No desktop after last steamdeck app update

[paulwratt]

about a week ago (Sat, Sun or Mon - its Friday now) there was an update to the SteamDeck app (it too 38 min to install) - after that I dont get a desktop, just a blinking cursor on tty7 (where the SteamDeck App or ChimerOS Desktop normally runs).

With HTOP I can see that lightdm was started, and the chimera python script too, plus wireplumber and pipewire and gvfsd and powerstation (?), but there is 0% CPU utilization. There is a systmctl gamescope process and a bash gamescope session, but again there is 0% CPU usage.

Normally I (think I) see plenty of mount points with LSBLK, but I only see / /boot /var /home and /frzr_root. is it possible the frzr process failed to unlock the partition (pacman cannot see a db file or find /var/lib/pacman).

Is there anyway to "fix" the OS without having to re-install, or use the new ChimeraOS 45 release (which is now 3 weeks old)

This is the 3rd time I have done a SteamDeck App update, not had any problems befor, but also not taken 38 mins to install ..

[alkazar]

If the update took that long you are probably already on the ChimeraOS 45 release as that was likely an OS update that you installed.

If you run the installer ISO again, it will detect a previously installed ChimeraOS and you can select the option to do a repair install which will preserve the files in your home directory.

[paulwratt]

the /home directory, is that where Steam downloads games to?

ChimeraOS 45? OK, so if I grab that ISO and boot, I should be able to recover. btw the kernel is 6.6.10-chos1-chimeraos-2 , is that 45?

[pastaq]

the /home directory, is that where Steam downloads games to?

ChimeraOS 45? OK, so if I grab that ISO and boot, I should be able to recover. btw the kernel is 6.6.10-chos1-chimeraos-2 , is that 45?

The installer will always download the latest version during install. Just select repair install when it detects the existing install and it will install a fresh system image while preserving all your games and settings.

[paulwratt]

well that did not work ...

is there anyway to force a download of a previous version (44), or "update to an older version"?

---

btw the kernel is 6.6.10-chos1-chimeraos-2 , is that 45?

seems to be, that is what the console login says after a ChimeraOS 45 "repair installation"

---

Is there anyway I can debug this setup, or allow passing of configuration back to the ChimeraOS project so someone can look at this?

FWIW: the lightdm process tree only has 0:00:01 execution time, and that is only on the parent process - 0:00:00 on ALL child processes, including the --session-child process which spawns the 2x gamescope-session sub-processes

I thought SteamOS (and therefore ChimeraOS) used Wayland, but I can not see any of its processes anywhere?

[paulwratt]

BTW there was nothing in dmesg (related to the OP) even before I did the "repair" .. are there any other logs worth checking

---

/var/log/lighdm: a tail of this file shows it is working, as it record when I change console TTY devices (seat0 changes active session to #). At +0.87s there is this failed entry:

[+0.87s] DEBUG: Could not run plymouth --ping: Failed to execute child process "plymouth" (No such file or directory)

there are no plymouth processes, interestingly the root process (1) is /sbin/init splash and yet there is no splash screen at bootup. I vaguely remember seeing this process ( plymouth --splash I think) running around Christmas / New Year.

Also, in the same log, what does this mean, and can I verify that server version somehow:

[+0.00s] DEBUG: Using D-Bus name org.freedesktop.DisplayManager
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Using cross-namespace EXTERNAL authentication (this will deadlock if server is GDBus < 2.73.3)

[paulwratt]

I have a desktop again:

sudo frzr-deploy /path/to/chimeraos/img/not/chimeraos/iso/chimeraos-44-1_4b7363e.img.tar.xz

[paulwratt]

Does anyone wanna debug this issue with 45?

Now that I know I can get a working desktop without having to loose all my games, I am happy to assist (my system is basically a glorified SteamDeck in a box. ie without all the SteamDeck specific extras)

[alkazar]

Are you using 200% scaling? There was another user who reported that the desktop does not work when using 200% scaling, but I was unable to reproduce.

[paulwratt]

Are you using 200% scaling? There was another user who reported that the desktop does not work when using 200% scaling, but I was unable to reproduce.

nope - just plain install (no adjustments)

I did notice that using some of the chimera-session options on 44 gets me a similar result to OP, so I might try 45 and see if I can get desktop to work there. It seems 44 uses gamepadui-with-qam by default, and I cant get opengamepadui to work (results like OP) which may be the default on 45

[pastaq]

Are you using 200% scaling? There was another user who reported that the desktop does not work when using 200% scaling, but I was unable to reproduce.

nope - just plain install (no adjustments)

I did notice that using some of the chimera-session options on 44 gets me a similar result to OP, so I might try 45 and see if I can get desktop to work there. It seems 44 uses gamepadui-with-qam by default, and I cant get opengamepadui to work (results like OP) which may be the default on 45

The default hasn't changed, though it has been renamed from gamepadui to steam and gamepadui-with-qam was renamed to steam-plus.

[paulwratt]

ok, I can confirm that chimera-session desktop does indeed get a desktop on ChimeraOS 45. I can also confirm that steam-plus does not work (as per OP).

Hmm.. interestingly steam DOES work - is it possible that the above mentioned change to the option names are reversed or quoted incorrectly (considering previously on 44 I can get gamepadui-with-qam to work, but not gamepadui ) ?

(I used this ref: https://github.com/ChimeraOS/chimeraos/wiki/General-Configuration#selecting-a-session )

From a TTY, chimera-session gamepadui-with-qam provides the Steam Big Picture UI with an additional overlay. This is a transitional mode while we work on getting OpenGamepadUI feature complete. For many handhelds a button has been mapped on the built in controller to open the overlay. If using a controller the button combination guide + b will open the overlay.

Is there any way to confirm which chimera-session option is actually installed / active ? (What does the referred to overlay look like? I dont actually have any form of SteamDeck type unit or controller that has guide + b to test that button combo)

---

Hmmm.. I think the steam Big Picture UI has crashed .. the mouse still works but clicking does nothing. Note that with desktop the Steam App does work (as does the the desktop interaction obviously )

OK, NO its not crashed, but mouse clicks still do nothing .. the second row of image + txt (which is the 1st row in the desktop Steam App) just updated after load, so its definitely not crashed

Wierd, steam-plus works after switching to steam first. AND the keyboard works, just not mouse clicks ..

.. Whats going on here, it seems that more than just the option names were changes (as opposed to simply being updated - meaning I have none of these issues with the default gamepadui-with-qam option on ChimeraOS 44-1 ) ?

---

NOTE: I have not rebooted between these session changes. I only have access to the (fake) SteamDeck machine about 1x a week for a day or 2, and I have to leave now, so I'll shut it down (even though I can only do that from console tty) with steam-plus selected and see what happens next time it boots up (some time in the next week - BTW this thread / OP is done on a different machine which I have access to 24 / 7 ).

[pastaq]

It's possible that steam-plus was downloading a client update.

Each session in v45 will create a log in your home drive with ~/.-stdout.log

in 44-1 and older it will just be ~/.steam-stdout.log or ~/.ogui-stdout.log for with QAM and opengamepadui sessions.

[paulwratt]

Each session in v45 will create a log in your home drive with ~/.-stdout.log in 44-1 and older it will just be ~/.steam-stdout.log or ~/.ogui-stdout.log for with QAM and opengamepadui sessions.

Cheers, I'll look at these in a moment. Normally I see the Steam Logo and a progress bar when this happens. But ..

Based on what I did last time, it seams I can NOT get either steam or steam-plus options to work until after I run the desktop version of the Steam App. This time "app updates" before it ran the Desktop Steam App, took about 7m before the app actually started. I'm just waiting for the Steam App to finish downloading a few game updates and then I will try steam or steam-plus options again. (this is the second time I booted the machine, chimera-session was defaulted to steam-plus after booting)

The 1st time I booted, same as OP, neither steam option worked (text mode, cursor only on TTY7). Got to the desktop a second time, but it crashed after that (maybe one or both of the steam options were trying to download something when I switched).

(DOTA2 is _always a big update, so I'll post the results of another chimera-session steam try in about an hour or so ..)

[paulwratt]

Each session in v45 will create a log in your home drive with ~/.-stdout.log

I dont see this log file. its definitely Chimera OS v45 according to uname -a.

It seems that one major difference between v44 and v45 is that the default desktop backend is Wayland, not X windows (there is now a desktop-xorg option).

in 44-1 and older it will just be ~/.steam-stdout.log or ~/.ogui-stdout.log for with QAM and opengamepadui sessions.

I do have these, but I also have a ~/.steam-plus.log and it has this error in it:

7305 [INFO] [LaunchManager] :0: Window focus from 4194316 to: 23068600
ERROR: Unable to list properties for window: 23068600
   at: push_error (core/variant/variant_utility.cpp:905)
7306 [INFO] [PerformanceManager] :0: Loaded performance profile:  Software Inc.

That maybe unrelated to OP (ie. related to the game Software Inc.)

---

CS2 is updating atm, another hour or so before I can test any chimera-session options.

There isnt anything else related to the OP in any of the chimera-session option ..-stdout.log files. But there maybe something in the old ~/.gamescope-stdout.log (the current / new one is empty):

wlserver: [xwayland/server.c:108] Starting Xwayland on :0
wlserver: [xwayland/server.c:108] Starting Xwayland on :1
(EE)(EE) could not connect to wayland server
could not connect to wayland server

thats at the end of the file. Since booting this 2nd time I have not tried any chimera-session options apart from desktop, so I presume that is from the previous boot, and I also presume that in order for either the steam or steam-plus options to work (get into a graphical state on TTY7) that the Wayland backend needs to be up and running. I also presume that currently (with desktop option) that the Wayland backend is working.

ATM I am just guessing as to both the desktop and the desktop Steam App running, that one or both having loaded allows a future change to steam and / or steam-plus to function correctly.

So after the CS2 dowload is complete, I will try one of them. But I will set it back to desktop before i try a reboot.

[paulwratt]

OK, so now steam-plus works, but without mouse click functionality (as mentioned before). I am gonna set it back to desktop and reboot to see what happens. Note that ~/.gamescope-stdout.log now contains content.

So it does boot back to the desktop, I ran the desktop Steam App (no app update this time), shut that down and changed to chimera-session steam, and the last line in ~/.steam-stdout.log might explain why the mouse moves but interaction with the Steamdeck App does not work :

sh: line 1: /usr/bin/steamos-polkit-helpers/jupiter-doc-updater: No such file or directory

Note that keyboard interaction with the SteamDeck App does work . Interestingly ~/.steam-plus-stdout.log now has 2 addition lines at the end (in addition to the previously mentioned push_error from "variant", but no reference to the "Software inc.", so maybe that is relevant to OP). 1st new line is exactly the same as above, 2nd new line (last line in log file) is:

jq: error (at <stdin>:4): Cannot index string "created_at"

BTW the SteamDeck App is (same in all logs, after successful GUI start) steamdeck_stable client beta 1705108172

[paulwratt]

So a quick analysis would say, with ChimeraOS v45: 1) booting with any SteamDeck App causes Wayland backend to fail 2) After booting to desktop, Desktop Steam App must be run before any switch to SteamDeck App is successful 3) after successful SteamDeck App GUI switch, loading the mouse interaction layer fails

If other people with SteamDeck type systems (incl. the handheld clones) are not having this OP problem (text screen, cursor, no GUI), then there is some parts either missing or detected wrongly when compared to previous versions of ChimeraOS (44-1 and previous) - like I said previously, basically my system is a SteamDeck in a regular PC case, specs-wise.

---

I would say that one difference between booting the desktop and steam (or steam-plus) GUI is something to do with the Wayland detection or startup (or both, ie startup detection ).

Another difference , it seems something was removed from the "Jupiter" mouse interaction layer ,ie a script or binary was accidentally left off the BTRFS IMG. This would make sense because the handhelds and clones dont use a mouse, so you would not notice it failing.

Without knowing exactly what chimera-session is doing differently between desktop and SteamDeck App startup, I cant see me being able to iscolate things further (ie tracking down the Wayland startup detection problem when booting with SteamDeck App GUI on non-handhelds).

NOTE: after starting a chimera-session desktop running the Desktop Steam App, shutting that down and switching to either steam or steam-plus session, running any games (hitting 'enter' key on "play") I am able to use the mouse properly in game , BUT, I dont have any interaction with the keyboard overlay (makes sense, should be the same interaction as the SteamDeck App).

QUESTION: is it possible that some of these issues are actually related to the kernel version (v45 has 6.6.10 an v44-1 has 6.5.6)