Verifying game files taking over two hours - why?

[Varuna]

I haven't even had a chance to play yet because I'm stuck on the "Verifying Baldur's Gate 3" bar. I have the game downloaded into an external hard drive (I know this adds time to everything) but otherwise, the Steam download cache has been cleared, my MacOS is freshly updated to Sonoma, my connection is strong and steady, and I'm not running anything else. I'm only just cracking 60% on the bar. Has anyone else run into this issue on Mac? I really want to play, the game looks phenomenal, but if I have to go through this extreme wait period every time I try to boot up, then I'll strongly consider returning everything.

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Varuna:

Verifying game files taking over two hours - why?
I haven't even had a chance to play yet because I'm stuck on the "Verifying Baldur's Gate 3" bar. I have the game downloaded into an external hard drive (I know this adds time to everything) but otherwise, the Steam download cache has been cleared, my MacOS is freshly updated to Sonoma, my connection is strong and steady, and I'm not running anything else. I'm only just cracking 60% on the bar. Has anyone else run into this issue on Mac? I really want to play, the game looks phenomenal, but if I have to go through this extreme wait period every time I try to boot up, then I'll strongly consider returning everything.

Share screenshots

[Varuna]

Originally posted by アンジェル:

Originally posted by Varuna:

Verifying game files taking over two hours - why?
I haven't even had a chance to play yet because I'm stuck on the "Verifying Baldur's Gate 3" bar. I have the game downloaded into an external hard drive (I know this adds time to everything) but otherwise, the Steam download cache has been cleared, my MacOS is freshly updated to Sonoma, my connection is strong and steady, and I'm not running anything else. I'm only just cracking 60% on the bar. Has anyone else run into this issue on Mac? I really want to play, the game looks phenomenal, but if I have to go through this extreme wait period every time I try to boot up, then I'll strongly consider returning everything.

Share screenshots

Okay, figured it out (kind of): https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3044145024

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Varuna:

Originally posted by アンジェル:

Share screenshots

Okay, figured it out (kind of): https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3044145024

Based on the screenshot and what you wrote it might have something to do -most likely- with you trying to start the game from the external drive. If possible, keep the game on your main drive on the Mac.

As a workaround try this for now:
- exit Steam, so the app is completely closed and no process of it remains open
- start the game directly from the folder where you have installed it
- there is a subfolder "bin" in the game's folder where you would find the executable on Windows, so I expect it to be the same for Mac

Try if that gets your game running without the verification. Once your game runs you can start Steam again.

[Varuna]

Okay, I'll give it a shot. I don't have the space to put the game on my main drive without getting rid of a lot of stuff, unfortunately, hence the external drive, but we'll see if this workaround pans out! Thanks for the help!

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Varuna:

Okay, I'll give it a shot. I don't have the space to put the game on my main drive without getting rid of a lot of stuff, unfortunately, hence the external drive, but we'll see if this workaround pans out! Thanks for the help!

An alternative, which depends on the stuff you have
- since you wrote hard drive, I have to assume it is a HDD
- instead use a USB
- depending on your Mac's USB capabilities... wait - do Macs use USB? anyroads...
- using a fast USB works often better than a HDD for loading games from external
- it works even better than loading a game from a HDD main

[Varuna]

Okay, so that workaround sadly didn't work. Application wasn't responding at all.

I'm using the FireCuda Gaming Hard Drive, which hooks up via USB-A, so I need an adapter to plug in to the Mac USB-C port. I'm thinking maybe that I should have gotten the FireCuda SSD… nvm that's only compatible with Windows, argh

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Varuna:

Okay, so that workaround sadly didn't work. Application wasn't responding at all.

I'm using the FireCuda Gaming Hard Drive, which hooks up via USB-A, so I need an adapter to plug in to the Mac USB-C port. I'm thinking maybe that I should have gotten the FireCuda SSD… nvm that's only compatible with Windows, argh

Yeah... the setup you have does not sound optimal at all. If you really cannot move stuff onto your external HDD it is probably a dead end and you are better off either refunding or looking into GeForce Now. Either way you have reached your limit for gaming with the current Mac setup of yours.

[itsbinghe]

Did you get anywhere with this? Having the same issue with external SSD :(

[Nato]

I too have run into this issue on my M1 MacBook Air. Oddly enough I had a 256GB SK Hynix NVMe SSD that I ran the game on just fine. Yesterday I upgraded to a 2TB WD SN850X and now I'm experiencing this same issue. I went to Settings > Privacy & Security > Full Disk Access > Allowed Steam, but still no resolve. Both Steam and BG3 are installed on my external drive just like I had it on my old SK Hynix drive.

I've read some other forum posts of this verification process taking a few hours. I'm letting it run in the background. 45 minutes in and it's barely made any progress.

[Nato]

I stumbled across my own solution - maybe it would work for you? I erased and reformatted my external drive from exFAT to APFS. I also moved my Steam application from that external drive back to my main internal drive. I then reinstalled BG3 and found the verification finally worked and launched the game. However, I suspect the reformatting and/or clean-slate reinstall was what solved the issue.