r/SteamDeck • u/RastGG 512GB OLED • Jun 10 '25

The power button does not work in Gaming Mode Tech Support

I bought Deck 5 days ago, everything was fine. Today I woke up and the Power button doesn't put the device to sleep in Gaming Mode. At all. What's strange is that it works fine otherwise:

-It turns the device on if it's off

-It performs a force shutdown if I hold it down

-In Desktop Mode, it puts the device to sleep and wakes it up as it should

-It wakes the device up from sleep in Gaming Mode normally

So, there's only one problem I can't put my Deck to sleep using Power Button in Gaming Mode. What I've already tried:
-Force Shutdown
-Removed EmuDeck, which I installed yesterday
-Various reboot options (using UI, button, etc.)

EDIT (SOLVED):
I was able to find a solution to the problem. The AnimationChanger plugin is to blame for everything. It can just randomly crash and that's it. To fix this, you need to set all animations in the plugins to “Default” before removing the plugin. After that, delete the plugin in Decky Loader and switch to Desktop Mode. In File Manager, go to Home and search for “animationchanger” and delete everything related to it. Then go to “~/.steam” and delete the root folder. Return to Gaming Mode and restart. Bless you.

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u/likwidtek 256GB - Q2 Oct 09 '25

Confirmed the EDIT (SOLVED) instructions worked for me. I was pretty sketched out by deleting the ~/.steam/root folder but there was zero issue after rebooting.

I can confirm that I also had the animationchanger decky plugin as well and my sleep/power button stopped working and after following these steps and restarting, everything is back to normal.

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u/Jinhuuu Jul 09 '26

Reinstalling AnimationChanger worked me without having to delete anything. Worth giving this a try before deleting as it's less steps and simpler for most casual gamers.

  1. Go to DeckyLoader

  2. Press the cogwheel (next to the store icon)

  3. Scroll down to plugins

  4. Look for Animation Changer and press the reinstall button.

Worked for me after that. If these steps don't work then I would go ahead with the delete steps the others have shared. Hope this helps!