SteamOS 0.4.3 fixes a Steam Frame adapter fault in some countries, but only on beta
SteamOS 0.4.3 for Steam Frame fixes "steam frame wireless adapter connectivity issues that affected users in some countries", in a release post Valve published at 18:23 UTC on October 1. That is the whole of Valve's description, and the update ships on the Frame's Beta channel only, which you opt into at Settings > System > System Update Channel.
SteamOS 0.4.3 carries SteamVR 2.18.2 inside the headset image. Promotional image from SteamVR's Steam store page. Image: Valve
Valve names no country, no band and no cause. What it does name is the adapter, which is the one piece of Steam Frame kit with a geographic problem on the record.
The sequence points at the 6GHz dead end
The regulatory-domain dead end is on the record in Valve's own repository. A troubleshooting script committed there checks whether the host's Wi-Fi rules set carries a 6GHz band and, when it does not, prints that the dongle "will not work for the moment". The same script warns owners not to switch their Wi-Fi region to the US to get the band and says an upcoming beta will let the dongle work in a non-6GHz mode.
The script's advice to anyone in that position is to put the headset into developer mode and connect it to the PC over USB, which it calls the current recommended workaround. It flags a second regulatory problem as well: a rules set without passive scanning, which it says may cause problems seeing the headset on some Linux distributions and which it also promises to address "with alternative logic in an upcoming beta".
That script was last revised at 23:11 UTC on September 30, and SteamOS 0.4.3 arrived 19 hours later as the first Frame OS beta since. Valve does not draw the connection itself, and the release note does not say a non-6GHz mode has shipped, so what is on the record is a dated fix for adapter connectivity in countries Valve will not name.
What else is in the build, and who gets it
Valve's dongle work predates this release. SteamOS 0.4.1, on September 26, fixed "rare cases of other network interfaces causing disruption of wireless dongle connection", and 0.4.2 followed on September 29 with further streaming reliability work. 0.4.3 is the first of these notes to use the word countries.
The rest of 0.4.3 is smaller. Valve claims gains in power efficiency and battery life, adds an accessibility option under VR Settings > General called Track Dominant Eye Only that needs advanced settings switched on before it appears, fixes controller bindings that would not load in Google Earth VR and Thumper, and ships SteamVR 2.18.2 inside the headset image.
Valve's own wording manages both at once. The release post says 0.4.3 "has just been released for all users" and also says the update is for the Steam Frame Beta channel, which is not the same group of people.
None of it reaches a Frame left on the default update channel, and Valve's own framing of the release is that it "includes new features that are still being tested". Until Valve promotes 0.4.3, the adapter fix is a beta opt-in, and since Valve will not say which countries it means, the only way to find out whether yours was one of them is to take the update.
