steam is downloading the entire eso again for no reason

[God]

So I opened the launcher to see if the maintenance was over, somehow steam started an update. I thought oh well they are improving things like any other game. Then steam started downloading the game again ( Im playing this game for 2 months). Now it says 250mb/60.5gb. I have hundreds of games and none of it is this problematic, this is just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ disgusting. At least I wouldn't be pissed off if I did something wrong, all I did was trying to play a game.

[Duvel]

I feel bad for ya.. May god be with you..

[God]

I just checked that appearantly steam has deleted most of my games folders for no reason whatsoever, zenimax online folder looks 17gbs ( for whatever the f*ck reason) but my harddisk somehow increased by 100gbs ( there was around 100gb of empty space and now there is 20gb.

Lol, steam says that the game has 71gb of content inb my harddisk yet trying to download 60 more.

[Covun]

Dont know what went wrong here, i just can add my experience:
Never repair the game files via Steam, only use ESO client features. Steam will delete and download the whole game again.

[God]

Originally posted by Lorus:

Dont know what went wrong here, i just can add my experience:
Never repair the game files via Steam, only use ESO client features. Steam will delete and download the whole game again.

I would never try to search for a logic in steam and specially in ZOS. Thanks for the advice.

I'm sure if they wanted to fix this, they would require a month long maintenance and after that they would say "ups we can only fix it in NA, sorry EU just download the game everyday because we broke it a bit more"

[God]

I just drove half an hour to get to my friend and pick the folder from him. The folder is perfect I mean he can play iwthout any problems so I just took it and drove back home. I replaced the file and started steam again. For my surprise (lol ofc no surprise), steam checked the files, deleted them all again and started updating 60.5GB again. All the money we pay for them like millions of players and this is the service that they can end up offering. Disgusting...

Now I will send a ticket to zenimax support just for the lols and copy paste feedbacks

[Deepblue]

Originally posted by God:

I would never try to search for a logic in steam and specially in ZOS.

Really simple.

Steam only has you download the base game and the client.
It's the client program itself that downloads the updates.

You get the same game whether it's on Steam or you bought it a different way.

Hence the need for a client program that connects to Zeni's servers to download updates as well as launching the game.

That's not really illogical at all.

[God]

Originally posted by Deepblue:

Originally posted by God:

I would never try to search for a logic in steam and specially in ZOS.

Really simple.

Steam only has you download the base game and the client.
It's the client program itself that downloads the updates.

You get the same game whether it's on Steam or you bought it a different way.

Hence the need for a client program that connects to Zeni's servers to download updates as well as launching the game.

That's not really illogical at all.

Okay I'm sorry that I couldn't find logic in steam&zenimax deleting my folder when I pressed start. Thanks for enlightening me. What you wrote really is smart. Im speechles. Also zenimax sent me a much better answer saying that "if you have problems with updates you should change the region for download and change it back etc." like I have an update problem. Loving the situation, amazing.

[God]

I tried many things that gave no good result. Last thing I tried was completely deleting the game, then copying the back up zenimax online folder to steams "common" file then starting steam and selecting install elder scrolls online. After a long time of waiting, steam detected 45gbs of file and now its downloading only 15 which is way better than 60gb. This problem still sucks but if someone else lives the same problem, I hope this helps.

[Scipio]

Originally posted by God:

I tried many things that gave no good result. Last thing I tried was completely deleting the game, then copying the back up zenimax online folder to steams "common" file then starting steam and selecting install elder scrolls online. After a long time of waiting, steam detected 45gbs of file and now its downloading only 15 which is way better than 60gb. This problem still sucks but if someone else lives the same problem, I hope this helps.

You need to copy your friend's ACF file as well or steam will keep deleting the game upon trying to verify if it's installed.

[Scipio]

Okay so if anyone else runs into this issue:

>Exit Steam completely.

>Copy Zenimax Online from your friend or from a copy you made as backup

>Paste into steamapps\common\

>Copy appmanifest_306130 (You can find this in /Steamapps) from your friend into your own steamapps folder.

>If you don't have one available copy the following text into your appmanifest_306130 file (Edit with wordpad)

"AppState"
{
"appid" "306130"
"Universe" "1"
"name" "The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited"
"StateFlags" "4"
"installdir" "Zenimax Online"
"LastUpdated" "1486594681"
"UpdateResult" "0"
"SizeOnDisk" "71856462752"
"buildid" "1499373"
"LastOwner" "76561198010040646"
"BytesToDownload" "209762592"
"BytesDownloaded" "209762592"
"AutoUpdateBehavior" "0"
"AllowOtherDownloadsWhileRunning" "0"
"UserConfig"
{
"language" "english"
}
"InstalledDepots"
{
"228983"
{
"manifest" "8124929965194586177"
}
"228990"
{
"manifest" "1829726630299308803"
}
"306131"
{
"manifest" "1035978175915951518"
}
}
"MountedDepots"
{
"228983" "8124929965194586177"
"228990" "1829726630299308803"
"306131" "1035978175915951518"
}
"InstallScripts"
{
"0" "_CommonRedist\\vcredist\\2010\\installscript.vdf"
"1" "_CommonRedist\\DirectX\\Jun2010\\installscript.vdf"
"2" "installScript.vdf"
}
}

>Save the file
>Start Steam
>Launch the game

PS: Just keep a copy of your entire game and ACF file in future so you don't need to redownload the entire thing.
PS2: Never try and verify files, repair or backup via steam. ALWAYS use the ESO launcher for updates and repair

[God]

Originally posted by YouGottaBeCrittingMe:

Originally posted by God:

I tried many things that gave no good result. Last thing I tried was completely deleting the game, then copying the back up zenimax online folder to steams "common" file then starting steam and selecting install elder scrolls online. After a long time of waiting, steam detected 45gbs of file and now its downloading only 15 which is way better than 60gb. This problem still sucks but if someone else lives the same problem, I hope this helps.

You need to copy your friend's ACF file as well or steam will keep deleting the game upon trying to verify if it's installed.

Thanks a lot for the detailed help! I will hold on to this in case I have to deal with it again. Since I have only 10gbs left I will not try it this time lol.