protonscr

[Regression | Proton 11 beta & experimental] Opening and closing the Steam Overlay (in Big Picture) doesn't re-focus the game.

protonopen
ValveSoftware/Proton#9780 · opened 2026-05-08 by bblacher · updated 2026-08-05 · 5 comments · github
Bbblacher 2026-05-08 github

Is there an existing issue for this?

  • [x] I have searched the existing issues

Are you using any gamescope patches or a forked version of gamescope?

  • [x] The issue occurs on upstream gamescope without any modifications

Current Behavior

Tested with Hitman 3 and Hades:

When starting a game, the game gets focused correctly, opening the Steam Overlay and closing it again causes the game to loose focus. Clicking with the mouse once re-focuses the game.

Steps To Reproduce

  1. launch with gamescope -e -H 2160 -r 120 -O DP-1 -- steam -gamepadui -steamos3 (from tty)
  2. Launch a game
  3. Open the Steam Overlay using the Steam Controller "Steam Button" or the PS Button on a Dualsense
  4. Return to the game

Hardware information

- Distro: Arch Linux
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
- GPU: AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX
- Driver Version: Mesa 26.1.0

Software information

- Desktop environment: gamescope (from tty - drm mode)
- Session type: gamescope
- Gamescope version: gamescope version 3.16.23+ (gcc 15.2.1)
- Gamescope launch command(s): gamescope -e -H 2160 -r 120 -O DP-1 -- steam -gamepadui -steamos3
- Proton version: Proton experimental as of 2026-05-13 or Proton 11.0-beta2

Which gamescope backends have the issue you are reporting?

  • [ ] Wayland (default for nested gamescope)
  • [x] DRM (default for embedded gamescope, i.e. gamescope-session)
  • [ ] SDL
  • [ ] OpenVR

Logging, screenshots, or anything else

I am also noticing that steam big picture itself is focused in a weird way on startup:
The window itself is focused, controller input works, but the "selection border" in big picture is not showing, the play button on the game page is not highlightable. Pressing the Steam button twice fixes this.

Forcing proton to 10.0 fixes the issue.

Zzekiz774 2026-05-12 github

I have the same issue on a nested Wayland session. Some games like The Last Of Us don't even get focused in the first place.

Zzekiz774 2026-05-13 github

After some testing with various gamscope versions going as far down as 3.16.16, I figured it might be an issue with the newest Proton version.

The first indicator was that the problem persisted even in older Gamscope versions. The second was that every game except Celeste was affected. Celeste is a Native game. So I tried to run it through Proton 10.0-4. This again, was no problem, but then I tried Proton Experimental and the problem also appeared in Celeste

Forcing Proton 10.0-4 on other games that had the Problem like Cyberpunk 2077, fixed it

Bbblacher 2026-05-13 github

@zekiz774 Thanks! You're correct, this seems to be related to Proton 11/experimental.

RRenari 2026-05-22 github

Interesting I thought this was an issue with the Steam Controller because when playing games in big picture mode if I opened the overlay I would hear big picture getting the inputs in the background until I used the touchpad then the inputs would go to the overlay again.

Ccrazymanjared 2026-08-05 github

Same problem. You can usually refocus just by holding steam button (on steam controller) and clicking in empty space in the game - but specifically in PoE 2 while trying to create a character - the keyboard causes the game to lose focus, and no matter where you click to re-focus it will just pop the keyboard up again. Extremely frustrating.

Proton versions