issues with Steam Deck recovery image

[nex86]

Today I had to reimage my Steam Deck with the latest recovery image at the time writing this (steamdeck-recovery-4.img) I noticed following issues that need to be addressed.

• When booting the image from USB for the first time, the icons on the desktop are not correctly displayed, the KDE appearance settings seem not to be loaded correctly, but the biggest issue is that the reimaging script does not function correctly, sometimes it seems to freeze at a dd process or getting spammed with error message popups appear that a certain service has crashed and need to be restarted. These popped up from the bottom right corner.

A reboot before starting the reimaging process helped with these issues.

• First time assistant and setup after reimaging gets stuck at "starting update download" fixing this required pressing the help button and going back, but then gets stuck into an "installing..." loop and the processbar endlessly repeats over and over.. I only helped myself into manually restarting the deck, then continuing the setup process.

The thing is.. I cannot tell if the update installation process actually successfully finished or not, but the Deck seems to function normally.

That was all so far, I hope the team can look into this.

[TTimo]

Hello @nex86,

While the recovery image could do with an update, the symptoms you describe more likely suggest a flaky installation media (e.g. USB stick).

[nex86]

@TTimo

thats what I thought first, but I tried several usb sticks, incl a brand new one from sandisk and theyre all showing the same symptomps. I have several sticks with direct USB-C connectors and some regular USB-A that connect with an adapter, and any data corruption coming from the drive shouldn't be the case.

[maxengel]

I've experienced the same problems as well across different media and when using Etcher and Rufus on macOS, Linux, and Windows.

[TTimo]

Could be useful to look at the full journal output from performing the installation out of the USB stick.

[thecosmonad]

Hi @TTimo, I've actually bumped into some of these issues myself, on my unit the latest recovery image is partially broken: controls are not working at all (only the touchscreen) and does get stuck on downloading updates, no matter how much I wait.

A newer image is absolutely necessary, it has to be released to the public.

Meanwhile, for anybody interested, I managed to create an up-to-date recovery using the latest stable image available here https://steamdeck-images.steamos.cloud/steamdeck/. Build 20221005.1 is 3.2.2.

• Download and burn the official recovery, once booted open up a terminal and wipe the whole SSD filesystem using sudo wipefs -a /dev/nvme0n1, then power off the Deck. This is a critical step, otherwise the custom image will mount partitions from the SSD later on as it is not configured to be used as a recovery.
• Download the image archive (zip or zst, whatever you do prefer).
• Copy the SteamOS recovery tools from the official recovery image (the scripts are in /home/deck/tools and desktop shortcuts in /home/deck/Desktop) to your PC.
• Write the 20221005.1 image to a USB drive and boot the Deck using it, this is crucial as it will create the default deck user onto the drive itself.
• Once booted, go through the setup and once you get to the Sign In step power off the Deck and remove the USB drive.
• Connect the USB drive back to your PC and copy both the recovery tools and desktop shortcuts to the deck user home, mimicking the official recovery.
• Plug the USB back in the Deck and you'll end up again at the Sign In step, switch to desktop mode here then open up a terminal and set a password for the deck user using passwd, then close the terminal (cancel any updates popping up for the Steam client, they're not necessary).
• You'll see the shortcuts for the recovery tools on the desktop. Run the reimage one and type in the password you've previously set for the deck user (if you'd like to skip the password prompts, edit the sudoers file to allow the deck user running privileged stuff without passwords).
• Once the reimage process is done, power everything off, do not reboot (again partition mounting issues).
• Remove the USB drive and boot the Deck normally. Welcome to a factory SteamOS 3.2.2 install.

I'm no expert in creating Linux images, I guess it is definitely possible to streamline the workflow by having the deck user already available with the recovery tools. Maybe we could come up with a script that downloads the image we'd like then modifies it to turn it inot a recovery one.

[pipebom20]

This happened to me as well as work around for the install update error issue was to change my WIFI from 5ghz to 2.4

[maxengel]

I also was able to get this working by using an old router running 802.11n on a 2.4 GHz network. I also could replicate that this fixed the issue for me.

[thecosmonad]

@pipebom20 @maxengel interesting, that didn't work for me. Guess it could be related to some 802.11n settings I should change.

@TTimo I came up with a better solution that involves loop devices. Sadly I not own the Deck anymore as I was tired of dealing with this mess, maybe I'll buy it again later on. For the following, I highly suggest using recovery images 1 or 2, as the third uses that dangerous -T largefile option in its scripts and the fourth does not behave correctly on some units.

• Burn the official recovery image to a USB drive and download the latest stable image available here https://steamdeck-images.steamos.cloud/steamdeck/. Build 20221005.1 is 3.2.2.
• Boot the Deck using the USB drive and wait for the live image to boot. Once you're in, power off the Deck.
• Plug the USB back into your PC and access the home partition (if not mounted automatically it's the fifth one, /dev/sdX5).
• Go into the deck user home folder and copy steamdeck-20221005.1-snapshot.img there (decompress it first, via command line you can use unzip or zstd depending on the flavour of the image you've downloaded).
• Edit the repair_device.sh script under the tools folder, change line 206 to rootdevice="/dev/loop0p3".
• Detach the USB and boot the Deck again from it. Once in, open up a terminal and mount the steamdeck-20221005.1-snapshot.img image as a read-only loop device using sudo losetup -Pfr steamdeck-20221005.1-snapshot.img. A quick lsblk should show you if it was correctly mounted (if the loop device is not /dev/loop0 remember to edit repair_script.sh accordingly, e.g. if the loop device for whatever reason is /dev/loop2, then line 206 becomes rootdevice="/dev/loop2p3").
• Run the reimage device script from the desktop. Once done, do not reboot, power off the Deck and unplug the USB drive.
• Boot it up and you'll find yourself in a fresh factory SteamOS 3.2.2 install.

The idea of loop devices is far easier than the previous one and allows for storing multiple stable images within the USB recovery. You can choose which one to write when mounting it with losetup.

[abrakhim]

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/issues/883#issuecomment-1336125126

Dude, you just made my day. Serious thanks.

I was replacing the NVMe right before even turning the deck on the first time. Then, after reimaging the new disk it show the update error, no matter 2.4, 5G or wired Network. I was that close to just fiddle it open again and replace the original disk. Followed your instructions, booted up, all green. WhhhaaaWhaaaWeeeeWhaaaaaa!

[smaTc]

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/issues/883#issuecomment-1336125126

can confirm this works. We might wanna sticky this somewhere or build an automated script for this case :D

[baldsealion]

Valve, it's time to wake up and update your image.

[baldsealion]

any day now...

[cstrahan]

I would like to report the same. After checking Reddit, YouTube, etc, and seeing everyone say swapping the SSD is a trivial matter, I decided to give it a go.

When re-imaging, the installer would loop endlessly, from counting down from “3 minutes remaining…”, back to just “Installing…”, back and forth. I let it run for an hour before giving up.

Also, as reported above, the thumb sticks and touch pads didn’t work while in the recovery image — only the touch screen.

I followed the instructions in https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/issues/883#issuecomment-1336125126 (thanks!) and had no problems with installation.

Might be about time for a new recovery image :)

[belse-de]

I had a similar issue after re-image using steamdeck-recovery-4.img and found my deck as well stuck at the installing update step. And was to lazy to follow https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/issues/883#issuecomment-1336125126 For me, a solution I found on reddit, helped me: Reddit Link

Steps to break the update loop:

1. force shutdown by holding the power button
2. enter boot-select-menu by pressing volume-down + power button until you hear the chime
3. select the option that points to the internal SSD but does NOT mention Steam OS
4. Proceed with system setup
5. DONE

I had no issues since.

[AncerHaides]

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/issues/883#issuecomment-1712938163

Thank you. This is easy but my problem was solved.

[ingramli]

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/issues/883#issuecomment-1336125126

Almost one year already, but I would like to ask, how did you manage to put the decompressed steamdeck-20221005.1-snapshot.img to the home folder? I mean, the partition of rootfs was 5GB, with free space around 2.37GB, the decompressed img was 7.21GB, there is no way it will fit unless you resize the partiton, please kindly advise the detailed steps to perform, thank you.