Valve says it fixed the VR keyboard in Skyrim VR, and owners say it still soft-locks

Valve has published two fixes for a virtual keyboard that would not appear, and one of them names Skyrim VR outright. Two owners posting in Valve’s own SteamVR bug report forum say the problem they hit is still there: in Skyrim VR and Fallout 4 VR, the keyboard does not come up when the game asks for a character name, and the game stops dead.

SteamVR’s own store artwork. The 2.18.1 keyboard fix is on the beta branch, not the default one. Image: Valve Image: Valve

The SteamVR beta 2.18.1 notes, published on September 23 at 23:05 UTC, list a “Fix for keyboard not showing up when summoned in some scenarios (Skyrim VR)”. Three days later SteamOS 0.4.1 for the Steam Frame said it had “Fixed the keyboard not appearing while streaming”.

Valve’s wording is narrower than it first looks. “Some scenarios” is not all of them, and the Frame line covers streaming rather than text entry inside a game, so neither note claims the whole fault is gone.

Both reports stop at the same screen

One of the two is brief. “When I tried making new games in skyrim vr and fallout vr the keyboard would not show up when it was time to name my character and the game would just soft lock,” its author writes, adding that OpenComposite works, “so I know it’s a steam vr problem”. That conclusion is the owner’s own inference and nothing published establishes where the fault lies.

The second runs to a full reproduction with logs, from someone streaming to a Steam Frame over VR Link from a Linux host. “The virtual keyboard never appears,” it says, and the Frame’s controller models then “appear frozen in space while the actual controllers continue to track”. SteamVR’s dashboard still works, and its keyboard can be opened by hand, but “that keyboard belongs to the Steam UI and does not enter text into the game’s name field”. A physical keyboard plugged into the host does not get text in either.

Both games are running through Proton

That detail is in the second report and it shapes what is being tested: Fallout 4 VR and Skyrim VR are Windows builds running on Linux through Valve’s compatibility layer, then streamed wirelessly to a headset. The owner’s machine is a GMKtec EVO-X2 with an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 running CachyOS, with Steam started using a VR Link flag and SteamVR set to its beta channel.

“Because the issue occurs in both Bethesda VR titles, it does not appear to be specific to one game,” the report concludes, which is as far as it goes. Nothing published says which part of that chain drops the request for a keyboard.

Both fixes are sitting on beta channels

Neither fix has reached the version most people are running. SteamVR’s default branch has stood at 2.17.10 since Valve’s hotfix on September 18, so 2.18.1 only arrives if an owner opts into the SteamVR beta, the same build that added tethered Quest streaming over USB. SteamOS 0.4.1, which also reworked the Frame’s proximity detection, is a beta-channel release too, and it carries SteamVR 2.18.1 inside the headset.

Valve has not replied in either thread, and no one else has posted in them. Two owners is two owners, and the same beta ended right-eye ghosting for 8 of the 12 owners who reported it. The keyboard note says “some scenarios”, and these two may not be among them.

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