All Non Steam games disappeared

[Withered Bonnie]

Literally hundreds of all my non steam game files ranging from emulated games some requiring annoying setups to have Steam read certain files in order to not have to boot them as separate instances to cross platform games like D3 and D2, Val etc, were setup fully with appropriate images, Valorant as well requiring some annoying work arounds, have had their shortcuts broken and literally removed, I have never tampered with my shortcut files they simply have stopped working for no apparent reason.

These aren't just QoL for me but also massively appealing like having a case collection for said games, and now they have just disappeared, especially with Steams archaic UI for adding these games, shortcuts and image files it represents hours of my time that I have simply lost.

I would love to say I have any clue or fixes but even the obvious have not worked, e.g. re-installing steam and making sure to keep said config files

If anyone can help me I'd appreciate that but I mostly post this as a bug report as I've already accepted this is probably a core issue I cannot fix.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Do you still have all the saved app manifest files, and thumbnails you done in Steam folder in exact same place?

I come back to this later as I haven't done it for awhile so I want to make sure how it works if still the same or unless something changes from last time I done it.

So basically under Steam\userdata your steam non steam games you setup would be under folder "0" like so Steam\userdata\0


And for other things it be placed in another folder which is your steam id folder Steam\userdata\ "your id here" \librarycache & Steam\userdata\ "your id here" \grid

Hope this helps you out, I'm currently under Steam family beta.

[Ominous Bagel]

This did just happen to me, but shutting down via the Exit option and relaunching it fixed it.

[keviin.aleexis]

same problem

[GOLOMB]

same here...

[Withered Bonnie]

Originally posted by Dr.Shadowds 🐉:

Do you still have all the saved app manifest files, and thumbnails you done in Steam folder in exact same place?

I come back to this later as I haven't done it for awhile so I want to make sure how it works if still the same or unless something changes from last time I done it.

So basically under Steam\userdata your steam non steam games you setup would be under folder "0" like so Steam\userdata\0


And for other things it be placed in another folder which is your steam id folder Steam\userdata\ "your id here" \librarycache & Steam\userdata\ "your id here" \grid

Hope this helps you out, I'm currently under Steam family beta.

Yes, and I made sure to check after, I'll try fix it more in depth after the blow of this wears off, also in Steam Family Beta just so others are aware in case they read this and other posts for help

[Notetaker]

Originally posted by Ominous Bagel:

This did just happen to me, but shutting down via the Exit option and relaunching it fixed it.

THIS!!! I just ran into the same issue, and this fixed it!

[FerventPiranha]

Originally posted by Ominous Bagel:

This did just happen to me, but shutting down via the Exit option and relaunching it fixed it.

Fixed it for me, too! Was about to go crazy.

[Ishi]

Originally posted by Ominous Bagel:

This did just happen to me, but shutting down via the Exit option and relaunching it fixed it.

Oh thank god, this sounds like such a simple fix but it did it for me too. I tried backing up the shortcuts.vdf file in the config folder to no avail.

Just for the record, you need to do this from Steam itself, under the top left menu. Trying it from the Windows tray did not work for me. Apparently this happens if Steam does not shut down properly. Last night my PC didn't shut down and I didn't notice.

Maybe there is a way to back up this data in case we're not so lucky next time?

[Henswi]

Originally posted by Ominous Bagel:

This did just happen to me, but shutting down via the Exit option and relaunching it fixed it.

Fixed this for me but sadly any added game that was set as hidden, will be part of the visible library. Thanks for the workaround.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Yeah that normal if Steam failed to read correctly, or unable detect it remove stuff restarting can fix the issue as it allow to re-try again to read/detect your files. If doing it via external storage, or from spare storage want to make sure it ready to read before launching Steam.

[DoofiestDoofz]

Restarting my PC and/or the steam client didn't fix it. No other changes. Just all missing after starting up this evening. Was fine in the morning. Any other tips?

[Notetaker]

Originally posted by DoofiestDoofz:

Restarting my PC and/or the steam client didn't fix it. No other changes. Just all missing after starting up this evening. Was fine in the morning. Any other tips?

Did you specifically click 'Steam' at the top right, then 'Exit'? That seems to be the solution that works.
When I first noticed my non-steam games missing, I tried force-closing Steam by ending it in the task manager, then relaunching, but that didn't work. It wasn't until I clicked on the Exit button in Steam, then relaunched it that my stuff came back.

[Rayce (Commander Awesome)]

The above solution didn't work for me but I found something that did:
See if Steam/userdata/0/config exists and if shortcuts.vdf is in it.
If not then make the directory and copy over the shortcuts.vdf from (yourID)/config.
Then restart Steam in the manner suggested above.

I didn't have that directory and making it fixed my library.

It might also be good to keep a backup of shortcuts.vdf should this happen again.

[ICON1C]

Originally posted by Ominous Bagel:

This did just happen to me, but shutting down via the Exit option and relaunching it fixed it.

Worked for me, thx

[bidulless]

hello
Bug discover and corrected intp the beta branch
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta/announcements/detail/4160841001687243679