help: Verify Game Cache erased games in directory?

[Artician]

I used the Verify Game Cache option last night when having trouble connecting to a friends L4D2 game (we thought it might be version incompatibility). It appears that when Steam performed this function it decided to completely remove all games that Steam had not itself installed. This included about 20 indie games, some directories that had applications in them (joy2key, things like that), and my entire GOG library.

All of these folders were outside the Steam folder. I do not install Steam games in any other location.

[Artician]

Some form of input would be super-awesome. This is not a nice thing to have happen.

[Artician]

*bump*

[The Giving One]

Artician님이 먼저 게시:

*bump*

Please stop bumping your thread here. You are not the only person that needs help. The verificaton does not remove files, as it reaquires them if found to be actually missing or incorrectly configured.

What are your system specs including the OS ?

What antivirus program do you use ?

Artician님이 먼저 게시:

All of these folders were outside the Steam folder. I do not install Steam games in any other location.

What exactly does this mean ? Your game folders should be in the steamapps/common folder.

[Artician]

Hello, I can never tell if a forum will be responsive or not. Now I know; thank you.

The verificaton does not remove files..

I would never expect this to be intended functionality. Hundreds of files and folders were completely removed from my games folder, with the only action occuring at that time being Steams verification function.

Specs:
intel Corei7-4770k
16GB RAM
Win7 Ultimate
GTX 980
Up to date DX11/ C-redist/ .NET/ etc.
Up to date antivirus is Avast, AVG, MalwareBytes and Spybot. I scan thoroughly, regularly.

What exactly does this mean ? Your game folders should be in the steamapps/common folder.

My directory structure is as follows:
C:\games\<game1>
C:\games\<game2>
C:\games\<game3>
...
C:\games\<game50>
C:\games\steam\

When this problem occured, everything in C:\games\ was removed (except for the steam folder). It was not performed manually and the lost files aren't recoverable (not in recycling, etc).

I'll hold the bumping at bay. Thank you for your response and your help.

[The Giving One]

Artician님이 먼저 게시:

Up to date antivirus is Avast, AVG, MalwareBytes and Spybot.

Wow...oh my...these are surely a problem. They all, except for Malwarebytes of course, are on the list of problematic software and seen here in this forum to be the cause of many issues before in many different cases. I highly suggest that you remove them all if disabling them does nothing, after you have verified there are real-time scan exceptions for Steam and Steam games also.

EDIT..Not sure how you have this there, but you are only supposed to have one anitvirus program installed in the first place. Not sure how you did that, but not only are they most likely conflicting with Steam and games, but they are conflicting with each other. Quite a mess these seem to have caused there....

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9828-SFLZ-9289

Avast!
AVG Anti-virus *
BitDefender
(snip)

Anti-Spyware Applications

Ad Aware
CA Pest Patrol
PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus (may need to disable Full-Screen detection in the Advanced settings)
Spybot Search & Destroy
(snip)

[Artician]

Sorry for my inaccuracy, but fortunately I made an error and only have Avast installed at the moment, whereas I usually have all aforementioned programs present.

I could see an antivirus getting a false positive from otherwise benign files and quaranteening or removing them, but that's not possible when the antivirus is disabled, no executables are running in memory, and its services disabled (all which I set up post-installation by hand). There is no bootscan enabled. When I do have multiple antivirus programs installed, they're treated as self-contained applications.

Additionally, this is not virus behavior. You could argue this is abuse via trojan, but no one is going to delete all the files and folders from my game directory except Steam, and not touch anything else on my workstation. I don't think anyone at Valve hates me, and I doubt someone is trying to frame them. ;)

I can say with some certainty this is not a virus issue. Here was the order of actions when the issue occured: I ran steam. Couldn't get into the game. Opened the game directory to locate the executables for the game (didn't followup with any actions). I ran Steams validation function. I looked in the games directory. The directory was completely empty with the exception of the Steam folder and a "dumps" folder. To me this points pretty directly at Steam. The only other windows applications running at the time were MS Outlook, Skype, and Notepad++. No antivirus or similar programs or services existed within memory.

Thank you for your suggestions; I sincerely welcome any others.

[The Giving One]

Artician님이 먼저 게시:

could see an antivirus getting a false positive from otherwise benign files and quaranteening or removing them, but that's not possible when the antivirus is disabled, no executables are running in memory, and its services disabled (all which I set up post-installation by hand). There is no bootscan enabled. When I do have multiple antivirus programs installed, they're treated as self-contained applications.

On the support page given, it clearly says to temporarily uninstall the program to test the issue as a final suggestion. If you think that only having these programs simply disabled is enough, then I can tell you for a fact that is not the case. I alone have seen it many times here before. And, in some threads, it came to a point of argument. For me it is a total mystery...what is the big deal in uninstalling a program that you can always reinstall later anyway, if found to not be the problem ?

Artician님이 먼저 게시:

Additionally, this is not virus behavior. You could argue this is abuse via trojan, but no one is going to delete all the files and folders from my game directory except Steam, and not touch anything else on my workstation. I don't think anyone at Valve hates me, and I doubt someone is trying to frame them. ;)

When you have folders/files showing up as missing and then you also have this problematic software on your machine, you can verify the game cache all day long until your hard drive wears out and you very well may not solve anything. The problematic software keeps breaking the game files and you keep verifying them....rinse and repeat. Meanwhile, you cannot play your Steam games.

Artician님이 먼저 게시:

I can say with some certainty this is not a virus issue. Here was the order of actions when the issue occured: I ran steam. Couldn't get into the game. Opened the game directory to locate the executables for the game (didn't followup with any actions). I ran Steams validation function. I looked in the games directory. The directory was completely empty with the exception of the Steam folder and a "dumps" folder. To me this points pretty directly at Steam. The only other windows applications running at the time were MS Outlook, Skype, and Notepad++. No antivirus or similar programs or services existed within memory.

So the problematic software affected Steam validating the files then, quite possibly. And now you say you also have Skype on that machine. I have seen Skype be a big problem many times before here, too.

Sorry to say this here, but if you refuse to explore the fact that you have a list with known problematic software on it and you have that problematic software installed on your computer, you may never get this resolved.

You seriously have some of the worst ones I have seen here in this forum. What you do next is up to you, but I am sorry as I personally cannot help you anymore until your remove the known possibilities of that software as being quite possibly the problem here.

By all means, use the search feature here in the help and tips forum and see for yourself, OR even better yet.....click on my profile name down arrow beside my avatar and search MY post history for those key words (Skype, Avast, Spybot, etc.) and then you can see just the threads that I have tried to help in, not just other users here.

http://steamcommunity.com/id/Stork/posthistory/
Use the filter "search" box on the right of my history page, linked above. See for yourself.