Try this if you get no HDMI signal from the dock on your TV

[melancholerik]

Hey all,

like a lot of people, I've had issues trying to get my Steam Deck, official docking station and my TV to work together. There's been lots of posts about this already and it seems like some people can get it to work by unplugging and re-plugging power to the dock, but I had no luck with that. Eventually I found something that works reliably for me that doesn't seem to come up often in discussions, so I'm sharing here.

When I press the on/off button to wake up my docked Steam Deck, the screen on the Deck stays dark (it's docked, so this is correct and expected) but I get the "no HDMI signal detected" message on the TV.
What does the trick for me is changing "HDMI Ultra HD" setting on my TV. It might be named differently depending on the TV manufacturer, but in my case (using Philips PUS8506 from 2021), it's under Settings > General Settings > HDMI Ultra HD.
I choose the specific port I'm using with the dock, in my case HDMI 1, and then have three options to pick from: Standard, Optimal and Optimal (Auto-Game). From the setting description, Optimal settings "enable the highest quality HDMI signal for 4K Ultra HD and HDR content".
What I have to do is to switch the setting to either Optimal option, even if it's already selected. So I just switch to Standard and then back to Optimal. After that, I close the settings and Deck now works on the TV.
It still requires user input and I have to do this every time, but it seems easier than cutting power from the dock, which didn't even work for me to begin with. Wish it just worked automatically but I'm not too bothered now that I know what to do.

Side note, but the "Automatically Set Resolution" external display scaling option on the Deck doesn't seem to work for me on the 4K TV, so I just had to manually set that from the drop down.

Anyway, I hope this helps at least some other dock users!

[Goomba]

My tv is old and I don't have any options to change settings like that. Not sure what my next step should be.

[melancholerik]

Originally posted by Goomba:

My tv is old and I don't have any options to change settings like that. Not sure what my next step should be.

Don't know if I can help further :/ This was just what solved the issue for me and I didn't see it mentioned elsewhere.
The workaround for some people has been to have dock plugged in to HDMI but not power adapter, then connect Steam Deck to dock, then plug the power adapter back into dock.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/y59bl9/no_signal_when_i_connect_steam_deck_to_tv_using/

[Rodomar705]

The latest firmware seems to improve a lot HDMI outputs, so it might also help you with these issues. Should not take too much longer down the line.

[Shadowity]

I see people responding to this recently, I found it through trying to google my issue. Try hard powering off the steamdeck, the last firmware update for the deck made mine no longer want to output from the dock for whatever reason. After trying everything I could find about it I realized the steamdeck never reset after the update so I just power cycled it and it worked.

[IronStag]

Just did that and it worked. Thx

[SuperNovaZero]

Can we get a patch or fix valve? It's been like a year or so now. There's gotta be a fix.

[deaddoof]

Originally posted by SuperNovaZero:

Can we get a patch or fix valve? It's been like a year or so now. There's gotta be a fix.

Why do you think Valve can patch a TV firmware issue? HDMI is becoming crap because the consortium stop caring about software quality a while ago.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Filmmakers/comments/65p3fq/why_are_hdmi_connections_so_fragile_and_why_dont/

https://hackaday.com/2023/07/11/displayport-a-better-video-interface/

All TV are smart aka they can mess up HDMI because the standard sucks.

[Snibuda]

All TV are smart aka they can mess up HDMI because the standard sucks. [/quote]

My TV is quite old and not smart. However, neither original dock nor third party equipment will connect to it anymore. The tv does not update, it is just a monitor, so the steamdeck must've changed in some way.

[deaddoof]

Originally posted by Snibuda:

My TV is quite old and not smart. However, neither original dock nor third party equipment will connect to it anymore. The tv does not update, it is just a monitor, so the steamdeck must've changed in some way.

Define old. Your definition of old and my definition of old are complete orthogonal concepts. My definition of old is being able to crack HDCP signals.

https://blog.citp.princeton.edu/2010/09/16/understanding-hdcp-master-key-leak/

https://hackaday.com/2010/09/24/the-hdcp-master-key/

Current standards is based on AES encryption, and it's secure because that mafia did not invent it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36686822

[Shrederino]

Originally posted by Shadowity:

I see people responding to this recently, I found it through trying to google my issue. Try hard powering off the steamdeck, the last firmware update for the deck made mine no longer want to output from the dock for whatever reason. After trying everything I could find about it I realized the steamdeck never reset after the update so I just power cycled it and it worked.

I just spent almost 3 hours troubleshooting this. I tried a multitude of displays and cables, thrashed around in the config files in desktop mode, power-cycled everything multiple times, but somehow this exact thing did not even cross my mind... Everything was fixed immediately after I turned the deck fully off and on again...

[deaddoof]

Originally posted by Shrederino:

Originally posted by Shadowity:

I see people responding to this recently, I found it through trying to google my issue. Try hard powering off the steamdeck, the last firmware update for the deck made mine no longer want to output from the dock for whatever reason. After trying everything I could find about it I realized the steamdeck never reset after the update so I just power cycled it and it worked.

I just spent almost 3 hours troubleshooting this. I tried a multitude of displays and cables, thrashed around in the config files in desktop mode, power-cycled everything multiple times, but somehow this exact thing did not even cross my mind... Everything was fixed immediately after I turned the deck fully off and on again...

HDMI needs a handshake to work. I point that as a weakness to the standard because cache invalidation is hard.

> There are 2 hard problems in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-1 errors.

For the steam deck, you can reset your monitor configs by deleting a file in desktop mode. Gamemode file is location somewhere else. Here is forum or related information

https://community.kde.org/Solid/Projects/ScreenManagement

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1675200/discussions/3/3771239049944984767/#c4300445879346263688