Bazzite fails to boot into Gaming Mode and falls back to Desktop Mode

Suddenly my Bazzite instance boots after a while into Desktop Mode and not Gaming Mode anymore. Also trying to “Return to Gaming Mode” from within the Desktop does not work anymore.

rpm-ostree status shows (I also tried to rebase to testing, with still no fix):

user_id@hostname:~$ rpm-ostree status
State: idle
Deployments:
● ostree-unverified-registry:ghcr.io/ublue-os/bazzite-deck-nvidia-gnome:stable
                   Digest: sha256:68f22035371c30e9188e98357df551159c8e712f708d1af2d8a897915f9f9092
                  Version: 42.20250501 (2025-05-01T19:28:49Z)

  ostree-image-signed:docker://ghcr.io/ublue-os/bazzite-deck-nvidia-gnome:testing
                   Digest: sha256:04889ee2c019d08ddd0a30ebe94d6fdb03294be63ed97a08b6c590a760805817
                  Version: testing-42.20250504.2 (2025-05-04T10:56:11Z)

systemctl status bazzite-autologin shows:

user_id@hostname:~$ systemctl status bazzite-autologin
○ bazzite-autologin.service - Enables Bazzite autologin
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/bazzite-autologin.service; enabled; preset: disabled)
    Drop-In: /usr/lib/systemd/system/service.d
             └─10-timeout-abort.conf
     Active: inactive (dead) since Sun 2025-05-04 17:44:23 CEST; 5min ago
 Invocation: 69919d62ffca4a62907ff9387907aaf3
   Main PID: 1410 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   Mem peak: 3.3M
        CPU: 11ms

Mai 04 17:44:23 hostname systemd[1]: Starting bazzite-autologin.service - Enables Bazzite autologin...
Mai 04 17:44:23 hostname systemd[1]: bazzite-autologin.service: Deactivated successfully.
Mai 04 17:44:23 hostname systemd[1]: Finished bazzite-autologin.service - Enables Bazzite autologin.

systemctl status sddm shows:

user_id@hostname:~$ systemctl status sddm
● sddm.service - Simple Desktop Display Manager
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/sddm.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
    Drop-In: /usr/lib/systemd/system/service.d
             └─10-timeout-abort.conf
     Active: active (running) since Sun 2025-05-04 17:44:53 CEST; 6min ago
 Invocation: 88533cc1d23346d3ae04470ce308b698
       Docs: man:sddm(1)
             man:sddm.conf(5)
   Main PID: 5206 (sddm)
      Tasks: 2 (limit: 76601)
     Memory: 5.2M (peak: 6.2M)
        CPU: 22ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/sddm.service
             └─5206 /usr/bin/sddm

Mai 04 17:44:53 hostname systemd[1]: Started sddm.service - Simple Desktop Display Manager.
Mai 04 17:44:54 hostname sddm-helper[5211]: Detected locale "C" with character encoding "ANSI_X3.4-1968", which is not UTF-8.
                                          Qt depends on a UTF-8 locale, and has switched to "C.UTF-8" instead.
                                          If this causes problems, reconfigure your locale. See the locale(1) manual
                                          for more information.
Mai 04 17:44:54 hostname sddm-helper[5211]: pam_unix(sddm-autologin:session): session opened for user user_id(uid=1000) by user_id(uid=0)
Mai 04 17:44:54 hostname sddm-helper[5211]: gkr-pam: gnome-keyring-daemon started properly
Mai 04 17:44:54 hostname sddm-helper[5211]: Starting Wayland user session: "/etc/sddm/wayland-session" "/usr/bin/gnome-session-oneshot"

I also read in another thread (Steam no longer starts - #3 by MiniMechazawa) that __GL_CONSTANT_FRAME_RATE_HINT=3 steam -reset might be a fix, but it did not make any difference. Of course I did ujust upgrade. I also did try ujust fix-reset-steam.

Lastly more information about the card I am using:

user_id@hostname:~$ lspci -nn | grep -P "(VGA compatible|3D) controller"
    20:	01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GA102 [GeForce RTX 3080 Ti] [10de:2208] (rev a1)

and

user_id@hostname:~$ journalctl -t gamemode-sdl-workaround
-- No entries --

I have the same problem. Can’t get back to gaming mode.

$ rpm-ostree status
State: idle
Deployments:
● ostree-image-signed:docker://ghcr.io/ublue-os/bazzite-deck-gnome:stable
                   Digest: sha256:bc9bd11fa8a7c0cc89e6c3e5be11fce9d685be4b0c127ada581e8de9b75decb3
                  Version: 42.20250501 (2025-05-01T20:06:54Z)

  ostree-image-signed:docker://ghcr.io/ublue-os/bazzite-deck-gnome:testing
                   Digest: sha256:3393657b23b1afbeea57ee024e6877f6b34af89f6161e83bdb248b0fda699471
                  Version: testing-42.20250506 (2025-05-06T16:02:46Z)

systemctl status bazzite-autologin
○ bazzite-autologin.service - Enables Bazzite autologin
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/bazzite-autologin.service; enabled; preset: disabled)
    Drop-In: /usr/lib/systemd/system/service.d
             └─10-timeout-abort.conf
     Active: inactive (dead) since Sat 2025-05-10 11:45:15 CEST; 10min ago
 Invocation: 077ac71073964c5d9fdb81f19a4c6906
   Main PID: 1272 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   Mem peak: 3.7M
        CPU: 6ms

May 10 11:45:15 bazzite systemd[1]: Starting bazzite-autologin.service - Enables Bazzite autologin...
May 10 11:45:15 bazzite systemd[1]: bazzite-autologin.service: Deactivated successfully.
May 10 11:45:15 bazzite systemd[1]: Finished bazzite-autologin.service - Enables Bazzite autologin.

systemctl status sddm
● sddm.service - Simple Desktop Display Manager
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/sddm.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
    Drop-In: /usr/lib/systemd/system/service.d
             └─10-timeout-abort.conf
     Active: active (running) since Sat 2025-05-10 11:47:49 CEST; 8min ago
 Invocation: debd0932f55645e08a047dd128c77fd5
       Docs: man:sddm(1)
             man:sddm.conf(5)
   Main PID: 13474 (sddm)
      Tasks: 2 (limit: 38315)
     Memory: 5.2M (peak: 6.2M)
        CPU: 16ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/sddm.service
             └─13474 /usr/bin/sddm

May 10 11:47:49 bazzite systemd[1]: Started sddm.service - Simple Desktop Display Manager.
May 10 11:47:49 bazzite sddm-helper[13478]: Detected locale "C" with character encoding "ANSI_X3.4-1968", which is not UTF-8.
                                            Qt depends on a UTF-8 locale, and has switched to "C.UTF-8" instead.
                                            If this causes problems, reconfigure your locale. See the locale(1) manual
                                            for more information.
May 10 11:47:49 bazzite sddm-helper[13478]: pam_unix(sddm-autologin:session): session opened for user jklenner(uid=1000) by jkl>
May 10 11:47:49 bazzite sddm-helper[13478]: gkr-pam: gnome-keyring-daemon started properly
May 10 11:47:49 bazzite sddm-helper[13478]: Starting Wayland user session: "/etc/sddm/wayland-session" "/usr/bin/gnome-
lspci -nn | grep -P "(VGA compatible|3D) controller"
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Navi 48 [RX 9070/9070 XT] [1002:7550] (rev c0)
journalctl -t gamemode-sdl-workaround
-- No entries --

Just for others’ benefit: I had the same problem when rebasing from bazzite-nvidia-open to bazzite-deck-nvidia (KDE environment). The issue was caused by SDDM auto-login, which I had enabled in the desktop environment. I disabled it, then used the ‘Return to Gaming Mode’ shortcut, and everything worked.

Good morning! It seems I’ve identified the bug on my end. I used the ujust setup-decky command and reinstalled Decky Loader after reading about it in a post somewhere, and it unexpectedly worked. This is odd, as I couldn’t find any errors in the logs previously.
I haven’t submitted a ticket yet.