Can you grab ~/.steam/steam/logs/streaming_log.txt from the PopOS box and put it somewhere accessible? There may be useful information in there as to what's going on.

Originally posted by Packetdancer:

Can you grab ~/.steam/steam/logs/streaming_log.txt from the PopOS box and put it somewhere accessible? There may be useful information in there as to what's going on.

https://filebin.net/tsih0mbtpzb1lnov

1MB, but as a warning you're basically looking at 10000 lines that say variations of "[2026-04-04 15:06:45][309.094409] CLIENT: Marking frame 2101 complete with status k_EStreamFrameResultDroppedReset"

That said here's the sessionstats.

{
"ClientDeviceID" "Steam Link"
"ClientDeviceVersionID" "build 918"
"GameNameID" "Desktop"
"appid" "413080"
"TimeSubmitted" "1775275707"
"ResolutionX" "1920"
"ResolutionY" "1080"
"CaptureDescriptionID" "Desktop X11 RGB + libyuv + libx264 main (4 threads)"
"DecoderDescriptionID" "Marvell hardware decoding"
"BandwidthLimit" "30000"
"FramerateLimit" "60"
"Transport" "1"
"SlowGamePercent" "0"
"SlowCapturePercent" "0"
"SlowConvertPercent" "0"
"SlowEncodePercent" "0"
"SlowNetworkPercent" "0"
"SlowDecodePercent" "0"
"SlowDisplayPercent" "0"
"AvgClientBitrate" "77.2426681518554688"
"StdDevClientBitrate" "0"
"AvgServerBitrate" "14233.33203125"
"StdDevServerBitrate" "0"
"AvgLinkBandwidth" "100000.0078125"
"AvgPingMS" "0.1983642578125"
"StdDevPingMS" "0"
"AvgCaptureMS" "1.04522705078125"
"StdDevCaptureMS" "0.125656425952911377"
"AvgConvertMS" "10.9600601196289062"
"StdDevConvertMS" "0.32741856575012207"
"AvgEncodeMS" "2.9611504077911377"
"StdDevEncodeMS" "0.771337211132049561"
"AvgNetworkMS" "3.0377197265625"
"StdDevNetworkMS" "2.38723492622375488"
"AvgDecodeMS" "1.35329675674438477"
"StdDevDecodeMS" "0.814964950084686279"
"AvgDisplayMS" "761568.25"
"StdDevDisplayMS" "2743839.5"
"AvgFrameMS" "26.2389011383056641"
"StdDevFrameMS" "9.22588253021240234"
"AvgFPS" "57.1531333923339844"
"StdDevFPS" "18.2501735687255859"
"BigPicture" "1"
"KeyboardMouseInput" "0"
"SteamControllerInput" "0"
"TouchControllerInput" "0"
"GameControllerInput" "1"
"XBox360ControllerInput" "1"
"XBoxOneControllerInput" "0"
"PS3ControllerInput" "0"
"PS4ControllerInput" "0"
"PS5ControllerInput" "0"
"OtherControllerInput" "0"
"GameControllerVID" "11720"
"GameControllerPID" "12555"
"WasSpectating" "0"
"RemotePlayTogether" "0"
}

Out of curiosity, what happens if you start Steam with the -pipewire option? (E.g. run Steam from the command line as "steam -pipewire")

No change - in fact, the log I provided you, I'm pretty sure, WAS the attempt I used with Pipewire. But either way it was the same result.

Originally posted by manwhat:

No change - in fact, the log I provided you, I'm pretty sure, WAS the attempt I used with Pipewire. But either way it was the same result.

Boo. So much for a hope that the option would give more info in the logfile. :(

When you say even Big Picture sometimes fails to render, do you mean when not even streaming?

Originally posted by Packetdancer:

Boo. So much for a hope that the option would give more info in the logfile. :(

When you say even Big Picture sometimes fails to render, do you mean when not even streaming?

I appreciate you helping out over multiple days :)
No, Big Picture renders correctly on my computer itself. However I installed the Moonlight application on physical steam link on USB, and I noticed that within the Moonlight stream, Steam Big Picture doesn't render, even though games started do - oddly, even if Steam Big Picture is in Windowed mode.

So, for example, I started Jedi Fallen Order. While that starts up slightly wonkily in Borderless Windowed mode, once the game is properly loaded, it runs on Moonlight with no issues. But Steam Big Picture (even when windowed) showed no issues.

With that all said, nvidia-driver-580 just became available and installed for my distro, so who knows, maybe that will resolve the issue if I try again.

edit:
No dice, turning hardware encoding on/off.
Sunshine also seems to sometimes have some similar issues when Steam Big Picture is fullscreened but as before, has no issue streaming the actual game.
It does sometimes 'lose the stream' with a similar 'low connection' warning so I guess it's more of a Linux/Pop issue than it is a Steam one. Likely some combination of the following:

- something to do with Wayland window management not buffering the stream properly
- having dual monitors, one of which is DisplayPort and one of which is HDMI
- original steam link (not a firestick, android usb or anything else)
- something stupid with the Cosmic compositor and how it handles being streamed

Originally posted by manwhat:

Originally posted by Packetdancer:

Boo. So much for a hope that the option would give more info in the logfile. :(

When you say even Big Picture sometimes fails to render, do you mean when not even streaming?

I appreciate you helping out over multiple days :)
No, Big Picture renders correctly on my computer itself. However I installed the Moonlight application on physical steam link on USB, and I noticed that within the Moonlight stream, Steam Big Picture doesn't render, even though games started do - oddly, even if Steam Big Picture is in Windowed mode.

So, for example, I started Jedi Fallen Order. While that starts up slightly wonkily in Borderless Windowed mode, once the game is properly loaded, it runs on Moonlight with no issues. But Steam Big Picture (even when windowed) showed no issues.

With that all said, nvidia-driver-580 just became available and installed for my distro, so who knows, maybe that will resolve the issue if I try again.

edit:
No dice, turning hardware encoding on/off.
Sunshine also seems to sometimes have some similar issues when Steam Big Picture is fullscreened but as before, has no issue streaming the actual game.
It does sometimes 'lose the stream' with a similar 'low connection' warning so I guess it's more of a Linux/Pop issue than it is a Steam one. Likely some combination of the following:

- something to do with Wayland window management not buffering the stream properly
- having dual monitors, one of which is DisplayPort and one of which is HDMI
- original steam link (not a firestick, android usb or anything else)
- something stupid with the Cosmic compositor and how it handles being streamed

Hi,
you could check this out
maybe something can help you from there