diff --git a/app/gui/StreamSegue.qml b/app/gui/StreamSegue.qml
index 377b5337..d7c0c5d1 100644
--- a/app/gui/StreamSegue.qml
+++ b/app/gui/StreamSegue.qml
@@ -126,22 +126,9 @@ Item {
         SystemProperties.waitForAsyncLoad()
 
         // Kick off the stream
-        spinnerTimer.start()
         streamLoader.active = true
     }
 
-    Timer {
-        id: spinnerTimer
-
-        // Display the spinner appearance a bit to allow us to reach
-        // the code in Session.exec() that pumps the event loop.
-        // If we display it immediately, it will briefly hang in the
-        // middle of the animation on Windows, which looks very
-        // obviously broken.
-        interval: 100
-        onTriggered: stageSpinner.visible = true
-    }
-
     Timer {
         id: startSessionTimer
         onTriggered: {
@@ -178,6 +165,11 @@ Item {
                 return;
             }
 
+            // This spinner is shown only after session.initialize() has completed
+            // to prevent active animations from running during decoder probing,
+            // which causes re-entrant event loop livelocks with libdecor-gtk.
+            stageSpinner.visible = true
+
             // Don't wait unless we have toasts to display
             startSessionTimer.interval = 0