Wi-Fi instability

[michal-grzelak]

Originally listed in https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/issues/1253#issuecomment-1831410159.

I have TP-Link AX50 router and disabled 160Mhz to be able to connect to the network on the Steam Deck. And while I was able to connect to either 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz network with 160Mhz disabled, my connection was really unstable.

What I mean by unstable? I was losing connection every 10-20s for the duration of 20-60s and this cycle would go indefinitely (time random each time). By losing connection I don't mean the device would disconnect from the Wi-Fi network, but that even though the device was connected, it appeared as if connection was frozen during that time.

How it looked like? When downloading a game in Steam, it would download for said 10-20s and then stop downloading for 20-60s, then Steam would resume the download and so on. The game would download eventually, but it's pain. The download speeds were heavily severed too, as reported by other users. In desktop mode the timeouts were longer and working periods shorter. In desktop mode I couldn't download anything as ALL downloads would timeout. When going into "Discover" app, I would get a timeout loading app list. When it somehow loaded I couldn't download any app due to inevitable timeout. I tried to download Firefox and the download timeout all the time (I tried ~30 times).

Things I tried:

• disable 160Mhz in router - it allowed connecting to the network
• reboot SD
• factory reset of SD
• disable Wi-Fi power management in SD dev settings

None of the steps helped with instability. What worked though, I was able to get a stable connection when I created a hotspot on my phone. However, I do not treat it as a fix because I have limited data I can use and besides it's not a fix. But it's worth noting that it worked stable on a hotspot.

Steam Deck information:

• device: SD OLED
• Steam client version: 20231122.1
• SteamOS version: 3.5.7
• Opted into Steam client beta?: No
• Opted into SteamOS beta?: No
• Have you checked for updates in Settings > System?: Yes

It is important to note that ALL my other devices are operating normally and do not have such behavior. They still have access to the internet during the timeout period on Steam Deck.

Also @lostgoat, I would like some sort of confirmation whether it's a software issue you can replicate or it's hardware. If it's hardware then it probably never be fixed, so it won't work with my router probably and I won't bother.

Sample photo of a cycle in Steam (this go on and on as described above):

[Herro95]

Perhaps someone can write a plugin for Decky so that, for example, the WLAN card is addressed every 5 minutes in the background so that this bug does not occur. You can certainly call up the wireless settings with a command line or search for WLAN networks. Maybe that works..

[Sweetcheezus]

Still no acknowledgement from Valve regarding this is crazy. This should not be going on for this long with a $600-700 device.

[safijari]

Perhaps someone can write a plugin for Decky so that, for example, the WLAN card is addressed every 5 minutes in the background so that this bug does not occur. You can certainly call up the wireless settings with a command line or search for WLAN networks. Maybe that works..

What does this mean? Is there a workaround that doesn't involve toggling the wifi? Can you give me details.

I write Decky plugins (e.g. Recorder, Reshadeck) I could whip something up pretty quick if that's a solution.

[Herro95]

Perhaps someone can write a plugin for Decky so that, for example, the WLAN card is addressed every 5 minutes in the background so that this bug does not occur. You can certainly call up the wireless settings with a command line or search for WLAN networks. Maybe that works..

What does this mean? Is there a workaround that doesn't involve toggling the wifi? Can you give me details.

I write Decky plugins (e.g. Recorder, Reshadeck) I could whip something up pretty quick if that's a solution.

That would be great :-) We suspect that moonlight ensures that the wifi card is put into a kind of power saving mode and when you call up the WLAN or Bluetooth settings under Steam OS, it is woken up again (lagging is gone). You don't have to actively switch WLAN off and on, that's the crazy thing. Perhaps Steam OS does not correctly recognize that an active application requires full Wifi performance and throttles it down.

[Black-Seraph]

@Herro95 @safijari Opening the BT or WiFi settings menu issues a scan command to the card, these are usually detrimental to throughput / latency and somewhat time intensive, but do temporarily disable any and all power-savings and up the TX power for the sake of improving scan results.

If you want to simulate this programmatically just issue a console scan command: iw wlan0 scan

Looking forward to that experimental Decky plugin. PS. Root required.

[AndrewJRichardson]

Experienced this on two different routers now. Happens on both 5Ghz and 6Ghz.

I don't think its limited to Moonlight. I find it happens even when downloading a game from Steam.

[deedeeped]

I’d also love to see if this hypothetical plugin would assist with streaming from Chiaki4Deck. I always have to toggle WiFi on and off to get a solid stream going. Once I do this after the initial disconnection, everything is great, though.

[tygeezy]

Just came here to report I have the same exact issues with the degrading wifi performance that dramatically affects streaming with moonlight and even downloading games. Even still the wifi performance is just bad on the deck oled. I can get max 180 mbit out of my deck oled, but I can pull 600 + mbit using iPerf 3 testing with my iPhone.

[late-lattee]

Just came here to report I have the same exact issues with the degrading wifi performance that dramatically affects streaming with moonlight and even downloading games. Even still the wifi performance is just bad on the deck oled. I can get max 180 mbit out of my deck oled, but I can pull 600 + mbit using iPerf 3 testing with my iPhone.

Quick question: did you use iperf3 on deck OLED as well? or did you compare iperf3 results with iPhone to another scenario on deck OLED?

[tygeezy]

No, just download speed of games. My iperf3 tests were with my iPhone as the client. I guess I can try and get iPerf 3 working on the deck. The iPhone app is really easy to setup.

[dontpokethebear3893]

Just came here to report I have the same exact issues with the degrading wifi performance that dramatically affects streaming with moonlight and even downloading games. Even still the wifi performance is just bad on the deck oled. I can get max 180 mbit out of my deck oled, but I can pull 600 + mbit using iPerf 3 testing with my iPhone.

Same exact for me. I get gigabyte download speeds from 6e wifi from my other devices. Steam deck OLED only ever has 2/3 wifi bar strength and downloads max out at 150mbps. I have already tried disabling wifi power savings to no avail. I really wish this was fixed.

[AndrewJRichardson]

Seeing the same. My downloads and network transfers from Steam cap out at about 320Mbps when on 5ghz or 6ghz, usually settle at around 250Mbps. Tried it with two different routers, same results. Same in both desktop and gaming mode.

Running a speedtest in a browser has it hitting 700-800Mbps.

Double checked to make sure none of the speed limiting features of Steam are enabled.

[darrenhaken]

Perhaps someone can write a plugin for Decky so that, for example, the WLAN card is addressed every 5 minutes in the background so that this bug does not occur. You can certainly call up the wireless settings with a command line or search for WLAN networks. Maybe that works..

What does this mean? Is there a workaround that doesn't involve toggling the wifi? Can you give me details.

I write Decky plugins (e.g. Recorder, Reshadeck) I could whip something up pretty quick if that's a solution.

Are you working on a Decky plugin, then?

[safijari]

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/issues/1256#issuecomment-2003185031

No. The operation specified (scan) tanks the wifi performance for a good 10 seconds so it's not useful to have it be running constantly. It also did not fix the issue for me the few times I've tried it.

[nick-delirium]

Welp, got the issue as well

OLED deck (stable latest) is refusing to connect to 5Ghz network while working fine with 2.4ghz, I noticed that it happens after you download ~10-20gb of anything over 5ghz. Restarting the router helps until you start downloading anything big.

For comparison, I have LCD model (stable latest as well) in my family as well and it never happens for it (well, to be honest it happened ONCE 3+ years ago, but it's a preorder model from first batches and I never faced that issue again)

[late-lattee]

Welp, got the issue as well

OLED deck (stable latest) is refusing to connect to 5Ghz network while working fine with 2.4ghz, I noticed that it happens after you download ~10-20gb of anything over 5ghz. Restarting the router helps until you start downloading anything big.

For comparison, I have LCD model (stable latest as well) in my family as well and it never happens for it (well, to be honest it happened ONCE 3+ years ago, but it's a preorder model from first batches and I never faced that issue again)

Oh, what router are you using? You may want to file a support ticket with them...

[Black-Seraph]

Try this:

sudo mv /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/wifi_backend.conf /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/wifi_backend.conf.bak

Then reboot and report back.

[ScraggyMcRaggy]

Try this:

sudo mv /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/wifi_backend.conf /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/wifi_backend.conf.bak

Then reboot and report back.

No changes from what I can tell. How would I revert back?

[Black-Seraph]

No changes from what I can tell. How would I revert back?

By renaming the file back to it's original file name.

Just shave off the .bak extension.

sudo mv /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/wifi_backend.conf.bak /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/wifi_backend.conf

[SproedKartoffelChip]

Throwing a fix out there for my LCD Deck that's had wifi instability since I got it back in August 2022.

I've got a set of Airties4920 wifi 5 mesh extenders, turning OFF "Wifi steering" immediately halted the repeated disconnecting and reconnecting in desktop mode and I've had zero wifi issues in game mode nor desktop mode ever since. I want to note that even connecting to my Galaxy S21 Ultra's 2.4/5 ghz hotspot and creating a secondary SSID on the extender exclusively serving 5 ghz both yielded instability.

The only other solution I had up until now was creating an SSID on the extender serving 2.4 ghz only.

It's especially odd because this was happening while I was sitting in the same room as the extender just 1-2 meters away from it, so there really shouldn't be any need for it to switch to the extender in the other room.

[zacbre]

Can confirm this is still happening on the preview branch as of 4/4/2024. I powered on my steam deck from standby, and I tried to download a game from the heroic client and was met with ~1MB/s speeds. The second I enabled airplane mode and disabled airplane mode, my download started hitting 65MB/s+. This happens in both desktop and game mode. The same kind of thing happens when streaming games via moonlight. It will stutter after a few minutes really badly if woken from standby. The second that I enable/disable airplane mode or reboot, it works great until the next standby.

[jonginator]

This bug shows itself on every single streaming I’ve tested (chiaki4deck, xcloud, GeForce now, moonlight/sunshine).

The easiest way around it is as soon as the stutter occurs, hit the menu button and scroll through the menu past WiFi and Bluetooth.

This seems to re-awaken the WiFi chip from low power settings.

Then exit the menu and the stutter will go away.

I hope Valve fixes this. Have they acknowledged the issue?

[savdagod]

I am also having the same issue as the two posters above me. Turning WiFi on/off fixes it for as long as I will be streaming (does this using Moonlight and previously Steam In-Home Streaming). It’s definitely annoying to have to do every time and the stutter can really throw you off if you’re mid boss fight or something. Hopefully there’s a fix on the way.

[appledoc1]

Yeah also happens for me consistently on my OLED 1tb deck, after waking up the deck and using Moonlight for 10 minutes. Navigating to the wifi menu solution does seem to resolve it. Also sometimes the download speed degrades to under 1mb, which requires restarting the Deck or disabling Wifi for a few seconds in order to resolve. Running on a 5ghz network in the same room. Never had this issue with the LCD deck.

[peterwilli]

I just got my steamdeck oled 1tb and it has similar wifi issues. I thought it was my router so I reset it, I'm literally 2 meters away from the next access point and any device has no problems pulling 50mb/s except the steam deck which sits at 2mb/s if I'm lucky. I'm still investigating.

Downloading Cyberpunk is going to take more than a nights sleep 😆

Edit: after trying this fix: https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/11yjs1s/very_slow_download_speeds_on_the_steam_deck_even/jm1irbr/

I noticed not much improvement, but the downloads still passed relatively quickly. It turns out that my GOG client (heroic launcher) does not show the accurate download speed! (See screenshot below):

I now switched to Lutris and it is fine

[Skillossus]

Just commenting to say that I have the exact same issue with two unifi 802.11ac access points and a 1tb steam deck OLED.

Toggling the WiFi seems to resolve it and it's reproducible nearly 100% of the time when waking from sleep.

This is the fifth most commented on issue in their issue tracker. Perhaps I missed it but I don't see any response from Valve here? What gives?

[asktree]

I'm also getting this issue, OLED. Previously had full internet speeds (>100Mbps ?), now 370kbps as measured by fast.com. Restarting router put me up to 1Mbps. All other devices in home get >100Mbps.

edit: solution for me: In my case disabling 2.4ghz in my router solved the issue and I'm seeing 330Mbps on the Deck. When I had only 2.4ghz I was getting 1Mbps on all devices. So somehow other devices are choosing the faster frequency and the Deck was not (but earlier it was).

[AlchemicSoul]

I get this problem daily on the OLED. I have tried everything humanly conceivable including different PC, different Deck, different router/network, etc.

The only way to reliably even temporarily fix this is to reboot the wifi module on the Deck. I tried every home networking trick possible from basic channel fudgery to working with SQM, etc. Spent three days learning niche tricks in OpenWRT trying to find some work around.

On the plus side, I now feel far more confident about home networking but yeah, no fix other than the toggle.

[itpropro]

I have many devices in my network relying on 2.4 Ghz, so disabling is not an option. Please provide a fix for this Valve...

[absamue]

I want to highlight this comment from a different issue: Deck OLED on wifi6 routers goes into low power mode when streaming

After creating the conf file and restarting I have been able to stream over wifi in moonlight without any stuttering issues, including after wake from sleep. Even increasing the bitrate higher than I attempted to before is a stable experience.

Using Stable updates channel, wifi 5 5ghz.

[HauieT]

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/issues/1256#issuecomment-2183161354

Didn’t work for me unfortunately

[absamue]

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/issues/1256#issuecomment-2185154781

Did you restart the deck after creating the file? This will not have any effect until NetworkManager is restarted to pick up the change.

[HauieT]

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/issues/1256#issuecomment-2186637765

Yup, restarted both with sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager and restarting the deck itself. But didn’t help. May I ask what your network setup is. Router or AP model? When you run iwconfig wlan0 in konsole, does it say on or off in Power management?

[absamue]

Replying to #1256 (comment)

Yup, restarted both with sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager and restarting the deck itself. But didn’t help. May I ask what your network setup is. Router or AP model? When you run iwconfig wlan0 in konsole, does it say on or off in Power management?

A single Google Wifi Point (no mesh setup).

And power management is off: (deck@steamdeck ~)$ iwconfig wlan0 wlan0 IEEE 802.11 ESSID:"" Mode:Managed Frequency:5.745 GHz Access Point: 28:BD:89:1F:BE:01 Bit Rate=866.7 Mb/s Tx-Power=16 dBm Retry short limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off Power Management:off Link Quality=70/70 Signal level=-36 dBm Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:49 Missed beacon:0