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Troubleshooting

Solutions for Common Issues

Lower Game Performance After September Steam Client Update

The September 2024 Steam client update introduced a new feature allowing users to configure the Maximum Game Resolution (Settings / Display) which now defaults to the native resolution of your display. With this change the Steam client is ignoring the 720P or 800P game resolitution normally configured by SteamFork. To work around the issue, simply configure your game properties back to either 720P or 800P. Unfortunately, this must be done on a per game basis.

Unknown Trust

SteamFork is SteamOS (Arch) based which uses the pacman package manager, and the repository and the packages contained within it are signed. Although the distribution is immutable, the platform does allow users to temporarily disable the read only rootfs to update packages between releases if desired. If you receive an unknown trust error while using pacman, issue the following commands to rebuild the trust database.

sudo steamos-readonly disable
sudo pacman-key --init
sudo pacman-key --populate

Update download errors

Mirror lists are managed in the background automatically, however if you receive an error downloading updates you may need to refresh your mirror list manually. To update your mirror lists, execute the following command in desktop mode.

sudo steamfork-get-mirror refresh

Manually Updating

Updates are available over the air using the Software Updates item in system settings, however there may be scenarios where you would prefer to update manually. Three manual update options are available.

Using steamos-update

While in desktop mode, open Konsole and use the SteamOS update tool directly.

sudo steamos-update check
sudo steamos-update

Installing an Image Manually

Again in desktop mode, open Konsole. Choose a mirror to download from and pull the update image with curl. The latest image can be found in the /images directory on any of the SteamFork mirrors.

curl -LO https://www.steamfork.org/images/steamfork_rel_20240812.0916.img.zst
curl -LO https://www.steamfork.org/images/steamfork_rel_20240812.0916.sha256

sha256sum steamfork_rel_20240812.0916.img.zst

# Verify the sum matches the sum contained within the .sha256.

sudo steamfork-deploy install steamfork_rel_20240812.0916.img.zst
sudo steamfork-deploy switch rootfs/steamfork_rel_20240812.0916

If there are no errors, reboot.

Using the Installation Image

Download the latest installation image from the images/installer directory of any SteamFork mirror on your PC, and flash it to a USB stick. Boot the USB stick and use the Upgrade SteamFork launcher on the desktop to perform the upgrade.

Recovering From a Bad Update

The update tooling is expected to be reliable and has recovery mechanisms built in, however there may be a time where your system fails to update correctly. When this occurs the simplest recovery is to boot the installation image and execute commands to recover using the Konsole application. If you have not yet rebooted the system, you can switch to desktop mode and ensure your system is configured not to boot the failed update.

Using steamfork-deploy switch

If your system is bootable, or if you have not yet rebooted, switch to desktop mode and open Konsole. Use steamfork-deploy to ensure the system boots the desired rootfs volume when restarted.

sudo steamfork-deploy switch

Select the last known good root filesystem. If you're unsure, use the steamfork-info command to display the version of the OS you're currently using.

Using Installation Media

If your system does not boot, boot from live installation media and open Konsole. Mount the roofs volume, use the btrfs command to remove the broken root volume and then upgrade using the Upgrade SteamFork desktop icon to update.

# Use blkid to find the sf_root partition. For example NVMe users may find it on /dev/nvme0n1p2.  Update the mount command below with your partition.
sudo blkid
sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1p2 /mnt
# Update the command below for the version of SteamFork to remove.  Use ls /mnt/rootfs/ to list available volumes.
sudo btrfs subvolume delete /mnt/rootfs/steamfork_rel_20240812.0916
sudo umount /mnt

Enabling Modern Sleep on 7000 Series AMD based devices.

7000 series and newer AMD APU's no longer support S3 sleep, and unfortunately many handheld manufacturers don't configure their firmware to take advantage of modern standby by default. Fortunately, modern standby can be configured manually in firmware, or by using a helper.

⚠ Warning

The Smokeless UMAF tool has been known to brick devices even by reading values in the BIOS. There is a good chance that setting something incorrectly in the BIOS with this tool will brick your device and void your warranty. This article is posted for informational purposes only. SteamFork takes no responsibility for any harm caused by following these steps. By following this guide you acknowledge that you are solely responsible for the outcome.

Modern Standby Enablement Methods

  • Enter your firmware settings to see if you have the options listed in the steps in the next section. If so, skip the rest of this section.
  • If the options are not available, follow the next few steps to create boot media.
  • Format a USB stick with FAT32.
  • Download Smokeless UMAF.
  • Extract UMAF_Beta.zip and copy the contents into the root of the usb stick.
  • Boot your device and select the USB stick from the boot menu.
  • Navigate to the Front Page tab and select Device Manager.

Enabling Modern Standby

  1. Select AMD PBS then Power Saving Configurations.
  2. Under S3/Modern Standby Support change the entry to Modern Standby (or Modern Standby Enable on some devices).
  3. Under Modern Standby Type select Modern Standby + S0i2 + S0i3.
  4. Save changes and exit, allowing the device to reboot.

Note: The first restart after this change may take longer than usual. Thanks to ChimeraOS for the initial writeup of this section.

Note: On newer Ayaneo devices, modern standby is enabled by the BIOS update released on 2024 11 04.

Updating BIOS (Ayaneo)

  1. Grab the firmware files from Ayaneo support: https://ayaneo.com/support/download
  2. Download shellx64: https://github.com/pbatard/UEFI-Shell/releases/download/24H1/shellx64.efi
  3. Format a USB drive as FAT 32 and create the folders /EFI/Boot/ on the root of the USB drive.
  4. Place shellx64.efi into the Boot folder and rename it to BootX64.efi
  5. Extract the Ayaneo firmware files to the USB drive. Make sure the .bin file that contains the update is on the root of the USB drive, as well as the file called "AfuEfix64.efi" You may need to find a password in a readme file to get to the actual BIOS file.
  6. Create a new plain text file on the root of the USB drive and name it "startup.nsh"
  7. Place the following into startup.nsh, replacing with the full name of the .bin file containing the BIOS update: 
    fs1:
AFUEFIx64 <BIOS> /p /b /n /k /L /REBOOT
  8. Ensure you have more than 50% battery and your device is plugged in.
  9. Plug the USB drive into your device, and hold LC and Volume+ until the Ayaneo logo appears.
  10. Select the USB drive from the boot menu using the Ayaneo buttons to select and volume button to confirm. Do not press anything or remove the drive until the BIOS update completes and the device reboots. Interrupting the update in any way can brick your device.