Non-Steam Game can't be removed? *Resolved

[RJGrayLight]

I'm trying to clean up my Steam Library a bit, and there are a few non-steam games that just aren't installed on my computer anymore. Attempting to open these non-steam games just results in an error too.
So I right-click the non-steam game and choose "remove non-steam game". And it disappears.

The issue is, however, that whenever I hard close and re-open steam, or I power off my computer and turn it back on the next day, that game is back in my steam library. Same for if I log out and log back in. It won't stay removed from my account for whatever reason.

Same thing happens if I try to simply hide it too. It'll stay hidden for that session of Steam, but the moment Steam is fully closed and then reopened, it's back and no longer hidden...

What's going on here? Is there any way to fix it? How can I fully remove this game from my account in a way that sticks?

edit* Here is a short video that I took showcasing this issue. Apologies for the poor quality.
https://youtu.be/Mc5H6xS1408

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*Resolution - Edit or Delete the file " shortcuts.vdf " located at
...\Steam\userdata\<userid>\config\shortcuts.vdf

It may be easier to search for the file "shortcuts.vdf" once you access the Userdata folder since there's only one with that filename.

My guess is that specific file wasn't updating for whatever reason.

[Jaunitta 🌸]

Close Steam using the Exit from the top left Steam or the Bootloader on taskbar.
If you only close Steam using the X then it has not exited fully applying any changes.

[RJGrayLight]

Originally posted by Jaunitta 🌸:

Close Steam using the Exit from the top left Steam or the Bootloader on taskbar.
If you only close Steam using the X then it has not exited fully applying any changes.

That's what I'm doing, a hard close. If I do a soft-close by pressing the x in the top right, then it stays gone. It comes back with every hard restart of steam. I even tried logging out and back in again, and it's still there for some odd reason.

[ReBoot]

If everything else fails, execute

steam://flushconfig

This will wipe the local configuration (emphasis on "configuration", you won't have to re-download stuff). I solved similar crap this way in the past, after less drastic attempts failed.

[RJGrayLight]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

If everything else fails, execute

steam://flushconfig

This will wipe the local configuration (emphasis on "configuration", you won't have to re-download stuff). I solved similar crap this way in the past, after less drastic attempts failed.

Thank you for the potential solution. I'll try that as I have no issue resetting my steam configs. Most of them are default anyways. If it works, I'll post it here. :)

[RJGrayLight]

As for you Iceira, please stop commenting on any of my posts. You have never once provided useful or relevant information to any of my queries to my recollection, and have shown that you don't read the full post before responding to it nearly every single time. You are nothing but a troll.

I mean, seriously, what would my web browser or OS have to do with steam not keeping a non-steam game hidden or removed between sessions? That just makes no sense that I can determine.

So please don't bother commenting on anything I post again. Because I won't bother reading anything you write going forward.

[RJGrayLight]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

If everything else fails, execute

steam://flushconfig

This will wipe the local configuration (emphasis on "configuration", you won't have to re-download stuff). I solved similar crap this way in the past, after less drastic attempts failed.

So I just tried that, and nothing seems to have happened.
I ran the code from the run box, and it auto-started steam for me. It seems to have reset all my steam settings back to default. I re-closed steam and tried running the code from admin-level command prompt, and the code is deemed an invalid input for the command prompt.

I made sure that the game was removed from my library before full-closing steam and restarting my computer. I then opened steam from the file folder, and once again the non-steam game I'm trying to remove from my steam library is there.

That said, perhaps this will be relevant or perhaps not. But ever since the steam ui update a few months back, I've been having multiple issues of a similar nature with Steam, where I make a change of some kind, but it doesn't stick between login sessions.
Every time I open steam to this day, I get a toast notification for all screenshots that I have ever taken on steam and not deleted, though it used to happen every time I opened any game but was thankfully patched to now every time I open steam.
Every time there's an update for a game I own, regardless if the game is installed on my computer or not, steam will try to install that game then install the game's update for me without my permission or prompt.
Every time I try to remove a non-steam game that was present in my steam library before the ui update, then close steam, upon opening steam up again that non-steam game is back in my steam library (this post's topic).

So I'm not sure if it's a steam-side issue, or what's going on. Further suggestions or possible explanations would be appreciated.

[RJGrayLight]

Does anyone else have any thoughts or potential solutions to resolve this?

It's not something from the settings it seems, I couldn't find any residual files when scanning my entire computer, and there are no issues with any of my drivers, OS (win10), or other hardware (despite the irrelevancy of such as potential causes, I still checked). And it is very consistent.

Replication steps include the following.
Delete or hide a non-steam game that has already been deleted from your computer from your from library.
Hard-close steam.
Re-open steam.
The non-steam back again.

Adding in a computer restart doesn't seem to change anything.
Doing a steam settings reset doesn't fix it.
No residual files could be found.

The non-steam game in question that's giving me the most trouble is Genshin Impact for the record, in case that matters at all.

[RJGrayLight]

So I did a full system search for any and all residual files for the non-steam games in question, deleting everything and anything to do with the non-steam games that were not getting properly removed from my Steam Library. There were apparently a few empty files and file folders that weren't caught or removed by the steam uninstall, CCleaner, or the IOBit powerful uninstall that I used.

And even that didn't work. Upon restarting steam, the non-steam games still re-appear in my library.

And for the record, after scouring the Steam support forums for hours when I was able to, there was nothing about this.


I'm genuinely at a loss here for what could be causing this or what else I might be able to do to fix this issue.

[RJGrayLight]

I'm linking a video I just took for anyone who doesn't believe that I'm having this issue.
https://youtu.be/Mc5H6xS1408
Here you can clearly see me hit "remove non-steam game" for a non-steam game and you can see the game disappear. I then close out of Steam then reopen steam only to find the game back in my inventory.

[Yujah]

What you said seems to imply that will have gotten gone already but if I close Steam and remove ...\Steam\userdata\<id>\shortcuts.vdf then certainly my Non-Steam games are gone upon restarting Steam.

It/they don't moreover seem to be stored to the Steam cloud for me, but check there as well if the above really does not help; https://store.steampowered.com/account/remotestorageapp/?appid=7

[RJGrayLight]

Originally posted by Yujah:

What you said seems to imply that will have gotten gone already but if I close Steam and remove ...\Steam\userdata\<id>\shortcuts.vdf then certainly my Non-Steam games are gone upon restarting Steam.

Is there a way to know what the id I need to look for is? There's a lot of them...

[Yujah]

Terribly sorry; I meant ...\Steam\userdata\<userid>\config\shortcuts.vdf (all the numerical IDs at the same level as "config" are AppIDs).

[RJGrayLight]

Originally posted by Yujah:

What you said seems to imply that will have gotten gone already but if I close Steam and remove ...\Steam\userdata\<userid>\config\shortcuts.vdf then certainly my Non-Steam games are gone upon restarting Steam.

It/they don't moreover seem to be stored to the Steam cloud for me, but check there as well if the above really does not help; https://store.steampowered.com/account/remotestorageapp/?appid=7

That was it! Deleting that file did the trick as it's finally staying gone! Thank you!

...\Steam\userdata\<userid>\config\shortcuts.vdf
I found it easiest to just search for the file "shortcuts.vdf" once I accessed the Userdata folder since there's only one with that filename.

I guess that specific file wasn't updating whenever I tried removing the non-steam game from my library for whatever reason, causing this issue!

[RJGrayLight]

@Yujah If you would copy-paste the following in a comment (since I can't mark my own posts as topic answers), I'll mark it as the topic answer. Thanks again!

Edit or Delete the file " shortcuts.vdf " located at ...\Steam\userdata\<userid>\config\shortcuts.vdf
It may be easier to search for the file "shortcuts.vdf" once you access the Userdata folder since there's only one with that filename.

My guess is that specific file wasn't updating for whatever reason.

[Yujah]

Good that it helped. And, sure I guess.