Virtual Here with Steam Link Android App and Steam Controller Dongle

Hi guys!

I am running the Steam Link app on my Nvidia Shield TV with a Steam Controller.
Since I was unhappy with the connection reliability when using the Steam Controller via Bluetooth I decided to use VirtualHere to passthrough the dongle to my Host system.

Unfortunately the Steam Link Android App seems to agressively take over control over the dongle.
If I run VirtualHere alone and start the client on my Windows machine everything is working fine.
But as soon as I open up the App I get bombarded with requests to gain access to the controller and only if I persistently cancel these requests I am able to keep using the controller under Windows.

As soon as I provide access to the Steam Controller I cannot use it anymore.

I know this is an issue coming from the Steam Link app and not VirtualHere, but I was hoping maybe someone already found a way of fixing this in here.

At least this forum here seems to be monitored by the developer :)

#2

Its android that is controlling the requests so unfortunately you need to answer no to all of them so that steam doesn't take the controller.

The steam app would have a section to request access to the controller.

You might be able to submit a request to valve via SteamLinkFeedback [at] valvesoftware.com (SteamLinkFeedback[at]valvesoftware[dot]com) to ask them to add a setting to not grab the steam controller if you check that option.

Edit: ive now submitted a question to them...

#3

I got an (quick!) answer from valve. Apparently the steamlink app might be trying to update the steam controller firmware and that is why its doing that. Can you plug the controller directly into your pc and see if there is a firmware update from steam for it... Let me know what you find.

#4

Thanks for the quick investigation.
I connected the controller to my PC but there was no update pending for it it seems. I also now tried my other Steam Controller that does not have the Bluetooth firmware yet but saw the same issue.

With further testing I saw that this is caused by the dongle, this issue shows up even before any controller is connected. When a Dongle is connected and Steam link is opened it tries to grab the device. If I grant access I see 5 Steam Controllers in the Controller setting but it says no controller connected on the main screen.

I will shoot them a mail to check this out. Right now I am even unsure if the Dongle is maybe supposed to be supported by the app directly?

Other than that I really love your software, when Steam Link is not trying to take the device from me it works like a charm.

#5

Let me know what they say if they respond. Thanks!

#6

Didn't get a message yet.
However I have noticed some things while testing that seemed interesting to me.

While checking it out I realized in the cases when it's not working there are two USB hubs. One with an IPv4 address and one with an IPv6 address.
One always showed the Dongle as Used by me and the other one showed it as in use by my Computername.

I was playing around with disabling IPv6 on my Shield and then connecting and reconnecting again. The issue I am facing now though is that I was not able to get it to work at all again and Steam is not automatically launching the Client anymore.
Now I have to launch it manually but that way my VirtualHere for SteamLink license does not seem to get applied. I now get blocked from anything because my trial period has expired.
So this has thrown a spanner in my works for now. I even got the DLC for unlimited devices recently. Was this license maybe only for the Steam Link hardware that I used previously?

Oh and I got the same issue once also when using my DualSense controller. I allowed VirtualHere to access it and afterwards allowed Steam to use it. When I started streaming the controller did not work, which leads me to think I am doing something wrong here.

#7

OK i think you should factory reset your sheild to get it up and running again