1y ago

[PSA] If you had switched to the main update channel to get 3.5 early, I would recommend changing back one of the less bleeding edge update channels.

SteamOS 3.6 is live on the "main" update channel, and it is very buggy. (Note: the most bleeding edge update channel is called main. 3.6 is only live on the "main" channel, not any of the stable or beta channels).

I had switched to main to get 3.5 early, and 3.5 had spent so much time in the main channel that it's been very stable for the last few months. However 3.6 has been rough, game mode would crash and restart everytime a decky plugin did something, and it broke my desktop mode completely. I've downgraded to beta-candidate (which is still 3.5) and things are much better.

I know that staying off the most bleeding edge update channels if you want a stable experience is common sense, but I think a lot of people got impatient for 3.5 and may have been lulled into a false sense of security by how stable the 3.5 main update builds were recently.

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And I even feel like 3.5 isn't entirely as stable as it should be. Got some random crashes. Although it's not nearly as bad as it was a few months ago. So I will stay on beta for now.
Edit: Went back to stable yesterday because of too many crashes. Funnily enough it crashed on my first attempt to downgrade. The second attempt worked, though.

Side note but I was using the stable build but was forced to push up to the beta build because of a stupid bug where using remote play from a desktop would cause controllers to send double inputs for some reason. I tested multiple controllers and even a keyboard, all duplicated inputs.
It blew my mind that a hot fix wasn’t sent out. That’s a pretty big feature to break in a stable branch. I know it wasn’t everyone’s problem but still. I’m not sure what’s going on with the software stuff right now.

I expected better of valve. They have the stable and beta channels so they should use them without exception.
The beta users would've created enough crash reports for them to notice that 3.6 isn't stable yet.
- Sorry, I think I misled you. The "main" channel is the most bleeding edge update channel name. After that you have beta-candidate, beta, stable candidate, and stable. 3.6 is live on the "main" channel only, so it definitely shouldn't affect regular steamOS users.
  
  I haven't touched my steam deck in a month or 2. Is there a process for switching back? Just ignore the pending update, switch the channel, then check for updates again?

8 comments