Which hardware are you on? Especially laptop or desktop?

It's a desktop

CPU Intel I7 13700k
MB Z690 DDR4
RAM 32GB DDR4 3600 MHz CL18
GPU AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT

Might be an AMD driver problem rather than SteamVR problem. I found some issues like this over at Gitlab:
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/1856
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/2342
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/issues/7041

This happens to me too with Valve Index and Radeon 6800XT. Sometimes even happens with Monado, where Monado will crash in the first start after a reboot. Then I have to start SteamVR, let it crash, choose "Restart Headset" in the SteamVR vrmonitor menu, which will recover the headset to a working state and then start Monado or SteamVR again.

I experience similar behavior on my system; SteamVR fails to connect to headset, and then resumes fine after I've either restarted or disconnected and reconnected headset. Though manifesting differently through the updates (the result was always the same: somehow or another restart headset), it has lasted for about a year (as long as I've owned this system).

Currently, the details are different than yours but I'm unsure if they mean that I have to make a separate issue. My process is as follows:

• Start system, then login.
• Start Steam, then SteamVR. In the Steam window, it says that SteamVR failed to launch; in the SteamVR window, it says that it cannot connect to headset. In the performance graph, there are no frametimes submitted.
• Restart the headset using SteamVR's menu. Restart SteamVR.
• Sometimes I may additionally need to logout, disconnect all cables from the headset, login, then reconnect all cables. I start SteamVR afterward.
• I observe that the SteamVR window opens, there are no errors submitted, and the frametime graph becomes populated with data. Everything works as expected.
• I logout, then log back in. Start SteamVR. Everything works as expected.
  Every time my system reboots, it reverts back to the previous behavior.

For completeness, here are my system details:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
GPUs: AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT (Primary), iGPU (Secondary, no display connection); with no PRIME setup
Memory: 32GB with 96GB Z-swap
Headset: Valve Index
Kernel: Linux 6.6.38-1-lts
GPU Driver: Mesa 24.1.3
Distro: Arch Linux 64-bit
DM: KDE Plasma 6.1.2 running Wayland

Also experiencing this on amdgpu. I have had a good ~year of SteamVR working fairly flawlessly.

At some point recently (in the last couple of months), this has become a frequent problem. I'm using NixOS so I'm able to revert my kernel/software stack to a known good state (aside from SteamVR, which steam updates whenever it likes). I observe that with Linux 6.13.1 and Mesa 24.3.4, I can't get steamvr to work at all. With Linux 6.12.5 and Mesa 24.2.6, things can be made to work, though frequently the first attempt of a startup of steamvr crashes with, e.g.

[   47.727353] [drm:dm_vblank_get_counter [amdgpu]] *ERROR* dc_stream_state is NULL for crtc '1'!
[   47.727544] [drm:dm_crtc_get_scanoutpos [amdgpu]] *ERROR* dc_stream_state is NULL for crtc '1'!
[   47.727690] [drm:dm_vblank_get_counter [amdgpu]] *ERROR* dc_stream_state is NULL for crtc '1'!

The crash is not reliably reproducible though, so it is difficult to tell for sure if it is present or fixed in a given configuration.

The Index headset may give red LEDs, but unplugging/reseating the cable break and trying again often works.

SteamVR beta doesn't appear to work at at all at the moment, crashing in all the configurations I tried.

having the same issue aswell, NixOS with an AMD 7900 XT, for some reason it also sometimes freezes up Hyprland completely for a few seconds when first launching before giving an error

cc @kisak-valve

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/1856#note_2828989 (Timo's comment)

It sounds like there has is progress in understanding the potential causes of the issue on the AMD side, but that it potentially about how the headset interacts with the GPU, and help may be needed from people with an understanding of what's going on headset side to get to the bottom of it.

Hey all - wanted to weigh in on this because it's been driving me nuts after getting a 9070XT. I was losing my mind thinking it was amdvlk being updated causing issues, however I very much believe it's directly related to mesa.

Just for clarification - I have a Valve Index running off of a NixOS host. I tried reinstalling Arch to test that out but I gave up after an hour of headaches getting other problems to deal with.

After reverting my flake to the last nixpkgs commit with mesa 25.0.1 it was up and running again with no issues.

I highly suggest everyone else try reverting mesa to make sure I'm not crazy.

If you're like @meir and I the specific nixpkgs commit is 027c44209b4675c74b5bf95f9c93ef966dda2b88. I just changed where my flake pointed to for system builds to this commit entirely.

The root cause for the *ERROR* dc_stream_state is NULL for crtc issue has been found by AMD and they patched it in the amdgpu driver / the display controller part of it, but the patch is not upstream yet, see: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/1856#note_2836580

I have yet to try it myself on mesa 25.0.3 but supposedly it fixes the issue. I'll have to get back to you on that.

On April 16, 2025 10:49:01 AM EDT, meir @.***> wrote:

meir left a comment (ValveSoftware/SteamVR-for-Linux#715)

@natervader it did fix the 496 issue indeed, however it still has issues with consistent rendering after the first boot

using the nixpkgs unstable, hyprland and a 7900XT
booting up the pc
launch SteamVR, it launches
then after a second or 2 it freezes up all screens for a couple seconds
then it renders fine, but sometimes stops rendering on the HMD with the -203 error as if it loses the connection for a second

However its fixed when restarting, it only reoccurs after a boot

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Couldn't tell you right now, but I just rolled back the nixpkgs flake back to a specific commit. In the case of switching to mesa 25.0.1, I just found the commit prior to 25.0.2 and specified it.

On April 16, 2025 12:50:14 PM EDT, meir @.***> wrote:

meir left a comment (ValveSoftware/SteamVR-for-Linux#715)

i deleted my response because i realized i misread your comment entirely, im currently trying to figure out how to specify the mesa package to use in the unstable channel, it seems like hardware.opengl.package has been deprecated for hardware.graphics but it has no .package field anymore

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i actually did end up testing out the latest flakes on unstable after giving up on trying to use that specific mesa driver, steamvr gives a crash at the start but then continues and works actually fine now.

only issue is that the steamvr ui crashes so youre stuck with the old ui in vr

I don't have this error at first start anymore since SteamVR 2.10.4 (or maybe the latest updates of Arch).
There is other issues on SteamVr startup, but no error 496, and I feel like this ticket should be closed and others opened to describe a better state of the situation.