Troubleshooting on SteamOS
- Troubleshooting on SteamOS
- Basic Troubleshooting
- Have you tried restarting?
- Is everything up to date?
- Do you have the correct BIOS or ROM file types?
- Performance or audio quality unexpectedly bad?
- Are you playing in Desktop Mode?
- Are your ROMs or BIOS valid?
- Path not writable?
- Game unexpectedly muted or missing audio?
- Have you tried resetting the emulator or tool through EmuDeck?
- Have you checked out the various emulator and tool pages?
- If you are using an external controller, have you re-arranged the controller order?
- Are you missing a CUE file?
- ROM not launching? Does your ROM have a special character in the name?
- Did you turn on Proton?
- Is the Gamescope Flatpak installed?
- Advanced Troubleshooting
- Logs
- Basic Troubleshooting
Basic Troubleshooting
Have you tried restarting?
The classic IT solution, works more often than you think.
Do note that switching between Desktop Mode and Game Mode is not a restart. Properly restart your device and see if the issue is resolved.
Is everything up to date?
It is recommended you keep emulators up to date. Update Flatpaks through Discover, AppImages/Binaries through the emulator's self-updater or through EmuDeck, and Windows Executables through EmuDeck.
It is recommended you monitor and use the Discover store to update any system libraries as well. Not updating these system libraries can cause Flatpak emulators to stop working.
For more information on updating and which emulators are Flatpaks, AppImages, Binaries, and Windows Executables, visit the Updating page.
Notably, not updating a system library recently caused RetroArch to suddenly stop working. Read RetroArch does not work anymore - April 30th, 2023 for more information.
Do you have the correct BIOS or ROM file types?
Visit the Cheat Sheet to learn which BIOS and ROM file types you need.
In some cases, .7z
and .zip
are not correct file formats.
Performance or audio quality unexpectedly bad?
There may be a number of reasons for this, but your first debugging tool should be to ensure that the Framerate limit
is off and that the Refresh Rate
is set to 60.
To find these options:
- In Game Mode, press the QAM (
...
button)- You may need to open the game first to see if you created a per-game profile
- Press the
Battery
icon - Select
Advanced View
- Scroll down and set te
Framerate Limit
toOff
andRefresh Rate
to 60
These are the recommended settings for emulated games. If you would like to change these settings, use the Use per-game profile
toggle. This toggle will only apply these settings for the game currently open.
Are you playing in Desktop Mode?
Generally, it is recommended to use Game Mode to play your ROMs. However, if you are in Desktop Mode, make sure to hold the start button for 3 seconds to switch your controller configurations to gamepad configurations.
With gamepad configurations enabled, your controls will work and you may also use combo hotkeys to exit out of a game.
Are your ROMs or BIOS valid?
Do you have a good ROM or BIOS dump? Corrupt, incomplete, or incorrect ROMs or BIOS can be a common reason why your game does not work. Transferring between two systems can be one reason for incomplete ROMs. If your ROM works on another machine, that does not mean it will work on the Steam Deck if the transfer was incomplete.
Read How to Verify ROMs to learn how to verify your ROMs and BIOS.
If your ROM is not valid and you have ensured that it was transferred correctly, you may need to re-dump. You can find dumping guides on the various emulator websites.
A couple of good websites to get you started:
- https://dumping.guide/start
- https://wiki.no-intro.org/index.php?title=Dumping_Guides
- http://wiki.redump.org/index.php?title=Dumping_Guides
- https://3ds.hacks.guide/
- https://cemu.cfw.guide/using-dumpling.html
- https://yuzu-emu.org/help/quickstart/
Path not writable?
If you are seeing an error message that states your path is not writable, this typically means that you have a space in your SD Card or external drive name.
To fix this issue:
- Open the
KDE Partition Manager
in Desktop Mode- You may need to set a sudo password first. To do so, open
Konsole
, typepasswd
, and enter a password. It will not be visible for security reasons. After pressing enter, you will be prompted to type it again to confirm
- You may need to set a sudo password first. To do so, open
- Locate your SD Card or external drive and right click, click
Unmount
- Click
Properties
- In the
Label
box, give your SD Card or external drive a name without a space - Click
OK
- Locate your SD Card or external drive and right click, click
Mount
- Re-run EmuDeck and your SD Card or external drive will be writable
Game unexpectedly muted or missing audio?
Sometimes, games may accidentally mute themselves with no discernible reason. Fortunately, the fix is easy.
- In Desktop Mode, open the emulator you use to launch the ROM
- For example, if your ROM is a PlayStation 2 game, open PCSX2
- Open your ROM
- If the emulator launched in full screen, hold
R1
and press theSelect
button until you see the desktop or taskbar - Click the
Speaker
icon in your taskbar - Click the
Applications
tab - Click the
Speaker
icon below the application name to unmute the application
Have you tried resetting the emulator or tool through EmuDeck?
Sometimes after installing EmuDeck, you may notice an emulator's configurations were not set properly or you tweaked something on accident and you do not remember the default settings.
You may reset an emulator's configurations in the Manage Emulators
page.
Tutorial
- Open EmuDeck on your desktop.
- Click the
Manage Emulators
button. - Select which emulator configurations you would like to reset in the drop-down menu.
- Click
Reset configuration
, wait a moment. - Your selected emulator has been reset.
Have you checked out the various emulator and tool pages?
The wiki has a separate page for each emulator and tool installed by EmuDeck. You can find the emulator pages grouped under their company name on the sidebar. The tool pages can be found under the Tools
section. Each emulator and tool page has various sections that may go into detail on your question.
Don't forget, if a page is missing something, you may also contribute to the wiki. Learn how by visiting the How to Contribute page.
If you are using an external controller, have you re-arranged the controller order?
Read the How to Re-Arrange the Controller Order section on the External Controllers page to learn how.
Are you missing a CUE file?
See How to Create CUE Files for more information.
ROM not launching? Does your ROM have a special character in the name?
There may be a couple of reasons for this. One blanket solution is to ensure your ROM does not have any special characters in the name.
Special characters may include apostrophes, pluses, or characters with acccents.
Here are a few examples:
é
inPokémon
'
inThe Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
+
and'
inSuper Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury
If your ROM has a special character, rename the file itself and re-run Steam ROM Manager after renaming your ROMs.
How to Remove Special Characters
Did you turn on Proton?
There is outdated info on the internet that indicates you need to set Proton on games added by Steam ROM Manager to Steam. Turning on Proton is not necessary. DO NOT set Proton Compatibity on any emulated games. Do NOT set STEAM_COMPAT_MOUNTS
in parameters.
Do not open the Compatibility
screen in Game Mode
. Do not touch any of the settings on the Compatibility
screen in Game Mode
. This only applies for emulated games.
Using Cemu as an example:
Is the Gamescope Flatpak installed?
The Gamescope Flatpak can cause crashes with the various Flatpak emulators installed by EmuDeck. Even if you do not recall installing it, it is recommended you double check.
In Desktop Mode, open Konsole, and type flatpak list
. See if you can find an entry titled org.freedesktop.Platform.VulkanLayer.gamescope
. If you see it in the list, you have the Gamescope Flatpak installed.
To uninstall, in Konsole, type flatpak remove org.freedesktop.Platform.VulkanLayer.gamescope
and press enter to uninstall the Gamescope Flatpak.
If you do not have it installed, you may try entering this command in case you accidentally overlooked it in the flatpak list
command. If you do not have it installed, this command will return a generic error message.
Advanced Troubleshooting
How to Test Steam ROM Manager Shortcuts
- In Desktop Mode, open Steam
- Locate the game in question, click the
Gear
icon - Click
Properties
- Copy the
Target
box. If theLaunch Options
box contains text, copy theLaunch Options
box as well - In the bottom left of the taskbar, click the
Applications Launcher
(Steam icon on a Steam Deck) and openKonsole
or a terminal of your choice - In Konsole, right click anywhere, click
Paste
- After clicking paste, you will receive some output that you can Google. If you are requesting support, you may provide a screenshot of this window or copy and paste the output
Logs
Still stuck?
If none of the troubleshooting sections above worked for you, gather photos and a log so you can request support in EmuDeck's Discord or Reddit.
If you do not have an easy way of gathering photos, take a few photos with your phone. As long as the information can be captured, the quality of the photo does not matter!
How to get the EmuDeck Log
If you have been sent this link on Discord, follow the below steps to locate a log so you may share it with the person you are chatting with on Discord. These logs will allow the person to investigate the issue in further detail.
Method 1
- In
Desktop Mode
, open the EmuDeck application - Click
Fetch Log File
- Share the URL with the person providing you support
Method 2
- Open
$HOME/emudeck/logs
- On a Steam Deck, this path may be
/home/deck/emudeck/logs
- On a Steam Deck, this path may be
- Right click
emudeckSetup.log
, clickShare --> Pastebin...
- It may appear blank, you can see the full log by clicking the
raw
button on the Pastebin page
- It may appear blank, you can see the full log by clicking the
- Share the Pastebin URL with the person providing you support
- If you do not have a way of sharing URLs easily, share the alphanumerical string at the end of the URL with the person providing you support
- You may need to type this manually, however the alphanumerical string is fairly short
- If you do not have a way of sharing URLs easily, share the alphanumerical string at the end of the URL with the person providing you support
How to get the EmuDeck AppImage Log
If you have been sent this link on Discord, follow the below steps to locate a log so you may share it with the person you are chatting with on Discord. These logs will allow the person to investigate the issue in further detail.
- Open
$HOME/emudeck/logs
- On a Steam Deck, this path may be
/home/deck/emudeck/logs
- On a Steam Deck, this path may be
- Right click
emudeckApp.log
, clickShare --> Pastebin...
- It may appear blank, you can see the full log by clicking the
raw
button on the Pastebin page
- It may appear blank, you can see the full log by clicking the
- Share the Pastebin URL with the person providing you support
- If you do not have a way of sharing URLs easily, share the alphanumerical string at the end of the URL with the person providing you support
- You may need to type this manually, however the alphanumerical string is fairly short
- If you do not have a way of sharing URLs easily, share the alphanumerical string at the end of the URL with the person providing you support