This has been happening to me too for at least a month. It just happened again when my controller died. I lost about 45 mins of progress in a game bc i hadn't reached a checkpoint yet. It was Celeste of all games too. I was literally collecting all the difficult strawberries. I'm so pissed. Steam crashed, which made the game crash also when the controller disconnected after the battery had died. This is getting ridiculous. This never happened before about a month ago. I'm also using a PS4 controller over bluetooth on a M1 Macbook Pro.

Edit: I just submitted a support ticket, hopefully it will be addressed

I have the same issue using a PS4 controller via bluetooth with M1 macbook pro trying to play Shadow of the Tomb Raider. If I pause the game and wait for the controller to turn off then Steam and Shadow of the Tomb Raider crash.

I also submitted a support ticket on steam

Edit: Steam support refused to acknowledge the issue was on their end instead telling me that I should contact the game manufacturer. Even after I specified it happens with multiple different games....

Haha… I'm just downloading Borderlands 2, and thought trying the PS4 controller would be a good idea. MacOS 10.14.

I get an immediate Steam crash when I pull the USB cable.

Got the exact same issue with my ps4 controller. Submitted a ticket. Happens on Monterey and Ventura running on a 32gb and a 64gb m1 max macbook. I've been playing shadow of the tomb raider as well like another user. So clearly this issue is bigger than a specific controller.

It's probably a mac gamepad bluetooth driver and steam client coding/backend clash.

Same thing while playing Hades. I just lost an entire run due to that.

MacBook Pro
M2 Chip
Monterey 12.6.2

I have the same issue with my controller (SN30 pro+).
MacOs Monterey
MacBook Pro (14-inch, 2021)
Apple M1 Pro

If i i turn off my controller when a steam is active, steam crashes.
Also some of my games i am unable to play them with the controller. I am able to play Hades and Necrodancer though which i find it very odd.

I have find a temporary solution to make the controller to work with the rest of the games,
I click the gear that appears on the right while we are in the steam game screen then press Manage > controller layout > edit layout. Then i replace the controller keys with the equivalent of the keyboard. When i am done i open the game that i want to play and the controller works.

I have the exact same issue. Never before had steam instability.

Submit your tickets folks. It won't get sorted otherwise.

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ISSUE
When playing games using DS4 controller (bluetooth and wired), tabbing or exiting games (listed below) will cause steam to crash.

I used a variety of games perfectly reliably with the above setup up to August 2022 with no issues. I took a break and returned to games in December 2022. I have logged about 79 hours since then on:

Enter The Gungeon
Vampire Survivors
Untitled Goose Game
Dying Light
Super Meat Boy

Problem is encountered and can be reproduced each and every time. I tend to listen to music whilst I play so I tab out often, or to check Discord, Chrome, etc.

SPECIFIC TEST

1. Launching any of the above games, running full screen with DS4 controller connected via bluetooth or wired.
2. Subsequently tabbing out of game at any time and switching to any other application (e.g. Chrome, Music, VLC, Discord, Finder / Desktop)
3. Steam will inevitably crash up to a few minutes after tabbing out.
4. Steam will not crash at all as long as controller remains connected and there is no tabbing out of game.
5. Steam will also crash shortly after exiting the game, or disconnecting the controller (bluetooth and wired).

It doesn't seem to matter what activity occurs after tabbing out. Immediately tabbing out and returning to game will also reproduce the problem.

OS
MacOS Monterey 12.6

RESULT
I swear every time it happens I hear a little fart noise.

EXPECTED
Stability whilst switching to other applications from Steam / full screen gameplay, whilst DS4 controller is connected.

OTHER GAMES
Only the games listed above.

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Gadam, this has been happening for ages. Come on valve..

Originally posted by AliveAgain:

Gadam, this has been happening for ages. Come on valve..

And now Steam crashes when the controller is turned ON...

I'm having this issue as well on Mac with PS4 controller. I've submitted a help request too.

Update, my help request didn't help. They told me straight out that Apple silicone isn't supported and suggested that I re-install Steam, which didn't work, and when I replied saying I had an Intel Mac and the re-instal didn't fix it, they simply apologised and said they didn't have a fix, and suggested posting to the forums as they are "frequently visited by our developers".

TLDR; My Mac is supported, a re-install didn't fix it, their suggestion was to post on the forums in the hope that a dev would notice. Hopeless.

I found a possible workaround. If you google "hide steam controller" you'll come across this thread https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/discussions/forum/1/3464975249570878405/

Basically you have to manually add your controller's id to a text config file, and steam will no longer detect it. So if you disconnect/reconnect it, the crashes should stop!

Worked for me anyways.

My controller was a ds4, so my code was "54c/9cc". You'll have to look in the system report screen and find the USB settings to see what the device ID is.

I am using Steam on a Mac.

:csgoa:

Originally posted by soythai:

I found a possible workaround. If you google "hide steam controller" you'll come across this thread https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/discussions/forum/1/3464975249570878405/

Basically you have to manually add your controller's id to a text config file, and steam will no longer detect it. So if you disconnect/reconnect it, the crashes should stop!

Worked for me anyways.

My controller was a ds4, so my code was "54c/9cc". You'll have to look in the system report screen and find the USB settings to see what the device ID is.

I am using Steam on a Mac.

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Sure, @soythai's solution to "hide the controller" from Stream, stops Steam from crashing when the controller is disconnected - but it also means that you can't/aren't using the controller with Steam. Perhaps useful in some circumstances; but not the issue I'm trying to solve.

It's not specified in the original post, but my assumption (and complaint) is that when a controller *I'm using* to play (some) Steam games disconnects, Steam crashes.

For example: Playing Steam game w/Bluetooth DS4, Pause a game for lunch, Mac disconnects controller after +/- 10 minutes of inactivity, Steam crashes, Game progress is lost.

Just an update: the support ticket I had submitted was very unhelpful. The guy responding to me had basically said support tickets can't help with that and to try alerting the devs about the issue on one of Steam's forums, but that place looked desolate and pointless. I stopped playing games on my Mac after out of frustration. I just started again recently, hoping that some client update along the way had resolved the issue.

I played some Stardew Valley for about 15mins, where the controller seemed to work. Then, for seemingly no reason, the controller got disconnected. I tried unplugging and then plugging back in, which made the game crash.

How the heck have they not fixed this? What's more, why did the controller work for a bit and then suddenly stop? I'm not sure what else to do.

Edit: Submitted another ticket. I'll post the reply when I get it.

Edit #2: Got this from Steam Support but it didn't help:

Please follow the steps below:
Restart your computer
Check for interfering programs running and stop running them

If you continue to see the issue after stopping any interfering programs, you'll want to download the Steam installer again in order to repair your local Steam installation. Once you have the installer, run it and select the current file path of your Steam installation. This will make sure that you have all of the correct files in the correct locations, while preserving installed games and other account specific details.

After all of this, if the problem still exists, please let us know.