connected to the internet and the buttons work again, except when I'm playing MelonDS. Buttons don't work at all, and when trying to rebind them, the emulator just ignores my button presses.

How do I fix this?

[roadkill]

I'm not sure if this will help solve the issue, but I think the SD buttons are only functional when the Steam application is running "normally", i.e. past any update/login screen. They don't usually work until it's finished loading + updating for me, on my Steam Deck, and likewise on Windows PC the Steam Controller doesn't work until Steam has fully loaded.

I guess a workaround could be to see if you can launch Steam in offline mode, so it can load whatever drivers are necessary. I keep hearing all sorts of issues with offline mode, though, so not sure how easy it is to get into offline mode when you're not already online.

I wonder if Valve might consider dividing the Steam application and the Steam Controller drivers/customisation, so the human-to-deck interface isn't entirely dependent on the steam app working properly.

[Zora Mystery]

Originally posted by roadkill:

I'm not sure if this will help solve the issue, but I think the SD buttons are only functional when the Steam application is running "normally", i.e. past any update/login screen. They don't usually work until it's finished loading + updating for me, on my Steam Deck, and likewise on Windows PC the Steam Controller doesn't work until Steam has fully loaded.

I guess a workaround could be to see if you can launch Steam in offline mode, so it can load whatever drivers are necessary. I keep hearing all sorts of issues with offline mode, though, so not sure how easy it is to get into offline mode when you're not already online.

I wonder if Valve might consider dividing the Steam application and the Steam Controller drivers/customisation, so the human-to-deck interface isn't entirely dependent on the steam app working properly.

I've already tried starting offline mode. I usually have to do that when I have no internet access. It didn't help this time.

[adinsx]

I don't think this is fixable by the end-user. Valve needs to make Steaminput it's own daemon that isn't dependent on the steam client.

[Zora Mystery]

I found the problem. You have to hold the button with the three lines on it. It switches between Desktop mode and Gamepad mode. This fixed my problem.