Steam wants me to download Skyrim again, but it's working...

[Tebasile]

Instead of saying "play" the button now says "install" and wants me to install the whole game again. But when I launch the game from SKSE it works perfectly, all my save files are in place etc etc. It's been like this for a few days without any problems, but today I noticed that I couldn't create a new game - so I thought if I fixed this then that would probably fix itself too.

I've been to another website and asked for help and they said that the "install directory" is probably in the wrong place... But I have no idea what he meant by that and he didn't give me anything else to go on.

Anyone know what I should do?

[AC Denton]

Originally posted by Tebasile:

Instead of saying "play" the button now says "install" and wants me to install the whole game again.

Try just right-clicking the game on your library list and click "play game". I had a similar problem with Dragon Age.

I've been to another website and asked for help and they said that the "install directory" is probably in the wrong place... But I have no idea what he meant by that and he didn't give me anything else to go on.

Your install directory is just where the game is installed:
(C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition) for me anyway.
(Normal Skyrim is the same, i just had to use SE as that's what I have installed).

He's suggesting SKSE is detecting where the game is.
It goes into your steamapps folder, then into common, then finds the game folder, then the .exe file & launches it.

Steam, for some reason, isn't finding it, so it's asking you to install.
(I'm just going by what they said).
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Now to fix the issue:

First
Right-click Skyrim on your library list of games, then click on "properties".
Click on the "local files" tab, then VERIFY integrity of the files.
This may fix your problem, it usually does.

If that does not work, try this method.
On the "local files" tab, where you found "verify", click on "move install folder" instead. Then select where the install location is.
Again, this MAY work.

If this also doesn't work then I can't think of anything else right now besides reinstalling.

[Tebasile]

------------------------
Now to fix the issue:

First
Right-click Skyrim on your library list of games, then click on "properties".
Click on the "local files" tab, then VERIFY integrity of the files.
This may fix your problem, it usually does.

If that does not work, try this method.
On the "local files" tab, where you found "verify", click on "move install folder" instead. Then select where the install location is.
Again, this MAY work.

If this also doesn't work then I can't think of anything else right now besides reinstalling.

I'd love to try these but the options are all greyed out for me.

Also, if I do reinstall, will my save files still work? I really don't wanna lose my lvl 47 character.

[AC Denton]

I'd love to try these but the options are all greyed out for me.

Also, if I do reinstall, will my save files still work? I really don't wanna lose my lvl 47 character.

I see.
Check your steamapps\common folder and make sure Skyrim is there & the .exe is inside.

If you have the game installed somewhere else, like an External Hard Drive, then move it to the default folder (steamapps\common).
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If you DO choose to reinstall the game, copy your save game folder & paste it to your desktop. Then delete & reinstall the game.
Then just copy & paste the save folder back into the correct place.

I'd reccomend doing this for your mods too, move/copy the folder to somwhere else, then move it back once reinstalled.
If they're installed on NMM or SKSE and such, they'll be fine.

I also would reccommend noting down or taking a snippet of the save file directory.
Quite a few times I've copied saves over and had them in the wrong place.
Example:
Dragon Age has a directory of \characters\*character name folder* then the files inside.
When reinstalling the game there was no "character" folder, as I had made no character yet. mI had only copied over my characters name folder.
So I had to add a new folder called "Characters" then paste my character folder in there.

This may seem very simple, but something that can be easily overlooked. :)