Firmware update bricked dock - eviltoast

Updated my dock to the latest firmware today. It worked fine until I restarted my deck to try and resolve some game streaming issues. After restarting the deck, the dock no longer works. When it is first connected to power, the ethernet lights strobe then go dark. Ethernet isn’t being detected by the deck and neither is the HDMI connection, but it still passes power on to the deck. Anyone else have any issues with this after the latest update?

  • PlasticExistence@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’ve seen other reports of dock issues on 3.5.5. I myself have a problem with muted audio output that I can’t resolve outside of using the desktop mode and manually selecting the audio output I need (I have to stay in desktop mode for it to keep working).

    Sigh. I had previously taken my Deck on the road a few weeks back for the first time, and I ran into unrecoverable issues then that kept me from using it until I could get back to a computer and USB drive. Right after I reinstalled the OS, I ran into yet another bug in the UEFI firmware - do NOT choose to restore defaults on firmware 118 or you’ll lose audio and touch. The only way to recover from that was to downgrade the firmware and then upgrade again.

    I genuinely love the Steam Deck, but the number of hard-to-resolve bugs lately has been HIGH.

    If you can still roll back to the previous OS version, that should fix it for now. Hold down the [***] button during boot up and select the previous version.

    • rotopenguin@infosec.pub
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      1 year ago

      Ooh, that’s the first time I’ve heard about the … shortcut.

      (You can nuke home from there?? Yikes that’s a little too easy to get at)

      • PlasticExistence@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s because there’s an A/B partition setup to the OS, and you’re just selecting the other one that you didn’t just upgrade.

        For me that wasn’t an option as I was running preview previously, so I had actually downgraded to stable.

        • arglebargle@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          You might have wanted to say in your previous post that you were on unstable to begin with.

          I was looking at your comment and wondering why I have had zero issues when you are saying there have been all these bugs.

          Now it makes sense, but you would have a scared me away if I didn’t know better.

          • PlasticExistence@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            It doesn’t matter because others are having the same problems from a different upgrade path.

            You got lucky. Call it a win.

    • rotopenguin@infosec.pub
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      1 year ago

      One workaround for your audio problem might be to add a shortcut to Steam*, and run that in Game Mode.

      something like “pactl set-default-sink 138” should do the trick. The device name can be found in “pactl list | grep -C 1 RUNNING”. I hope the ID is stable, if not you’ll have to use the alsa_output.pci-blah-blah__sink name.

      *easiest done by “add non steam game”, check off something, okay add it, find “the something” in your games list, and change its properties.

      • PlasticExistence@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I appreciate that. I will give that a shot tonight. I was too frustrated with it yesterday to start digging for a workaround after I spent the earlier part of the day upgrading my NAS to OpenMediaVault 6 (from OMV5). I spend most of my week working on computer stuff, and I just want my “consolized” PC to work - especially when the OS is supposed to be stable.

        • rotopenguin@infosec.pub
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          1 year ago

          Wouldn’t you know it, Valve put out a new “stable” release for thanksgiving and it broke my docked audio. So I had to do the thing, too.

          • PlasticExistence@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Aaarg. That sucks. I never dealt with mine because the LE OLED model I ordered arrived. I haven’t had problems with it yet. I also upgraded to 3.5.7 BUT I’ve only played it handheld without headphones so far. Trying to get headphones to work on my OG model was what triggered the problem for me in the first place.

            I’m glad you knew how to work around it. I was just using desktop mode. I’m sure they’ll fix it.

  • Random_Character_A@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Yes. Every reboot seems like a lottery. Hdmi, hdmi audio or USB connected peripherals might not work.

    If something is missing, disconnecting dock power and deck connection for a moment and you’ll get a reroll and everything might work.

    • Kushi@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Good to know I’m not the only one. Since updating the dock, HDMI out to my TV doesn’t work from time to time. I thought it was related to the new HDR settings, but apparently not.

    • WASTECH@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      I tried that several times, but unfortunately it is 100% dead. I tried pulling power probably 10+ times, but same result every time. Ethernet strobes then goes dark, and only power pass through works.

      • Random_Character_A@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        My problems aren’t necessarily caused by the dock firmware.

        I used a cheap dongle I bought from a local supermarket a year ago to connect to my living room TV. It had worked fine in the past, but now I had to boot the deck 4 times to get clean picture and audio.

        Culprit is definitely the Steam OS update 3.5.5.

        I updated the dock firmware right after that update. It actually failed two times and it only worked after I connected the dock with wire directly instead of decks wifi.