Categories are gone

[Viporion]

Greetings,

I need a bit of help.

Today my computer froze and every category I had in my steam library was gone.

Now I did manage to find some ways other people lost theirs but so far the advice I found there doesn't help me.

It isn't as if I just set them up and lost them during the crash.
I sorted everything 4-7 months ago.
Only have one computer with steam on it so it can't be because of syncing between devices.

I can't find the file where the categories should be saved.
It doesn't reappear after closing down steam and restarting it. Or closing down steam, restarting the computer and then restarting steam.

Does anybody have an idea that can fix this?
Of do I need to resort every single game?

[StickyPawz]

The category file is stored under your userdata:

"userdata/$UID/7/remote/sharedconfig.vdf"

[Eldin]

Go to .\Steam\userdata\yourID\7\remote\
There will be
sharedconfig.vdf and backups
Rename one of those backups to sharedconfig.vdf and you should get your categories back.

You should also be able to find your categories on the cloud
https://store.steampowered.com/account/remotestorageapp/?appid=7

[Viporion]

Thank you both.

[DrMagicWolf]

To be honest, I'm really disappointed in Steam Support, this issue is obviously very common and affects a lot of people!
After spending countless frustrating hours to find a fix, I realized what the problem was...

It seems that when Steam is installed for the first time on a new Machine, it tries to find the sharedconfig.vdf from another computer (and/or probably the Steam servers).
However if there is no other computer, or it's not connected to the internet to search the Steam servers, the new installation of Steam just creates it's new sharedconfig.vdf, with the present date and time code (or some other version identifier?) and probably uploads it to a steam cloud folder once it comes online (bare with me, this will be important later on).
Afterwards, when an older computer logs in, it checks if any changes were made to the sharedconfig.vdf, sees the "new" but empty version of the sharedconfig.vdf and copies it, overwriting the old "full" file.

Now the official statement from Steam is: "You should have backed up your sharedconfig.vdf..." which is a bit of an easy way out, if you ask me, but it's not even the solution!
Here's why; if you happen to have a backup (or retrieve a copy from a computer that hasn't been online since the incident [this would be a helpful tip to give to people that have this issue!]), you can replace the sharedconfig.vdf in your local folder and restart to see that you have successfully recovered your categories.
However after you restart Steam the next time, everything is gone again, because it downloaded the "empty" config from the Steam cloud again, as that was still the latest file version!

This is what was driving me mad, as I saw them one moment and then they disappeared again the next.

It may seem obvious now, but it has cost me a lot of time and annoyance to figure this out and understanding how the entire system works without knowing how it was designed and programmed to work:

Here is the only way I found to fix this;
1. Find a backup of the sharedconfig.vdf (located in "...\Steam\userdata\[YourSteamID]\7\remote\") or retrieve it from a computer that hasn't been online since the categories have disappeared (make sure the computer isn't able to go online, or it will overwrite the old sharedconfig.vdf as well!).
2. Close Steam and replace the sharedconfig.vdf with your Backup.
3. Reboot your Computer (I had to restart my PC to get the categories to appear, just starting Steam would not get my categories back, probably there's still some process running in the background or it only syncs after a restart??)
4. Make sure your categories are back.
If they are not, go back to step 1. and start over, if they are; continue.
This is the important step to make sure your categories stay:
5. Edit your categories! Make a new category, move games in and out of categories, just make a few changes so the file version is updated, this will upload a new version of sharedconfig.vdf to the Steam servers and replace the empty file.
If you don't do this step, your categories will be gone again after you restart, as the empty file is still the "latest version".
6. Rejoyce, you don't have to re-sort all your categories by hand!

I really hope this helps all the frustrated people and gives the Devs an incentive to fix the bug in the system.
Basically the only change that would be needed from the Devs is; when a new installation can't access the servers or another computer, it creates a special, temporary version of sharedconfig.vdf that is overwritten as soon as it can access the servers or another computer.
Alternatively, it could just ask the user which version they want to keep once it's back online and notices that there's a discrepancy...
Please fix this, it's annoying, even if I found a workaround for you!

[Kent318]

Sure is happens far too often sick of it

[HEARTBREAK ANNIVERSARY]

Originally posted by Viporion:

Thank you both.