Steam keeps re-downloading Fallout 4

[Amber]

I've bought a physical copy of the game, which only has about 5 gigs of content on the dvd. So the extra 19gig download starts up. I don't live in a country where a 19 gig download is fast or cheap. It downloads for about 20 hours, I get up this morning to find that Steam has forgotten that it downloaded anything and just starts re-downloading EVERYTHING, including the content on the purchased dvd, totalling 24 gigs. I have done the following already:

Backed up the downloaded files (which do exist, contrary to Steam's opinion), deleted local content and copied the files to the install folders. This managed to get Steam to recognise a whopping 7.3 gigs of data by checking existing files, and it still wants to download the rest.
I've tried verifying the game cache, it is apparently succesfull.
I've restarted Steam and the PC multiple times.

Any help would be appreciated. I took a day off work to play this game and am instead spending it trying to get the game to work. This is not fun, Steam.

[Madman]

I'm having the same issue its done it THREE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ TIMES ALREADY everytime i reset my pc it does it wtf steam

[Opiate]

I too am experiencing this through steam family sharing...

EDIT: I also have noticed that the local file size never changes from 111MB, even though steam has downloaded the full 30GB game twice!

[Xander Tyrann]

out of interest have you tried verifying your files when it does it?

[Opiate]

I'll have a go at this tomorrow, but I have looked at the local files and there just doesn't seem to be anything in there after it completes. Surely verifying the files will cause steam to just continue acquiring them.

[Xander Tyrann]

Originally posted by Opiate:

I'll have a go at this tomorrow, but I have looked at the local files and there just doesn't seem to be anything in there after it completes. Surely verifying the files will cause steam to just continue acquiring them.

If there's nothing there sure. i was assuming it wasnt deleting them so they would be.

only other thing i can think of is changing the download location. sometimes that can have a wierd effect.

[Amber]

Originally posted by TheNamlessGuy:

You sure it's actually downloading the new files, and not just checking if they're there? Because that uses the same interface.

And have you checked if the files got downloaded at all? Might be that you're trying to download the game to a read-only folder (especially if you're on Windows 10).

Thanks guys. On the third download (after deleting any and all files that were downloaded before, it worked. Waste of time and expensive but I can finally play the game!

But yes, it was redownloading the files, not just checking that they are there as I explained in my original post. The files had downloaded, I did check that they existed and verified the files.

I didn't check whether it was downloading to a read-only folder though, so maybe that was the problem that got fixed after I deleted all the files for a fresh download.

[Snofur]

I did just use this link.
> http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3013670

For me, re-downloading from scratch was not an option.

[Opiate]

Originally posted by Snoken:

I did just use this link.
> http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3013670

For me, re-downloading from scratch was not an option.

I tried this but to no avail. I found the 25GB of the game sitting in the downloading folder, made a copy of the appid folder (377160), then deleted all the files (patch files, appid folder, .acf file) and placed the 25GB of data into the Fallout 4 folder in the common folder.

Once steam rechecks everything it just moves the data back into the downloading folder and tries to redownload from scratch!

Am i missing something?

[Snofur]

Originally posted by Opiate:

Originally posted by Snoken:

I did just use this link.
> http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3013670

For me, re-downloading from scratch was not an option.

I tried this but to no avail. I found the 25GB of the game sitting in the downloading folder, made a copy of the appid folder (377160), then deleted all the files (patch files, appid folder, .acf file) and placed the 25GB of data into the Fallout 4 folder in the common folder.

Once steam rechecks everything it just moves the data back into the downloading folder and tries to redownload from scratch!

Am i missing something?

Probably, I followed his steps exactly, I moved the content from 377160, according to steamdb, to a newly created folder in the Common section (where all main game folders are stored) ''Fallout 4'', then I deleted the entire folder named 377160 and the ''appmanifest_377160.acf among the patch, that I cannot remember how it was named, but it most probably contains the number of the game's id, 377160.

After this I re-checked that I had everything delted, so what should exist is only the Fallout 4 folder among with all the data, nothing else, I did have Steam open, and I remember it confirming Fallout 4 as deleted, or not installed, I exited Steam, and opened it again, then I tried to re-install, and it went along to procced with the standard Installation procedure, then it went to the state of checking file integrity, or file contents (existing data) and it detected all of the files, and I were back on track.


I'll try to simplify the instructions for you...

*Go to the Steamapps folder (In Steam), locate the appid (Game ID, found by googling Fallout 4 appid, it also shows the game's folder/game name > ''Fallout 4'') 377160

*Copy all of the files inside the appid folder of Fallout 4, 377160 into a newly created ''Fallout 4'' folder inside the Steamapps folder.

*Now delete the appid folder & the state.patch file (should both contain atleast one line of the appid 377160) among with the appmanifest.acf.

*Re-install/Install the game once again, and Steam should go trough the standard procedure and find the existing files that you placed inside the Fallout 4 folder in Steamapps.


Hopefully this helps somewhat, if this does not work, I don't know for what reason.

[Opiate]

Originally posted by Snoken:

I'll try to simplify the instructions for you...

*Go to the Steamapps folder (In Steam), locate the appid (Game ID, found by googling Fallout 4 appid, it also shows the game's folder/game name > ''Fallout 4'') 377160

*Copy all of the files inside the appid folder of Fallout 4, 377160 into a newly created ''Fallout 4'' folder inside the Steamapps folder.

*Now delete the appid folder & the state.patch file (should both contain atleast one line of the appid 377160) among with the appmanifest.acf.

*Re-install/Install the game once again, and Steam should go trough the standard procedure and find the existing files that you placed inside the Fallout 4 folder in Steamapps.


Hopefully this helps somewhat, if this does not work, I don't know for what reason.

I'll give this a go when I get home, the only difference between our methods is that you kept steam open. I had to close steam for it was locking some of the .patch files (like 3 out of the total 6) such that I couldn't delete those. Thanks for the input anyhow.

[Snofur]

NP, hope it works out for you, experiment some yourself if you know what you are doing.

Steam open/close etc.

[Opiate]

Did steam try to move all of the data back into the downloading/377160 folder when you tried installing?

After moving everything into the common/Fallout 4 folder, I resume the update and it recreates the .patch, .acf files and the downloading/377160 folder. It then seems to just move the data from the Fallout 4 folder back into the 377160 folder whilst simultaneously trying to download the thing from scratch (0kb/24GB @ 4.0mb/s)

this is so strange!


EDIT: okay i tried again, did exactly what you did and its just trying to install it again now. I've noticed its moving all the files from the Fallout 4 folder into the temp/377160 folder, then it decides to download the game and while its preallocating the files are then being moved into a newly made downloading/377160 folder. And from here, it starts trying to download the full 24GB again.

[Snofur]

Very odd, well to sum it up, all I did was to delete the relating things to the download of Fallout 4, and move the complete or atleast what was downloaded from the 377160 folder into a new in common named ''Fallout 4'', then i closed Steam, opened it and tried to install it by clicking the Install button.

Maybe something is read-only or blocked somehow? In the past this method has worked for other games.


I use Win 10, and had used Win 7, works on both for me. Maybe a particular setting is affecting this? My Steam installation is located in the (x86) area, I've also had big issues with file reading in mods for games when it is between Program Files / (x86), somehow Program Files does not have a ''invisible protection'' that is supposed to protect the system or files.

But I don't know, I would consider my Steam pretty default in terms of installation and I have changed settings in Steam whenever it was installed, but nothing to change location or duplicate download locations etc. Not sure why it is not working for you... Maybe an anti-virus protection?

[Opiate]

all the folders in my steam directory are read-only but I thought they were supposed to be like that? I'm using windows 7 and the directory is located in the (x86) area. I'll try disabling the anti virus

[Snofur]

Originally posted by Opiate:

all the folders in my steam directory are read-only but I thought they were supposed to be like that? I'm using windows 7 and the directory is located in the (x86) area. I'll try disabling the anti virus

Well, I'm out of ideas, since my method worked fine for me, and I never really researched deeper into the matter, sorry.