Switching between wired and WiFi blocks Steam Deck out of remote play and local network transfers

[Rockerbacon]

I recently got a Steam Deck, which I sometimes dock on my living room in order to stream games from my office PC to my TV. The dock I use includes an RJ45 port for wired networking and, although the connection works fine, I've been noticing that I always need to restart the Steam client on my office PC before I can use remote play.

Today I noticed the same behaviour when trying to use the wired connection to speed up a game download through the local network transfer feature.

I then decided to dig a little and get to the bottom of the problem. What seems to be happening is that the Steam client will deny connections after a known peer changes its network adapter. I could reliable reproduce the issue through the steps:

1. Disconnect the Steam Deck from all networks, ensure it is not configured to automatically connect to any network, then shut it down;
2. Start the Steam Client on the office PC;
3. Boot up the Steam Deck, connect to any network (WiFi or the wired connection on the dock);
4. Use either remote play or local network transfer. The features will work fine at this step;
5. Connect to another network on the Steam Deck - WiFi if was initially connected to the dock and vice-versa;
6. Use either remote play or local network transfer again. Both features will stop working at this step;
7. Exit the Steam Client on the office PC and start it again;
8. Use either remote play or local network transfer. The features will start working again;
9. You can go back to step 5 and loop infinitely, the behaviour is extremely consistent;

I then checked the logs on the office PC, at "$HOME/.steam/steam/logs/content_log.txt", and they show the peer is being denied connection after it changes its network adapter. In the following log fragment, you can see the office PC first accepts a peer connection from the Steam Deck, with IP 192.168.10.77, but then starts denying new connections once the Deck starts using another network adapter, with IP 192.168.10.80.

[2023-04-09 21:44:44] Initialized peer content server for AppID 601150
[2023-04-09 21:44:44] Initialized peer content server for AppID 228980
[2023-04-09 21:44:44] AppID 601150 state changed : Fully Installed,Peer Server,
[2023-04-09 21:44:44] AppID 228980 state changed : Fully Installed,Peer Server,
[2023-04-09 21:44:44] Accepted peer connection from [U:1:147115543] at 192.168.10.77:36239 
[2023-04-09 21:51:31] Peer [U:1:147115543] disconnected (Disconnected By Remote Host)
[2023-04-09 21:51:31] Stopping peer content server job for AppID 601150 (OK)
[2023-04-09 21:51:31] AppID 601150 state changed : Fully Installed,
[2023-04-09 21:51:31] AppID 228980 state changed : Fully Installed,
[2023-04-09 21:51:31] Finished peer content server job for AppID 601150 : 6048 chunks requested, 6048 chunks sent ( 6.27 G
B )
[2023-04-09 21:53:11] Initialized peer content server for AppID 601150
[2023-04-09 21:53:11] Initialized peer content server for AppID 228980
[2023-04-09 21:53:11] AppID 601150 state changed : Fully Installed,Peer Server,
[2023-04-09 21:53:11] AppID 228980 state changed : Fully Installed,Peer Server,
[2023-04-09 21:53:11] Denied peer connection from 192.168.10.80:58259
[2023-04-09 21:54:12] Stopping peer content server job for AppID 601150 (Timeout)
[2023-04-09 21:54:12] AppID 601150 state changed : Fully Installed,
[2023-04-09 21:54:12] AppID 228980 state changed : Fully Installed,
[2023-04-09 21:54:12] Finished peer content server job for AppID 601150 : 0 chunks requested, 0 chunks sent ( 0 bytes )

[deathbysexy]

Dude very nice testing my man! I could reproduce this myself exactly and could not figure out wtf was wrong. Trying to play the last act of bg3 via remote play and did not get why a wired connection wouldn’t work. Nicely done sir.

[TheAmberNectar]

Originally posted by Rockerbacon:

I recently got a Steam Deck, which I sometimes dock on my living room in order to stream games from my office PC to my TV. The dock I use includes an RJ45 port for wired networking and, although the connection works fine, I've been noticing that I always need to restart the Steam client on my office PC before I can use remote play.

Today I noticed the same behaviour when trying to use the wired connection to speed up a game download through the local network transfer feature.

I then decided to dig a little and get to the bottom of the problem. What seems to be happening is that the Steam client will deny connections after a known peer changes its network adapter. I could reliable reproduce the issue through the steps:

1. Disconnect the Steam Deck from all networks, ensure it is not configured to automatically connect to any network, then shut it down;
2. Start the Steam Client on the office PC;
3. Boot up the Steam Deck, connect to any network (WiFi or the wired connection on the dock);
4. Use either remote play or local network transfer. The features will work fine at this step;
5. Connect to another network on the Steam Deck - WiFi if was initially connected to the dock and vice-versa;
6. Use either remote play or local network transfer again. Both features will stop working at this step;
7. Exit the Steam Client on the office PC and start it again;
8. Use either remote play or local network transfer. The features will start working again;
9. You can go back to step 5 and loop infinitely, the behaviour is extremely consistent;

I then checked the logs on the office PC, at "$HOME/.steam/steam/logs/content_log.txt", and they show the peer is being denied connection after it changes its network adapter. In the following log fragment, you can see the office PC first accepts a peer connection from the Steam Deck, with IP 192.168.10.77, but then starts denying new connections once the Deck starts using another network adapter, with IP 192.168.10.80.

[2023-04-09 21:44:44] Initialized peer content server for AppID 601150
[2023-04-09 21:44:44] Initialized peer content server for AppID 228980
[2023-04-09 21:44:44] AppID 601150 state changed : Fully Installed,Peer Server,
[2023-04-09 21:44:44] AppID 228980 state changed : Fully Installed,Peer Server,
[2023-04-09 21:44:44] Accepted peer connection from [U:1:147115543] at 192.168.10.77:36239 
[2023-04-09 21:51:31] Peer [U:1:147115543] disconnected (Disconnected By Remote Host)
[2023-04-09 21:51:31] Stopping peer content server job for AppID 601150 (OK)
[2023-04-09 21:51:31] AppID 601150 state changed : Fully Installed,
[2023-04-09 21:51:31] AppID 228980 state changed : Fully Installed,
[2023-04-09 21:51:31] Finished peer content server job for AppID 601150 : 6048 chunks requested, 6048 chunks sent ( 6.27 G
B )
[2023-04-09 21:53:11] Initialized peer content server for AppID 601150
[2023-04-09 21:53:11] Initialized peer content server for AppID 228980
[2023-04-09 21:53:11] AppID 601150 state changed : Fully Installed,Peer Server,
[2023-04-09 21:53:11] AppID 228980 state changed : Fully Installed,Peer Server,
[2023-04-09 21:53:11] Denied peer connection from 192.168.10.80:58259
[2023-04-09 21:54:12] Stopping peer content server job for AppID 601150 (Timeout)
[2023-04-09 21:54:12] AppID 601150 state changed : Fully Installed,
[2023-04-09 21:54:12] AppID 228980 state changed : Fully Installed,
[2023-04-09 21:54:12] Finished peer content server job for AppID 601150 : 0 chunks requested, 0 chunks sent ( 0 bytes )

I have this same issue with my Deck even on stable build, have you figured out whats causing it/or a workaround?

[Rockerbacon]

It's a steam client bug, there's nothing we can do. My workaround is using Sunshine+Moonlight instead of Steam play.

[Pua]

Hey, I was having the same error since several days ago when using my Steam Deck as client. Just recently I configured both a wifi and lan connection so that seems to be the same. Good finding! I hope Valve fix this.

[aeh847]

Thanks for posting your solution here. This saved me a lot of time troubleshooting on my own.

[Skote]

There is something you can do.
Please report issues you find like this one on the github repository's issue tracker: https://github.com/valvesoftware/steamos/issues
There is also a repository with an issue tracker for the Linux Client: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux