*** The Official Steam Deck Thread ***

gamerTM21 said:
Ordered on Saturday and just had my tracking number provided by GLS.

How long does it normally take at this stage to arrive?
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I'm on 11 business days and counting; ordered on the 19th and receieved my tracking number on the 24th. Tracking is still showing in Utrecht and was last updated on December 1st.
 
Alexrose1uk said:
@TNA Wow is an understatement.
It seems its related to the way proton emulates the windows user folder tree structure so games don't run into issues when running via proton, and means that games that aren't account aware basically end up writing over other users user data on a game by game basis if you're unlucky, and then of course once it's done that, it's all but automatic for that false data to then get backed up to steam cloud overwriting your correct info EVERYWHERE.

What I don't get is why, especially on the steam deck, where multiple users on a single device and OS login is more probably, Valve did not think to incorporate User ID into the folder structure syntax, so that seperate steam account user data is kept completely seperate. Whilst there are a couple of situations where this could have disadvantages or cause additional duplications, it is a far better solution than risking games overwriting the user data of other steam accounts on a device, and then uploading that incorrect to steam cloud; a pretty massive developmental oversight imo, and one they should fix ASAP.

I suspect after 2 years however it won't get fixed except either by luck, or by the community kicking up some fuss.
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Steam users have separate user folders within the Steam DIr with their own uid so save states/cloud shouldn't be an issue.

Three people use mine and not had any problems like you are describing, including running wine/proton reliant games.
 
It shouldn't be an issue, but somehow in some circumstances, it is, as can attest from horrid experience last night and from the experience of other people affect, such as those in the linked reddit thread.
The moderators on the Phasmophobia discord instantly recognised the issue when we reached out to them, which clearly states it's an issue they are aware of and have seen before, and if you do the digging, it doesn't seem to be an isolated incident.

If I have understood correctly, it's specifically related to Proton, and maybe temporary files, but it's a major issue.

Simply put "steam deck multiple users saves overwriting" into google, and you'll instantly find multiple hits relating to the issue.

What makes it worse is the override/steam cloud replacement was completely silent. It was only when the wife logged onto her PC and loaded the game we knew there was an issue.

As explained by one user:
"This is a technical limitation of the SteamDeck. Similar to why you can't have a login password to the SteamDeck system.

The SD has a single hardcoded system user called "deck" with no password. The standard list of users (and passwords) on the system cannot change as its in a readonly filesystem in /etc/.

The home directory is then located on a writable filesystem located in "/home/deck" colloquialised to "~".

Games saves will normally be written in a systems users profile in a hidden folder. This exact location is a choice by the developer. Could be ~/.games/my-game/, ~/.my-game/, ~/.config/my-game/ or absolutely anywhere the dev has opted to save.

The issue is that when you choose a steam profile, it's loading just that, a steam profile and not a user profile. But games will still be saving everything into the one user profile.

The same issue exists for games under proton. All the games are run as the under the username "steamuser" so all save games get saved under the same "steamuser" path.

Irrespective of who's logged into Steam, the same game paths are always the same location."

In other words, if your game developer has not utilised best practice, and uses a file/save system that is not at least somewhat account aware, then you're at risk of having a very bad time.
 
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Alexrose1uk said:
It shouldn't be an issue, but somehow in some circumstances, it is, as can attest from horrid experience last night and from the experience of other people affect, such as those in the linked reddit thread.
The moderators on the Phasmophobia discord instantly recognised the issue when we reached out to them, which clearly states it's an issue they are aware of and have seen before, and if you do the digging, it doesn't seem to be an isolated incident.

If I have understood correctly, it's specifically related to Proton, and maybe temporary files, but it's a major issue.

Simply put "steam deck multiple users saves overwriting" into google, and you'll instantly find multiple hits relating to the issue.

What makes it worse is the override/steam cloud replacement was completely silent. It was only when the wife logged onto her PC and loaded the game we knew there was an issue.

As explained by one user:
"This is a technical limitation of the SteamDeck. Similar to why you can't have a login password to the SteamDeck system.

The SD has a single hardcoded system user called "deck" with no password. The standard list of users (and passwords) on the system cannot change as its in a readonly filesystem in /etc/.

The home directory is then located on a writable filesystem located in "/home/deck" colloquialised to "~".

Games saves will normally be written in a systems users profile in a hidden folder. This exact location is a choice by the developer. Could be ~/.games/my-game/, ~/.my-game/, ~/.config/my-game/ or absolutely anywhere the dev has opted to save.

The issue is that when you choose a steam profile, it's loading just that, a steam profile and not a user profile. But games will still be saving everything into the one user profile.

The same issue exists for games under proton. All the games are run as the under the username "steamuser" so all save games get saved under the same "steamuser" path.

Irrespective of who's logged into Steam, the same game paths are always the same location."

In other words, if your game developer has not utilised best practice, and uses a file/save system that is not at least somewhat account aware, then you're at risk of having a very bad time.
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These are games running outside of steam itself I take it, If so I can understand why this occurs, Like stated the deck uses a single OS user so same files/folders ect.

Steam itself though does have separate user directories for saves ect per user.
 
No, not at all.
Our encountering this issue was Phasmophobia, completely within steam. As the user explained above, there are situations where proton-reliant games can essentially end up overriding each other, despite the different steam user in use; as not everything is truly segregated.

SteamDeck literally overrode my wife's save file/progress with my own, and then uploaded those incorrect files back to her steam cloud, which then overwrote the correct save files on her main PC.

An absolutely horrendous experience, and all using the Steam deck as 'normal', 100% within steam, with a steam-bought game, that is verified for Steam Deck; that we both own.

Pretty sure we can all agree that is not at all an acceptable experience, and it was all completely inside the SteamOS, changing user as normal etc.
I have also logged a bug/feature request on the Valve forums to hopefully try and raise profile on this issue; as it really makes me reluctant to login and use her decks at all, which also means we cannot family share on the deck. She is not at all willing to risk hundreds of hours worth of progression and playtime for it, which I completely understand.
 
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Good to know. Planning on getting one for the family so will multi user.

What’s described though is truly shocking to me as a Linux based dev. It’s really inconceivable to me you’d have any need to force a single user in the backend given how simple it is to automate user management.

That aside…still looking forward to dip into the steam deck. Is there anyway to utilise gamepass or is that pushing things too far?
 
Yeah, I mean, the general vibe I'm getting is its a product of Valve oversight/Proton compatibility layer working a bit differently to native apps/Devs not always following best practice in regards to making save systems account or User ID aware/following best practices in regards to save locations, but it all boils down to an utterly horrendous experience when it does happen. If the Phasmo dev/mod team hadn't been able to push a partial backup server wise, she'd have lost hundreds of hours of progression, which is horrendous; and all the whilst we as users didn't go outside the SteamOS experience or do anything unreasonable or unexpected; we just logged in on our accounts and ran the game; and she STILL lost some data, the support team for Phasmo itself was just able to restore the core stuff.

I'm not a dev, but given the Deck seems to reboot to change steam user, it does seem truly mad it does not completely segregate ALL user data, whether it's Proton or native, even if it does result in some occasional minor efficiencies. The fact different accounts can access the same user data in some circumstances to even have things like this happen is just really poor, and it needs wider awareness to persuade them to find a way to resolve it permanently.

Unfortunately as this small sample highlights, it's not a one off or unique experience we had:

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com www.reddit.com

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com www.reddit.com

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com www.reddit.com

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com www.reddit.com

It really needs higher profile so someone at Valve looks at this and resolves it once and for all, as it has soured our opinion of the machine.

Gamepass wise, I've not dug into it too deeply, but I seemed to remember reading, if you're willing to go to the Linux desktop, you can install Chrome/Edge and then use Gamepass cloud streaming to play through the browser, but I suspect its a little more complicated than that!
 
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I’m not a game dev, but a dev. To me this is not a best practice issue but more a “shouldn’t be possible” issue. This is how exploits and hacks happen by making elevated permissions possible.

Maybe there is something else as play rather than what’s been described, but if accurate it’s a major security issue.

If game pass is only viable from stream, I’ll probably skip but will research some more
 
I pulled the trigger and ordered the 1tb OLED, hopefully the QC dice are in my favour.

What are the chances the kids let me game on it in peace rather than, "Dad, can I play on the stream deck"...
 
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