Wallpaper Engine uninstalled itself and deleted my playlist and wallpaper?

[Rigeios]

The last update caused WE to uninstall itself. When I reinstalled it, it prompted me about installing in the wrong location and the playlist I was using was deleted. It also deleted the wallpapers I was using and now I can't find them on the workshop to reinstall.

[Tim]

Updates cannot "uninstall" apps like that and since you got the message about Wallpaper Engine being installed in a different directory after installing it again, it was probably (or almost definitely) still installed. Your Steam files probably got corrupted for some random reason, this made Steam show Wallpaper Engine as uninstalled even though it must have still been installed on your computer.

You then reinstalled it through Steam but chose a different directory or hard disk than before. This is why you then got the prompt from Wallpaper Engine telling you that it was also installed in a different directory and this is also why your playlist is missing (because your config file is in the other directory).

What you should do is uninstall the app through Steam again, then reinstall it into the same directory as before. Steam will notice that the app is already installed and Wallpaper Engine will have its old config back.

Regarding the wallpapers you are using: If you don't see your subscribed wallpapers in the "Installed" tab, then Steam is still bugging out for you. Your wallpapers are subscribed to your Steam account, no app update can delete these subscriptions. If you go to the Wallpaper Engine Workshop page while logged in to your Steam account, hover over "Your files" on the right and then "Your subscriptions", you should see all your wallpapers still there and Steam should download them:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/431960/workshop/

Since this is all somehow related to Steam, your Steam is probably acting up in a really bad way for some random reason. Try what I suggested first, uninstall the app again and reinstall it into the old directory. If you are unsure what the old directory is, it should have been shown to you in the "wrong location" prompt you mentioned.

[Rigeios]

I unfortunately couldn't find the original directory location because I clicked away too fast and it never popped up again. It only removed one of my playlists (the one I was using) which is fine because I keep backup lists for them because playlists disappearing has happened to me before. The wallpaper I was using for my other monitor however is just gone though because the author removed it from the workshop and I can't find it anywhere on my PC.

[Tim]

Odds are that Wallpaper Engine is now installed on your computer twice. If you clicked the "Fix" button on the prompt, Wallpaper Engine fixed the broken automatic startup but the old directory is still there. Did you create a local backup of the deleted wallpaper or was it coincidentally just deleted from the Workshop? If you created a local backup, it might still be in your old wallpaper_engine directory.

[Rigeios]

I did press "fix autostart" but that didn't bring the playlist or wallpaper back. I didn't pay attention to where my old directory was and the prompt never showed up again. Is there any way to get it to prompt me again or find my old directory otherwise?

[Tim]

If you use the "fix autostart" button, then Wallpaper Engine will essentially rewrite the directory for the automatic startup to the new one. But in that case, your old files, including the old config, is still somewhere on your computer. I think at this point it's getting a little tedious on your end, though you could still try and find the old directory by searching for wallpaper32.exe for example or going through all your Steam Library folders. By default, Wallpaper Engine would be installed here, check all your drives:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\wallpaper_engine

[Rigeios]

I've now managed to find an older directory on my other drive that has the wallpaper in it thankfully. Copy and pasting the folder into my new directory doesn't seem to work though. I'm not sure it'll even be able to load at all since it was removed from the workshop

[Tim]

If you found the wallpaper, you need to place it in the new Wallpaper Engine directory, specifically in the backup directory as explained here:

https://help.wallpaperengine.io/en/steam/backup.html

So that's this folder inside of your new Wallpaper Engine directory:

wallpaper_engine\projects\backup

[Rigeios]

Awesome, this worked and all my stuff is restored. I'll probably back up all my stuff from now on. Thanks for the timely replies!