PIN entry screen pops up when launching games in desktop mode

steamopen Big Pictureoverlay

ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux#12010 · opened 2025-05-11 by My1 · updated 2025-05-13 · 2 comments · github

MMy1 2025-05-11 github

Your system information

Steam client version: 1745876290
SteamOS version: 3.6.24
Opted into Steam client beta?: No
Opted into SteamOS beta?: No
Have you checked for updates in Settings > System?: Yes

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

when having a PIN, the PIN entry screen will plop up when you launch games in desktop mode, which can be kinda annoying.

Steps for reproducing this issue:

set a PIN
switch to desktop mode
start a game

ZZereoX 2025-05-13 github

This issue is caused by Steam Big Picture Mode inheriting any Lock Screen Security policies set while in Gaming mode. This is problematic as Steam Big Picture does not provide Security settings to revert these. I stumbled upon this yesterday on Desktop after having had enabled the lock screen in a Deck-like session (gamescope -e -w 1280 -h 800 -- steam -gamepadui -steamdeck).

This results in Steam Big Picture triggering the lock screen and requesting a pin whenever its launched. After a bit of digging I found that the option Use the Big Picture Overlay when using a controller will also therefore trigger this behaviour and match what was reported above.

Desktop :x:

@My1 Can you confirm that disabling Use the Big Picture Overlay when using a controller in the Steam client under Steam -> Settings -> In Game works around the issue for you on Deck in Desktop mode?

MMy1 2025-05-13 github

yup, seems to be the case. works without big picture but brings all the disadvantages obviously.

Nothing extracted yet.