Why does the "Unable to Sync" pop-up window appear even though I have Steam Cloud Synchronization disabled?

[Mr.Curious]

I recently started getting spammed by Steam about not being able to sync to saves while playing Resident Evil 4 UHD. See this photo: https://i.stack.imgur.com/xe4hzm.jpg

As I don't use Cloud Sync at all I am only left to wonder why this is happening. I even shut my Steam down to play only in offline mode, but the problem persists. I have never used Cloud saves, but when I checked my account it says there is some data being used (not sure how this happened, but to be honest, I really don't care about cloud stuff).

It should be noted that this only really happens when my game crashes (which is a lot because I am modding my game). This must be some new feature that has come out, as this never used to happen.

If anyone knows of any way to completely disable this annoyance please let me know. Its beyond frustrating have to keep dealing with this pop up window.

Thanks!

[Jaunitta 🌸]

Turn on cloud for an updated save then Steam should shpw resync next to Artwork, steam should upload the new save in cloud then turn off cloud again.
Backup save first, then if you see a message cloud is out of sync dont use online saves use on HDD to upload or you lose all your save using the other option. Backup saves just incase.

[Mr.Curious]

Originally posted by Jaunitta 🌸:

Turn on cloud for an updated save then Steam should shpw resync next to Artwork, steam should upload the new save in cloud then turn off cloud again.
Backup save first, then if you see a message cloud is out of sync dont use online saves use on HDD to upload or you lose all your save using the other option. Backup saves just incase.

OK I think this is the answer I was looking for, but haven't tested. At least I got to check out some options I havent seen before. I will report back after!

[Shinoskay]

thats a very good question, its probably steam trying to enforce validations but all I can do is guess and provide conjecture as I myself havent looked into it

[Quailman]

This solution didn't work unfortunately. I am still getting the "Unable to Sync" dialog. So far, the only way to get around this issue is to start Steam online and not go offline at all. Which is quite ridiculous. Lots of other people are posting about this issue.

[ZanyScum]

I only get that message when I am really offline, Steam is in offline mode or when there is some heavy traffic on the network and steam can't connect because of that.
Once it was because my mobile phone did an update of the static maps for google map.

[Quailman]

One possible (but annoying) solution is try launching the game via the .exe file, not from the Play button in the Steam app. That file should be located in your steam/steamapps/common/(game) folder. I tried that with all of my games and it works for some but not for others. First try launching the game without Steam running, and then try it with Steam running but while in offline mode. You can create desktop shortcuts for games that do work using this solution. Hope that helps a little.

[CrunchyBiscuit]

Yeah, it sure is annoying.

It's also been mentioned in these threads:

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/3464975249557816820/

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/3458220484824824591/

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/3177859849531848087/

And it's also been mentioned in the last couple of replies in this thread:

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/1850323802572223463/?ctp=6

Looks like a certain "fix" broke it:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/3361392458123611354

Originally posted by Steam:

Steam Cloud
-Fixed issue causing some users to be unable to disable Cloud Sync for their account
-Fixed for app launch stall if there are sync conflicts but Cloud Sync is disabled for the game or account

I guess we'll just have to wait for the code monkeys over at Valve to solve this one.

[Mr.Curious]

Just got a Steam message about updates. It was exciting to see this:

https://i.ibb.co/99fTS2L/Steam.jpg

Even went to their website to check it out:
https://store.steampowered.com/oldnews/?headlines=1&feed=steam_client

and started my game.. within 2 minutes.. SAME F---ING SPAM message about Cloud out of sync. I got so mad I wrote an AHK script to at least close the damn thing when I relaunch the game.

Why are devs soooooooooo incompetent? Why do they say they fixed something when it is clearly not?

[CrunchyBiscuit]

Originally posted by Mr.Curious:

Just got a Steam message about updates. It was exciting to see this:

https://i.ibb.co/99fTS2L/Steam.jpg

Even went to their website to check it out:
https://store.steampowered.com/oldnews/?headlines=1&feed=steam_client

and started my game.. within 2 minutes.. SAME F---ING SPAM message about Cloud out of sync. I got so mad I wrote an AHK script to at least close the damn thing when I relaunch the game.

Why are devs soooooooooo incompetent? Why do they say they fixed something when it is clearly not?

Yep, mine updated as well.

Still no fix! What a surprise.

[Sir Lord Wololo]

I'm having the same problem too. I hope that this gets fixed.

[Nizze]

I'm having the same problem too:(

[Mr.Curious]

Everyone needs to open a support ticket with Steam. If we all flood them with this there is more likelihood of it getting some attention.

[CrunchyBiscuit]

Originally posted by Mr.Curious:

Everyone needs to open a support ticket with Steam. If we all flood them with this there is more likelihood of it getting some attention.

Yes sir. Done.

[Mr.Curious]

ok heard back from Steam on this. Here is the truncated response (I have omitted the canned part of the response):

STEAM TEAM RESPONSE
"Please note that due to changes to how the Steam Cloud works, Steam may still track files in autocloud.vdf files in order to better avoid any instances where data is overwritten if you ever do turn the cloud on.

This error message is intended to inform you of a possible future cloud conflict. Since you know this (as you already disabled the cloud), for now you can ignore it by clicking "Play anyway".

Currently there are no options to disable or remove the error message. I'll pass along your feedback for this though."

MY RESPONSE
"Thanks for your reply. I'm sad to see no effort has been put into resolving this issue considering how many people this has affected aversely.

"Since you know this (as you already disabled the cloud), for now you can ignore it by clicking "Play anyway".

Thanks for the suggestion, however I am trying to avoid having to click this every time (at least 20 times a day). If it were that easy, I would not have written this support ticket. I have however written an autohotkey script that nukes the window when I launch a game, however I don't think users should need to resort to this kind of workaround to fix something that is clearly broken.

I say broken because it is as simple as this; if a user has completely disabled Cloud saving services, then it should follow that these messages are not needed, and should therefore be suppressed. Should the user at some point decide that they want to enable Cloud save services, then those messages could resume. I think it would take about 5 minutes max to code this.

Please take my criticism of the current state of affairs with respect. I, and countless others, would love to see a fix for this in the next update. Here is hoping!

THanks!

[CrunchyBiscuit]

Check out this Steam response:

https://i.imgur.com/S29JJa0.png

"Thank you for bring this to out attention."

THAT's the level of competence we have to deal with. Benito, go find another job.