Steam continuously deleting my games

[Tobias]

Hey guys, I have an issue with Steam deleting my games and hope to get some help here.

Since a few weeks, steam always deletes some games, mainly subnautica and XCOM 2. Since these are different games, but I have the same issue, this is not a "third party game" issue, not matter what the (totally not automated but somehow wutomated sounding) answers from the steam support say. The workflow goes like this:

1. Install game
2. Game works
3. Restart PC
4. Game files are still there
5. Open steam
6. Steam starts updating said game
7. Game files are deleted
8. When starting the game steam throws an error
9. I need to reinstall the game to play

I have already checked, that the files are indeed gone. It is not a registry issue of not finding the games, when XCOM 2 is gone, I literally have 80gb more space on my hard drive. Steam on the other hand doesn't recognize that it just deleted a game, quite the opposite. The game is still shown as installed, but as soon as I want to start it, I get the error message that there is no executable.
The only way for me to fix this right now is to always verify the installed files and then basically letting steam redownload everything. Which is ok for a small game like subnautica, but makes playing impossible for big games.

Does anybody have an idea about the cause? I'm just ready to try just about everything. Like I mentioned, Steam Support was as unhelpful as always.

Thanks!

[Iceira]

Almost same as other post dont see why copy past should not be seen as near same issue here maybe ( we cant see what you are doing any game crash with steam can cause this, make sure OS and whatever disk have enough free space. ) even 16gb ram is seen soon as minimum game requirements, prroblem is some game has now that as game requirements, surplus is seen as better, and lesser ram willl write to disk as viatual ram known as swapfile its here free space is required. ) many know this but could be forgotten ways then you think you have enough ram.

Looks like the missing from library home, enter store page then support and click missing and add it to library again. ( could be a F2P )

Make sure to have enough free room on disks , crashed and lost content is seen as MS space recovery issue and that happend in the system if low running disk space.

game is now so big today that 100gb game require equal amount as free space , what will you do if game patch dl full version as patch, some do this.

use disk space at 200gb left to 90% of disk is seen as Full disk today, then game dl is 100gb.

you will soon see reply like if you dont have 500gb free or 1TB free then you are low

some game is already past 100gb in DL with dlc and event in game and mods + save.
some game is past as all in-one game, or collection can be huge now.

[Tobias]

Originally posted by Iceira W10:

Almost same as other post dont see why copy past should not be seen as near same issue here maybe ( we cant see what you are doing any game crash with steam can cause this, make sure OS and whatever disk have enough free space. ) even 16gb ram is seen soon as minimum game requirements, prroblem is some game has now that as game requirements, surplus is seen as better, and lesser ram willl write to disk as viatual ram known as swapfile its here free space is required. ) many know this but could be forgotten ways then you think you have enough ram.

Not the issue. The games were working fine for a long time, the issue just started in the last weeks with no hardware changes.

Originally posted by Iceira W10:

Looks like the missing from library home, enter store page then support and click missing and add it to library again. ( could be a F2P )

Again, not the issue. The games are still in my library and like I said, I can literally click "verify game files" to fix them and redownload them.

Originally posted by Iceira W10:

Make sure to have enough free room on disks , crashed and lost content is seen as MS space recovery issue and that happend in the system if low running disk space.

game is now so big today that 100gb game require equal amount as free space , what will you do if game patch dl full version as patch, some do this.

use disk space at 200gb left to 90% of disk is seen as Full disk today, then game dl is 100gb.

you will soon see reply like if you dont have 500gb free or 1TB free then you are low

some game is already past 100gb in DL with dlc and event in game and mods + save.
some game is past as all in-one game, or collection can be huge now.

Subnautica is like 8gb in size, I have free space of 80gb. Should not be the cause of any deletions.

[Lilim]

Hallo Tobias .

Beendest du Steam auch jedes Mal ordentlich oder machst du einfach nur den Rechner aus?

Befinden sich deine Spiele auf einer externen Festplatte?

[Iceira]

Steam dont delete games its recover that do it just like above user point out.
only app i know move things is antivirus app that put things in qurrantine.

the other is recover in windows system as unallocate files system see because of the crash. not close steam the right way can do this. write behind cache (( on )) can do such.

[Satoru]

Steam only 'uninstalls' games if you have them on extenral or network drives. When those drives disconnect such as on a reboot, they will be unmounted as libraries from steam.

[Tobias]

Nope. Steam is installed on the C drive, as are all my games. It's exactly like the workflow I've given in the post, as soon as steam starts "updating" these games (which haven' gotten any real update for months/years), it deletes the game files, while still having them show up as installed in the library.
I do in fact not specifically quit steam each time before I shut down the PC. I'll try this out and see if it chanes anything. Here's hoping it works that easily!

[Iceira]

Only game i have seen being delete is then game files and repacking format has happend, and that mean a more compressed ways by game devs or new compressed format then steam can safe storage space, i have not seen that in a long time because even game devs pack files today.

and thats not a uninstall that a remove and redownload content, and if i recall correctly it even make a pop window about it, and it was almost 10 years ago,i have never seen it again.


feel free to contact steam support, maybe they can see other things, with why.

[J4MESOX4D]

Originally posted by Tobias:

I do in fact not specifically quit steam each time before I shut down the PC. I'll try this out and see if it chanes anything. Here's hoping it works that easily!

You should always exit Steam correctly because you can break any vital cloud syncs active, the platform will need to verify and replace any missing files and this could appear as games being uninstalled or needing updates.

Steam will not purposely delete local files because it doesn't have such permissions so games that are affected by this are down to not closing the platform safely, a problematic drive or one that's not integrated within the device itself.

[Tobias]

Ok, so the last few days I exited Steam correctly before shutting down each time and got the same error today again. Even only to allow updates when starting a game does not solve the issue. Workflow stays as follow:
0. Game files are there
1. I start a game
2. Steam tries updating said game, even if said game is on the current version (e.g. XCOM 2 did not get an update since last year)
3. There are still all game files there now
4. Steam does not update the game, as it realizes, that the game is on the current version
5. All game files are deleted now, but according to the library the game is installed
6. When I click play, I get an error becuse the executable is missing
7. I need to verify my game files and install everything again to play.
Steam Support still isn't helpful, but only giving me automated answers about talking to the support of the games. And since since Steam now tells me, that there are three more games with updates coming (all of them old games, without upcoming updates), I think I'm going to reinstall it and hope this fixes the error.
Else my only choice is to switch to a different launcher which doesn't have these errors. Or one with a helpful support. Or maybe go back to no launcher at all, never had any problems there (at least none which aren't solved by being morally flexible).

[Lavie]

Hi!

Is all you drivers are up to date?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plOqb5_4j9w


What is your anti-virus? (If other than Windows Defender)...

Also maybe more infos is sometime useful:
Please do the following:
1. Open the Steamclient
2. Select Help in the top menu bar, then System Information
3. Copy ALL text and post it here.

[Phénomènes Mystiques]

I would check the system files also via SFC Scan as I personally found the last to Windows updates to have downloaded/created corruptions with the new updates.

[Kal‘can]

I think god，but I can’t sbic Eglx

[Iceira]

Any helper here can tell you ( there is no executable.) is missing executable post
thats mean either you dont have game requirements or anti virus move file to qurratine folder
https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/3A2A-BF2D-15FF-7963

such has been seen before, its the only things i and other have seen over many many years, and i doubt you have other that use pc you need other that use pc for such mistake, thats not the case here i bet. things just dont delete itself, and thats why it being said over and over,



also possible 2 steam account with 2 diffrent DLC's par own game, that mean content is not same per account.

i have not seen my xcom2 get a update in a long time, ( watchout for mods im just saying if you have a mod that converting original game fiiles then it can do such, such was old mods ways they replace files ) and sense you can dl pretty much anything today even that is seen as user most know this. ) user content change has been seen to corrupt game files before.

[Kurupatich]

nice

[Kargor]

Originally posted by Tobias:

I do in fact not specifically quit steam each time before I shut down the PC. I'll try this out and see if it chanes anything. Here's hoping it works that easily!

That shouldn't make a difference.

Windows does perform a well organized shutdown procedure, where it starts by asking all applications to quit nicely, and waits for that to happen. If any app does not quit within some time frame, it will pop up a window telling you that application x is not quitting, asking you whether you want to wait some more or continue the shutdown anyway. If you're not getting this then Steam either has quit, or it's actually trying hard to hide its presence from Windows so the shutdown can't see it.

Of course, the client could be bugged and do a not-so-clean shutdown; however, I've never encountered any situation that would indicate such bugs.

Because yes, any application that offers you an option to auto-launch at login should also be able to correctly handle the auto-quit on logout, instead of expecting users to quit it manually.