Games That Are Installed Are Showing Up As Not Installed

[Starwind Amada]

A bunch of my games are showing up as not installed. Every drive is connected and powered on. It's Friday night and I wanted to play Eternal but suddenly Steam decides to act like I don't have the game installed, which I do. Right now I can't play a huge chunk of my collection for this reason. The games are indeed installed on my external drives and those drives are connected to the PC. Up until last night everything was fine. I have not reinstalled Windows or anything.

[rawWwRrr]

on an external drive?

[Nedreck]

I'm having the same problem. Wants me to install ESO. A game i was just playing 3-4 hours ago.

[Starwind Amada]

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

on an external drive?

Yes. Not an SSD. It's connected and shows up in the file browser but Steam wants to install these games even though they're already installed.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Installed games are appearing as uninstalled

[Starwind Amada]

I'm trying to add library folders to get Steam to see the games but it keeps saying "Library folder must not be empty." There's a whole list of games in the folder but Steam says it's empty.

It's finally the weekend and now I can't play my games because of a software bug. RDR2 will take 2 days to install. I paid $60 for it and it was fine up until last night when Steam magically decided I don't have it installed even though I do.

[Starwind Amada]

None of the fixes are helping. On Reddit someone said to copy the files to a drive that Steam sees and then when I attempt to install the game Steam would see the files. That didn't work. I paused CoD WWII when it was at 50% and moved it to an external drive that Steam still sees. It still doesn't see the game and now I have to start over. Only 22 hours left until I can once again play a game that's currently installed on my hard drive all because Steam is having a problem that they refuse to acknowledge because my support request was ignored.

[The Giving One]

The .acf files are the files that tell Steam the games are installed. They are found in the steamapps folder.

The support page linked here covers the most common causes of the problem :

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Installed games are appearing as uninstalled

:qr:

Also, a hard drive that is having problems might cause it, too. So do a hard drive scan using disk check.

EDIT..............

Originally posted by Starwind Amada:

The games are indeed installed on my external drives and those drives are connected to the PC. Up until last night everything was fine. I have not reinstalled Windows or anything.

The support page clearly says that external hard drives are not recommended to use with Steam and games.

You can do it, but everything has to be set up perfectly for there to be no problems.

[Starwind Amada]

None of my drives are having problems. It's Steam failing to see them. So what happens when my internal drive is full? I have to install a new internal drive? I don't know a thing about building a PC and I know that's more than just plugging in a USB cable. That's not my fault. Drives should not just randomly be ignored by Steam and NOTHING ELSE. Valve needs to patch this or something because of course every single game I currently play is gone and will take hours or days to install. The only games I can play right now are Half-LIfe 2 and some free game about building guns. Yeah, great. An old game I finished years ago and a mobile game meant for killing a few minutes at the doctor's office.

[The Giving One]

So far, it sounds like the drive(s) is/are going to sleep at an inopportune time, just as the support page says :

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8379-RYIP-2998

Aside from many potential performance issues, external hard drives may connect or disconnect from the computer at inopportune times as part of their normal operations. If you encounter this issue with an external drive, install Steam and your games to an internal drive instead.

They are not only talking about the wired connection to the drive becomming disconnected. They are talking about the drive becoming disconnected in Windows.

Such as, for example, the drive going to sleep.

If you must use externals, set up a custom power plan in Windows to prevent the drives from going to sleep. You also need to be sure all security software is happy with the external drives being connected to your computer, at all times. (antivirus)

Originally posted by Starwind Amada:

It's finally the weekend and now I can't play my games because of a software bug.

This is not a Steam problem. Steam did not cause this. The problem is the fact you are using external hard drives and don't have things set up correctly.

You don't have to take my word for it. Use the forum search and see for yourself :

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/search/?gidforum=882959061466924237&include_deleted=1&q=%22Installed+Games+Appearing+as+Uninstalled%22

Originally posted by Starwind Amada:

I'm trying to add library folders to get Steam to see the games but it keeps saying "Library folder must not be empty."

You mean "must be empty", surely. When creating a new library folder, that folder must be empty. So you can't add a drive, for example, unless that hard drive is totally empty. You can make an empty folder ON the drive instead.

[Starwind Amada]

Originally posted by The Giving One:

So far, it sounds like the drive(s) is/are going to sleep at an inopportune time, just as the support page says :

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8379-RYIP-2998

Aside from many potential performance issues, external hard drives may connect or disconnect from the computer at inopportune times as part of their normal operations. If you encounter this issue with an external drive, install Steam and your games to an internal drive instead.

They are not only talking about the wired connection to the drive becomming disconnected. They are talking about the drive becoming disconnected in Windows.

Such as, for example, the drive going to sleep.

If you must use externals, set up a custom power plan in Windows to prevent the drives from going to sleep. You also need to be sure all security software is happy with the external drives being connected to your computer, at all times. (antivirus)

Originally posted by Starwind Amada:

It's finally the weekend and now I can't play my games because of a software bug.

This is not a Steam problem. Steam did not cause this. The problem is the fact you are using external hard drives and don't have things set up correctly.

You don't have to take my word for it. Use the forum search and see for yourself :

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/search/?gidforum=882959061466924237&include_deleted=1&q=%22Installed+Games+Appearing+as+Uninstalled%22

Originally posted by Starwind Amada:

I'm trying to add library folders to get Steam to see the games but it keeps saying "Library folder must not be empty."

You mean "must be empty", surely. When creating a new library folder, that folder must be empty. So you can't add a drive, for example, unless that hard drive is totally empty. You can make an empty folder ON the drive instead.

But my PC sees the hard drives so they not asleep and I've never heard of an external drive going to sleep. It's always on at all times.

[The Giving One]

Originally posted by Starwind Amada:

But my PC sees the hard drives so they not asleep and I've never heard of an external drive going to sleep. It's always on at all times.

Also, if a hard drive is too full, that can cause all kinds of problems, this also.

Make sure all hard drives have plenty of free space on them for disk operations.

I just said that so far, it sounds like it is going to sleep. I can't be sure from here, but the fact you are using externals is the primary clue here so far with this problem.

https://www.thewindowsclub.com/prevent-hard-drive-going-sleep-windows/

[Starwind Amada]

Originally posted by The Giving One:

Originally posted by Starwind Amada:

But my PC sees the hard drives so they not asleep and I've never heard of an external drive going to sleep. It's always on at all times.

Also, if a hard drive is too full, that can cause all kinds of problems, this also.

Make sure all hard drives have plenty of free space on them for disk operations.

I just said that so far, it sounds like it is going to sleep. I can't be sure from here, but the fact you are using externals is the primary clue here so far with this problem.

https://www.thewindowsclub.com/prevent-hard-drive-going-sleep-windows/

It's 10TB. It's nowhere close to full. If it's asleep then why am I looking at its files right now? The PC sees it. Steam doesn't.

I did that thing to prevent the external drive from going to sleep but Steam still doesn't see the games. Plus I have multiple drives and that setting didn't specify which drive. My games are all gone.

[The Giving One]

I will say once more, so please read carefully :

I said that so far it SOUNDS like it is going to sleep. If it is not, then that is not the cause. But the fact you are using externals is the issue so far.

If Steam is installed on your internal hard drive, then move a game and the .acf file to the steamapps folder respectively and test it again.

Do this with Steam closed and not running. Never move things around with Steam open and running.

You can try this for games that appear as uninstalled, but it might not always work :

Go to the common folder and find a game's .exe file. Right click it and run it directly from that .exe. Sometimes, this makes Steam see the game again.

Do you have all the .acf files in the steamapps folders ?

If you do, then the library data is corrupted, and it is surely an issue covered by the support page or a hard drive problem, maybe.

Game files go in common folders.

.acf files go in steamapps folders. The .acf file number for a game is the same number you see at the end of the URL on that game's Steam store page.

[Starwind Amada]

Originally posted by The Giving One:

I will say once more, so please read carefully :

I said that so far it SOUNDS like it is going to sleep. If it is not, then that is not the cause. But the fact you are using externals is the issue so far.

If Steam is installed on your internal hard drive, then move a game and the .acf file to the steamapps folder respectively and test it again.

Do this with Steam closed and not running. Never move things around with Steam open and running.

You can try this for games that appear as uninstalled, but it might not always work :

Go to the common folder and find a game's .exe file. Right click it and run it directly from that .exe. Sometimes, this makes Steam see the game again.

Do you have all the .acf files in the steamapps folders ?

If you do, then the library data is corrupted, and it is surely an issue covered by the support page or a hard drive problem, maybe.

Game files go in common folders.

.acf files go in steamapps folders. The .acf file number for a game is the same number you see at the end of the URL on that game's Steam store page.

Here's where I am right now:

This PC>(E:)>Steam Games>steamapps

At the top is the "common" folder, followed by some other folders and a list of .acf files. They're all called appmanifest_XXXXXX.acf (XXXXXX in each file is a varying number of digits). Should I just copy all of that to the C: drive?

[The Giving One]

No, don't just copy all the .acf files to any other drive. That will cause all kinds of problems, as then later Steam will see your games installed in two different places.

Move the .acf file for one game, and then that game's folder to the respective steamapps and common folders in your C drive, if that is where Steam is installed.

Close Steam before you do this.

You have to get all the files and folders in the right place. I can't stress this enough. So if you are unsure about anything, ask if you need help before you start moving things around.

Also, you need to be sure you have plenty of free space on C, AFTER considering the size of the drive and the game when it gets moved there.

Must have plenty of free space on C afterwards.

After you move the file and folder, then you can run Steam and Steam should see that game, if you did everything correctly.

Might just have to verify the game files just in case, before playtesting the game :

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=2037-QEUH-3335