[SOLVED] All steam workshop content re downloading (45.5 GB)

[marnesvstaden]

Steam randomly started downloading all my workshop content again which equates to 45.5 GB, yeah I have a ton of content.

Problem is that all of this content still is up to date and still exists in the workshop folder so how can I correct this. I rely on a mobile connection because I live in a rural area and I have limited data so re-downloading everything is not an option.

Any ideas?
Much appreciated.

[tobiaspitzer]

The workshop contents are completely reloaded, I know only with a new installation. I had to re-install rFactor2 this week and for me it was 72.2 GB workshop content. Otherwise, I only know the usual updates from Workshop Content. But the updates are usually only relatively small in scope. Therefore, this is very strange with the complete reinstallation of the workshop content.

[marnesvstaden]

Wow you are definitely more obsessed than me lol.

Yeah and everything was working fine until yesterday. As I said though the content is actually still there in the workshop folder but the game/steam does not recognize it. Very strange.

[tobiaspitzer]

This is definitely very strange. Especially if you have not reinstalled rFactor2.
Obsessed is good, even if I would rather say excited. There are many interesting mods in the workshop. And the 72.2GB were just the Steam Workshop content. 9.93GB come from other sites to Mods.

[marnesvstaden]

It is good there is many awesome mods and I probably would have more if I had more time. I managed to solve it, for some reason steam reset all my .acf files. I compared the rFactor 2 .acf file to one of my other games that also have steam workshop mods and changed it to be exactly the same, that did the trick and all I had to wait for is for everything to install again.

[phxmc]

Could you explain what the .acf file is please, and its function.

[marnesvstaden]

Ok, so I assume the .acf file tells steam what downloaded mods are currently available in your steam workshop folder for a specific game.

The workshop folder is located under [Your install location/drive]/Steam/steamapps/workshop. In my case this was obviously rFactor 2 so the workshop folder associated with rFactor 2 is 365960, this is the game ID. By the way this folder is located in [Your install location/drive]/Steam/steamapps/workshop/content.

Inside the workshop folder you will find a number of .acf files each corresponding to the ID of your various games. So in this case since the content folder for rFactor 2 was 365960 the .acf filoe is 365960.acf.

I figured out by comparing another games .acf file that was running without issue that a few lines had changed inside my .acf file for rFactor 2, why this happens I don't know but it is not the first time.

This is what the file looked like before I changed it (This is just the top few lines):

"AppWorkshop"
{
"appid" "365960"
"SizeOnDisk" "3979265820272701998"
"NeedsUpdate" "0"
"NeedsDownload" "1"
"TimeLastUpdated" "1552853795"
"TimeLastAppRan" "1552853975"
"WorkshopItemsInstalled"
{
}
"WorkshopItemDetails"
{
"521757798"
{
"manifest" "8706385985746997795"
"timeupdated" "1539526903"
"timetouched" "0"
"subscribedby" "259582855"

By comparing I figured out that "NeedsDownload" should be "0" because the files were already downloaded and the other files did not have the line "WorkshopItemsInstalled" so I changed "NeedsDownload" from "1" to "0" and removed the line "WorkshopItemDetails".

How my Updated file looks:

"AppWorkshop"
{
"appid" "365960"
"SizeOnDisk" "50962576586"
"NeedsUpdate" "0"
"NeedsDownload" "0"
"TimeLastUpdated" "1552937627"
"TimeLastAppRan" "1552857440"
"WorkshopItemsInstalled"
{
"521757798"
{
"size" "420507470"
"timeupdated" "1539526903"
"manifest" "8706385985746997795"

This did the trick, steam did not try to re-download all the workshop items and all I had to wait for was for everything to re-install. For some reason it had also uninstalled all my workshop items.

I hope this helps you.

P.S. to find the game ID go to the steam store page for that game right click on it and choose 'copy page url' then scroll down to write review or open notepad and paste, the ID will be shown in the url, for instance for rFactor 2 this is:

...../app/365960/rFactor_2/

[phxmc]

Interesting, thanks for clarifying that..

[MrSlow]

Originally posted by marnesvstaden:

Ok, so I assume the .acf file tells steam what downloaded mods are currently available in your steam workshop folder for a specific game.

The workshop folder is located under [Your install location/drive]/Steam/steamapps/workshop. In my case this was obviously rFactor 2 so the workshop folder associated with rFactor 2 is 365960, this is the game ID. By the way this folder is located in [Your install location/drive]/Steam/steamapps/workshop/content.

Inside the workshop folder you will find a number of .acf files each corresponding to the ID of your various games. So in this case since the content folder for rFactor 2 was 365960 the .acf filoe is 365960.acf.

I figured out by comparing another games .acf file that was running without issue that a few lines had changed inside my .acf file for rFactor 2, why this happens I don't know but it is not the first time.

This is what the file looked like before I changed it (This is just the top few lines):

"AppWorkshop"
{
"appid" "365960"
"SizeOnDisk" "3979265820272701998"
"NeedsUpdate" "0"
"NeedsDownload" "1"
"TimeLastUpdated" "1552853795"
"TimeLastAppRan" "1552853975"
"WorkshopItemsInstalled"
{
}
"WorkshopItemDetails"
{
"521757798"
{
"manifest" "8706385985746997795"
"timeupdated" "1539526903"
"timetouched" "0"
"subscribedby" "259582855"

By comparing I figured out that "NeedsDownload" should be "0" because the files were already downloaded and the other files did not have the line "WorkshopItemsInstalled" so I changed "NeedsDownload" from "1" to "0" and removed the line "WorkshopItemDetails".

How my Updated file looks:

"AppWorkshop"
{
"appid" "365960"
"SizeOnDisk" "50962576586"
"NeedsUpdate" "0"
"NeedsDownload" "0"
"TimeLastUpdated" "1552937627"
"TimeLastAppRan" "1552857440"
"WorkshopItemsInstalled"
{
"521757798"
{
"size" "420507470"
"timeupdated" "1539526903"
"manifest" "8706385985746997795"

This did the trick, steam did not try to re-download all the workshop items and all I had to wait for was for everything to re-install. For some reason it had also uninstalled all my workshop items.

I hope this helps you.

P.S. to find the game ID go to the steam store page for that game right click on it and choose 'copy page url' then scroll down to write review or open notepad and paste, the ID will be shown in the url, for instance for rFactor 2 this is:

...../app/365960/rFactor_2/

Thank you smart bro this method saved me precious time, i can confirm it's working.

[aviatorboy]

Originally posted by marnesvstaden:

Ok, so I assume the .acf file tells steam what downloaded mods are currently available in your steam workshop folder for a specific game.

The workshop folder is located under [Your install location/drive]/Steam/steamapps/workshop. In my case this was obviously rFactor 2 so the workshop folder associated with rFactor 2 is 365960, this is the game ID. By the way this folder is located in [Your install location/drive]/Steam/steamapps/workshop/content.

Inside the workshop folder you will find a number of .acf files each corresponding to the ID of your various games. So in this case since the content folder for rFactor 2 was 365960 the .acf filoe is 365960.acf.

I figured out by comparing another games .acf file that was running without issue that a few lines had changed inside my .acf file for rFactor 2, why this happens I don't know but it is not the first time.

This is what the file looked like before I changed it (This is just the top few lines):

"AppWorkshop"
{
"appid" "365960"
"SizeOnDisk" "3979265820272701998"
"NeedsUpdate" "0"
"NeedsDownload" "1"
"TimeLastUpdated" "1552853795"
"TimeLastAppRan" "1552853975"
"WorkshopItemsInstalled"
{
}
"WorkshopItemDetails"
{
"521757798"
{
"manifest" "8706385985746997795"
"timeupdated" "1539526903"
"timetouched" "0"
"subscribedby" "259582855"

By comparing I figured out that "NeedsDownload" should be "0" because the files were already downloaded and the other files did not have the line "WorkshopItemsInstalled" so I changed "NeedsDownload" from "1" to "0" and removed the line "WorkshopItemDetails".

How my Updated file looks:

"AppWorkshop"
{
"appid" "365960"
"SizeOnDisk" "50962576586"
"NeedsUpdate" "0"
"NeedsDownload" "0"
"TimeLastUpdated" "1552937627"
"TimeLastAppRan" "1552857440"
"WorkshopItemsInstalled"
{
"521757798"
{
"size" "420507470"
"timeupdated" "1539526903"
"manifest" "8706385985746997795"

This did the trick, steam did not try to re-download all the workshop items and all I had to wait for was for everything to re-install. For some reason it had also uninstalled all my workshop items.

I hope this helps you.

P.S. to find the game ID go to the steam store page for that game right click on it and choose 'copy page url' then scroll down to write review or open notepad and paste, the ID will be shown in the url, for instance for rFactor 2 this is:

...../app/365960/rFactor_2/

Sorry for bringing this topic back up but thank you so much for saving me from re-downloading all of my mods for Arma 3.

[Samacqueen5]

This just started happening to me a couple of days ago, and that fix did the trick. But it seems like the Steam client has a mind of its own and keep rewriting the file back to redownload everything about every 10 minutes or so. I'm trying to get in touch with Steam support, but the website isn't complex enough to figure out what problem I'm having.

[TonyMatterhorn]

sry to hijack/revive this old thread but this is happenin to me rn with every steam game that I have workshop content subscribed for... the 50gb dayz mods hurt the most lol

[Samacqueen5]

My problem was a faulty hard drive. But if you go into your workshop folder, and use Notepad++, you can change the program that's listed earlier in the thread.

[WesternSpace]

My issue was that stream thought that the entire workshop folder needed updating so I set NeedsUpdate to 0 to fix this and steam downloaded what it actually only needed.