Can't see PC/Steam Deck

[niklasalkin]

I'm trying to connect my Windows 11 PC to Steam Deck to throw over some files, but I only get "There are no other computers found on your network" on the PC, and the Steam Deck also sees nothing. I've tried changing the group code but to no avail. What am I missing?

[swiszczoo]

Hi! Many things can go wrong with networking.

First of all, go to Winpinator settings and open Connection tab. Change the Network interface to use from Automatic to something that looks like your Ethernet or Wi-Fi card (depending on type of connection you have with your LAN). Your IP address would probably look like 192.168.*.* but not 192.168.56.1. See my comment on #11.

You can also check if Windows Defender Firewall settings are ok. Enter Allow apps to communicate through Windows Defender Firewall into the search box on the task bar. Check if both checkboxes next to Winpinator are checked. If they're not, click on Change settings.

If that doesn't help, ensure that Warpinator is not running on your Steam Deck, open Terminal, type warpinator --debug and hit Enter. Then start Winpinator. Look at the wall of log messages that just appeared on your Steam Deck and try to find your Windows hostname (part after the @ character on the status bar). Press the refresh button several times. If you see your hostname, it means that your Steam Deck receives communication from Windows. If you see something like Decryption failed. Ciphertext failed verification, it means that group codes don't match.

You can also check if Windows can connect to your Steam Deck by opening an internet browser and entering <Steam Deck's IP>:42000 into the address bar. You can find that IP in the right bottom corner of Warpinator window. So if your IP is 192.168.1.30, type 192.168.1.30:42000 and hit Enter. If you see "Connection refused" or circle on the browser tab keeps spinning, it probably means that Windows can't access your Steam Deck. If you see something like "Empty response" or "Invalid HTTP response", it means that Windows is able to communicate with your Steam Deck. I assume you didn't tinker with port settings on your Deck.

If none of this helps, post Warpinator logs from Steam Deck here. Maybe that will clarify what's going wrong.

Good luck!

[ergonaught]

Having the very same problem. Ports are all reachable to/from all the devices, but Winpinator claims nothing is available on the network, and all the Linux clients claim timeouts as above trying to complete negotiation with Winpinator.

[gsabater]

Hello @ergonaught and @niklasalkin My deck arrived today and I had the same problem. What did the trick for me was disabling the windows firewall on my private network on windows

[brietman]

No effect, I even put down my Routers Firewall. It keeps saying "Data Unavailable" and Host Unreachable and goes to "Offline" . If this program should file sharing over a network easy, well it doesn't at least not between Windows 11 and a Steam Deck.

I tried also all the solutions above, and from this Reddit

I guess I will stay at transferring my files to my NAS over SMB and then copying to my Steam Deck...

[TheAkashicTraveller]

I got it to work following this but I also had to disable my VPN, it looks like the local passthrough system on mullvad isn't playing nice with it.

[BlackWyvern]

Elevating this.

Disabled my firewall, double checked windows firewall, and turned off my VPN. My Deck (1.17) is aware of my PC but unable to connect. My PC (1.20) is unaware of my Deck. Comodo confirms I have active connections into WinP from my Deck to my PC. Therefore: My PC is an idiot.

[DavidinCT]

Same here, been running into this starting to look for 3rd party option to transfer files to my Deck. On a network, I can stream play Steam from my PC to deck but, Winpinator will not see it.... at all, even with all the network settings listed above, or the options I saw on Reddit....

[Dolomen]

So I ran intro the same issue and believe it's because the SD has it's own firewall that is set pretty restrictive. You can find it by going to the Desktop Mode and in the System Settings under the "Network" section. The easiest method would be to disable the firewalls on both devices. I would NOT recommend leaving it in this state because as much of a PITA firewalls are, they help keep your devices safe. I also rebooted both devices after installing Winpinator/Warpinator.

First on Windows, verify your network is set to private and then disable your Windows Firewall for the Private network. Then go on the SD and disable it's firewall by unchecking the box next to enabled. Give it a moment and then launch Warpinator on both devices.

To properly set this up, I would make custom Inbound and Outbound rules on both the Windows firewall and SD firewall for both ports 42000-42001 and for both TCP and UDP just to make sure. That is what I was going to recommend until I found out I just can't get the SD firewall to allow the traffic despite the rules. I'm suspecting it's an issue with the backing "firewalld" and "Plasma" services itself though since trying to edit a custom rule hits me with a "Please restart the plasma firewall, the backend disconnected." or some other jumbled up JSON/YAML/XML crammed into a one line error output lol. I also can't change and apply the default inbound/outbound drop downs either. It sometimes looks like it applies, but navigate away from it and then back to it and you'll see what I mean. 😅 Either way, after adding the rules to the windows firewall and disabling the SD firewall, I was able to connect just fine so the issue is only on the SD side at that point.

Hope this helped.

[LokeYourC3PH]

So I ran intro the same issue and believe it's because the SD has it's own firewall that is set pretty restrictive. You can find it by going to the Desktop Mode and in the System Settings under the "Network" section. The easiest method would be to disable the firewalls on both devices. I would NOT recommend leaving it in this state because as much of a PITA firewalls are, they help keep your devices safe. I also rebooted both devices after installing Winpinator/Warpinator.

First on Windows, verify your network is set to private and then disable your Windows Firewall for the Private network. Then go on the SD and disable it's firewall by unchecking the box next to enabled. Give it a moment and then launch Warpinator on both devices.

To properly set this up, I would make custom Inbound and Outbound rules on both the Windows firewall and SD firewall for both ports 42000-42001 and for both TCP and UDP just to make sure. That is what I was going to recommend until I found out I just can't get the SD firewall to allow the traffic despite the rules. I'm suspecting it's an issue with the backing "firewalld" and "Plasma" services itself though since trying to edit a custom rule hits me with a "Please restart the plasma firewall, the backend disconnected." or some other jumbled up JSON/YAML/XML crammed into a one line error output lol. I also can't change and apply the default inbound/outbound drop downs either. It sometimes looks like it applies, but navigate away from it and then back to it and you'll see what I mean. 😅 Either way, after adding the rules to the windows firewall and disabling the SD firewall, I was able to connect just fine so the issue is only on the SD side at that point.

Hope this helped.

100% this, everyone.

It's the Steam Deck's Firewall. I had the same suspicion, but unlike the Windows Firewall, the one of the Steam Deck is very clunky to configure and so I didn't bother going any further with it. I ended up just disabling it entirely to test, and would you know, it immediately worked. As such, I'd suggest everyone to make exceptions in the Steam Deck's Firewall for the Ports you use for Warpinator/Winpinator, although on Windows, you will likely not need to do this because it is done mostly automatically (I had my Firewall enabled and I made no exceptions when just disabling the one on the Steam Deck, worked right away).

[LokeYourC3PH]

@swiszczoo Maybe you can make it so that Warpinator on the Steam Deck adds exceptions for itself to the Firewall, that way, people won't run into this anymore or pester you about it ✌️

[LokeYourC3PH]

@ Anyone who wants to fix this: Using the default Firewall interface in the Plasma/KDE Settings WON'T WORK because it constantly crashes or refuses to take your configurations or use them correctly. There is a much easier way that I found out about, which I used instead and it works perfectly fine.

• 1: Open a Terminal
• 1.1: Make yourself SuperUser via sudo su, and enter the Password of your Terminal (if you haven't done so yet, Google how to set your Terminal Password for the Steam Deck).
• 2: Enter the following commands in your Terminal:
• 2.1: Determine your active Zone by entering:

firewall-cmd --get-active-zones

It will show you the current Zone you are using. For most people, this will be "home". If not, use the one that is displayed in the coming commands (replace "home" with your Zone name, and adjust the Ports in your commands if you don't use the default ports).

• 2.2: Enter the rest of the commands:

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=home --add-service=warpinator

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=home --add-port=42000/tcp

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=home --add-port=42000/udp

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=home --add-port=42001/tcp

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=home --add-port=42001/udp

systemctl restart firewalld

• 3: Profit

Now you're done and you should never face this issue again. Enjoy!