protonscr

No way to factory reset steam controller

steamopen Steam controller
ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux#13236 · opened 2026-05-22 by TapGhoul · updated 2026-08-30 · 1 comments · github
TTapGhoul 2026-05-22 github

Your system information

  • Steam client version: 1778281814
  • SteamOS version: 3.7.25
  • 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:

Describe what you expected should happen and what did happen.

It seems like there is no way to factory reset the controller from the steam UI. While there are a few low level HID commands that could potentially do it, and one of them does cause output to hitch when calling, hinting that something did happen, they don't seem to actually reset settings. I also cannot find any sort of factory reset boot combo.

Critically, I need this so when messing with HID commands there is some big red "undo" button so I can ensure that my controller is not left in an unstable/unusable state if I send an incorrect command by accident.

Steps for reproducing this issue:

  1. Plug in steam controller
  2. Go to settings
  3. No way to reset controller to factory defaults
  4. Change settings such as haptics intensity, joystick deadzone and grip sensor range
  5. Attempt to factory reset with HID feature report commands 0x86 (factory reset) and 0x8E (load default settings) with no arguments on feature report ID 0x01
  • When I say no arguments, I mean the raw feature report is [0x01 0x86 0x00 0x00 0x00...] filled to the end with 0x00 for the full 64 bytes required.
  1. See settings are still what they were before within steam when reopening config, and have not been reset to factory defaults, even after restarting the controller

Extra notes

This is also on the stable steam client, and also is not available in the beta.
I do not know where else to report this, and steam support directed me here as I'm messing with HID reports directly.

I'm more than happy to take raw HID commands instead of a steam option, either way I just want to make sure I can wipe out the flash to ensure that my controller is in a fully stable/factory state no matter what I may accidentally do to it short of accidentally breaking/corrupting firmware.

Ddracid 2026-08-30 github

Still the case 3 mo later?

Nothing extracted yet.