v1.40.1

A fix release for the Game / Discord sound slider added in v1.40.0.

Fixes

• Game / Discord sound kept turning other apps down outside of a call (#64). A mix left off-centre held Firefox, games and system sounds at a fraction of their volume all the time, and undid manual changes within seconds. It now only applies while you are in a call; when you leave, the sounds it turned down go back to 100 %, and your setting is kept for the next call. Reported and fixed by @ezamelczyk in #65 — thank you!
• Apps that still started quiet. Your system remembers each app's last volume, so apps that had been turned down kept starting low. For the week after this update, outside a call, an app that starts at exactly the level the mix used to force is put back to 100 % once. If you turn it down again yourself, it stays that way.
• The slider did nothing when the saved output was unplugged. If the headset or speakers chosen in Steamcord were disconnected, the mix adjusted nothing, even in a call. It now uses the output you are actually on.

Full changelog: v1.40.0...v1.40.1

v1.40.0 — Game / Discord sound

Game / Discord sound, like on PlayStation

Suggested on Reddit by u/iReaddit-KRTORR, who missed the PlayStation party chat balance. Thanks!

• A new Game / Discord sound menu in the call, under the Soundboard, in the Quick Access Menu and in the expanded view. One slider balances the game (Steam blue, left) against Discord (Discord purple, right): in the middle both play at 100 %, and moving it turns the other side down, without going into the game's settings mid-match.
• It only changes what you hear. What goes to the call and to a Go Live is untouched. Games started later and calls joined later follow the setting, and it is remembered.
• One exception: a BoneCast stream takes the game sound from your output, so while it is live, turning the game down turns it down for viewers too.

Help when "Initializing" takes too long

Reported in #61, thanks to @marco-calautti and @Phoenax77.

After a minute on Initializing, the panel now says what to try: sign in to Discord in Vesktop from Desktop Mode, or use Repair Vencord from Vesktop's tray menu if Discord never finishes loading.

Fix

Turning off "screen as camera" could restart Gaming Mode. gamescope can crash if a screen capture disconnects while it is drawing a frame for it (a bug in gamescope itself, found while testing BoneCast, which shares this capture code). The capture now pauses, lets gamescope finish the frame and only then disconnects.

Expanded view

• The Soundboard, Game / Discord sound and in-game overlay menus now line up with the rest of the call, and their selection ring no longer spills over the column.
• Mute, deafen and hang up, and the channel name, are centered.

This update installs through the built-in updater as usual.

v1.39.3 — No more endless "Initializing" in Gaming Mode outside SteamOS

No more endless "Initializing" in Gaming Mode outside SteamOS

Reported by @marco-calautti in #61.

• Vesktop now opens on the display Steam itself uses. In Gaming Mode, Steamcord starts Vesktop on gamescope's X display. It took that display from the user session, which on many setups doesn't export one, and fell back to :0. On SteamOS and Bazzite, Steam happens to be on :0. On a gamescope session set up another way (here arch-deckify), :0 was a different X server that refused the connection: Vesktop crashed on start, and the panel stayed on Initializing forever. Steamcord now reads the display, and its authorization cookie if there is one, from the running Steam process.
• Better diagnostics when Vesktop can't start. The log now lists the X displays present and the one Steam uses, and copies Vesktop's own last error lines into the Steamcord log, so a report shows the cause directly.

No manual reinstall needed: the built-in updater handles this release.

v1.39.2 — Controller push-to-talk works in-game

Controller push-to-talk works in-game

Reported by @NuCl34R in #60.

• The controller voice shortcut now works while a game has focus. Steam stops passing controller buttons to its own UI as soon as a game is in front, so push-to-talk and mute toggle on a controller button only worked with the QAM or the Steam UI open. For the Steam Controller (2026), Steamcord now reads the controller directly, read-only and alongside Steam, so the shortcut keeps working in-game, in both push-to-talk and toggle mode. Supported buttons: A/B/X/Y, D-pad, L4/R4, L5/R5. Other controllers behave as before.
• Your own speaking ring lights up again in the call view. Discord saw you talking, but the ring around your own avatar stayed off.
• D-pad buttons show their name in the shortcut settings instead of BTN20–BTN23.
• README: the controller shortcut section no longer claims it works in-game with every controller, and explains why remapping a button to a keyboard key in Steam Input cannot be picked up in Game Mode.

No manual reinstall needed: the built-in updater handles this release.

v1.39.1 — Game audio stays in the stream, and Go Live no longer drops the call

Game audio stays in the stream, and stopping a Go Live no longer drops the call

Reported by @silverxlotus in #58.

• Sharing game audio during a Go Live no longer steals the game from the stream. Turning on Share game audio while live moved every game sound, and the Go Live's own audio link with it, into the voice mix: viewers got a silent stream and the call heard the game through the microphone. The game now goes to both the stream and the call, and stopping either one leaves the other untouched.
• Sounds that start after the Go Live are now in the stream. Game audio was only routed when the share started, so a game launched mid-stream, or anything else that started playing afterwards, stayed on your headset. New sounds now join the stream within seconds.
• Stopping a Go Live asks whether to keep game audio in the call. Share game audio is its own button and works without a stream, so stopping the stream no longer decides for you: keep it (B) or stop sharing it.
• Stopping a Go Live no longer kicks you out of the call. After a Go Live the screen capture can stay open for up to about 30 seconds, and a safeguard meant for stuck captures restarted Vesktop, which dropped the call. During a call it now only closes the capture session and leaves Vesktop running.
• No more endless "Initializing…" when Vesktop starts at the same moment as the plugin. The Discord page could finish loading a fraction of a second before Steamcord hooked into it. Steamcord now checks the page and reloads it if its client is missing.

v1.39.0 — Go Live survives a quick restart, and voice can stay in Gaming Mode

Go Live works again after a quick restart, and voice can stay in Gaming Mode

Reported by @silverxlotus in #57 and requested by @BrotherO4 in #55.

• Starting Go Live again right after stopping it no longer fails. Every Go Live went through Vesktop's screen picker, which opens a full capture of the screen just to draw a thumbnail, plus one more next to the real one: three captures on the Gaming Mode screen each time, two of which stayed open for about 30 seconds. A new share started within those 30 seconds failed on SteamOS, and the failed attempt left a capture behind that blocked every Go Live until Vesktop restarted. In Gaming Mode, Steamcord now captures the screen directly: one capture, ready in a fraction of a second, with the same quality setting and game audio. The old path stays as a fallback.
• Leaving the call during a Go Live now cleans up after it. Only the Stop button used to tear down the share's audio routing; leaving the channel, or Discord ending the stream, left it in place until the plugin reloaded.
• Voice only in Gaming Mode, on by default. Voice controls are hidden in Desktop and Big Picture, messages stay available. Turn it off in Settings to use voice everywhere. Switching modes never hangs up a call, and if Steamcord cannot tell which mode you are in, voice stays available.
• The virtual-camera share is hidden by default. It predates Go Live in Gaming Mode, needs v4l2loopback (which SteamOS does not ship), and Go Live does better everywhere. Show virtual camera sharing in Settings brings the button back.
• The panel title no longer slides under the controls when you scroll.

v1.38.0 — the expanded view fits a Steam Deck, and seven languages catch up

The expanded view fits a Steam Deck, and seven languages get their missing labels

Reported by @bastiHST90 in #52 and @moi952 in #43.

• The sidebar of the expanded view no longer gets cut off on a Steam Deck. At the Deck's resolution the view is about 427 px tall and the sidebar needed 466, so Back to panel slid off the bottom. On short screens the sidebar now tightens its spacing, and scrolls rather than clips if that is still not enough. Larger screens look exactly as before.
• 80 labels were missing in German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish and Russian. "Show current game on Discord" was the one that got noticed; overlays, microphone processing, video, logout, server reordering, replies and the typing indicator were quietly falling back to English too. They are all translated now.
• A successful update now says so. The button used to end on "Up to date", which looked exactly like a click that did nothing. It now reads "Updated to x ✓", with a note to close and reopen the Quick Access menu. You will see it from the next update on.
• The Quick Access panel gets the fixes from 1.37.3. Settings that sat against each other are spaced there too, and the server, channel and DM lists draw one clean focus ring instead of a glow clipped into a second frame.
• A selected message in the chat no longer has its left border cut off.
• The hang-up button shows a phone instead of a plug, contributed by @bookcasey.

v1.37.3 — a real background and one focus ring for the expanded view

The expanded view gets a real background, and one focus ring

Four details reported by @moi952 in #43 — one of them was a real bug.

• The expanded view is no longer see-through. To hide the frame of Steam's window around the view, Steamcord clears the background of what surrounds it — and the marker it starts from sat inside the view, so it cleared the view's own background too. Only the left column stayed opaque. The view has its solid dark background back; how much of the game shows behind it is still up to the Background dimming slider (Settings → Opens on).
• One focus ring instead of two. Steam drew its own focus ring on top of Steamcord's, and in the lists (DMs, friends, servers, members) the selected card grew slightly and glowed, and the edge of the list cut that glow flat into a second frame. Steam's ring is off wherever Steamcord draws its own, and list cards now show a single, complete white ring.
• Spacing in the settings. In the expanded view, two controls in a row — the two "Opens on" menus, the toggles and the title field — sat against each other. They are now spaced out, as is a control that follows a note. Labels stay attached to the menu they describe.
• The GitHub button in the About section now lights up when the controller is on it.

Checked on a real Game Mode session: panel background measured opaque, a single ring on DMs, Friends and Servers, and every gap in the settings measured.

Thanks to @moi952 for coming back to the expanded view with such a precise list.

v1.37.2 — no more error screen in the desktop Steam window

No more error screen in the desktop Steam window

In Desktop Mode, the Steam window could switch to Decky's "An error occurred while rendering this content" screen a few minutes after opening — reported in #53 by @fuzi0nz.

Reproduced on the same Steam build as the report: a notification sent through Decky's native toaster makes the desktop Steam client crash while drawing it, with the exact same stack trace. Steamcord only uses that toaster when Native Decky notifications is turned on; the default, chat-style notifications never triggered it.

That setting is now only honoured in Game Mode. On the desktop, every notification — Steamcord's and other Decky plugins' — goes through the safe path, whatever the setting says. Checked with the setting on: 1.37.1 brought up the error screen, 1.37.2 shows the notification and its bell entry with no error.

Nothing changes in Game Mode.

Thanks to @fuzi0nz for the follow-up and the screenshots that made it reproducible.

v1.37.1

The background dimming no longer leaks into your game

Since 1.37.0, opening the Quick Access menu or getting a Steam notification while playing could darken the game, all the way to black with the slider at 100%. Reported in #52 by @bastiHST90.

What was going on. The Background dimming slider paints two layers that belong to Steam, not to Steamcord: the backdrop behind modals, and Big Picture's full-screen background. Steam doesn't throw them away when a window closes. It reuses them for the Quick Access menu and for notifications, and Steamcord's paint was still on them after the expanded view had been closed.

The fix. Every style Steamcord puts on those layers is now recorded with its original value and handed back as soon as the view closes. The slider works exactly as before while the expanded view is open.

How it was checked, in a running game:

• With the old behaviour put back as a control, the game went black behind the Quick Access menu and behind a notification.
• With the fix, after opening and closing the expanded view: the Quick Access menu, a Steamcord notification and eight kinds of Steam notifications (friend online, friend in game, direct message, group chat, download complete, screenshot, gift) left the game untouched.

The updater can install this release in place: same file layout as 1.37.0.

Thanks to @bastiHST90 for coming back with this right after the release, credited in CREDITS.md.

Full Changelog: v1.37.0...v1.37.1