WTF?! Games in my library uninstalled themselves.

[ℜoygatto ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

I got off last night and turned off my computer, when I got on this morning about half of all the games in my steam library were uninstalled. I didnt uninstall them they just uninstalled themselves apparently. Is there any way that I dont have to sit here and reinstall all of them again? Or is that my only option? Any help would be much appreciated.

[ELK]

引用自 Byron1c：

♥♥♥♥ STEAM. I just made the mistake of uninstalling steam because it decided not to log in anymore for no reason I can fathom. Now Im stuck re-downloading every ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game in my ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ collection. The morons have made steam worse now we are forced to use this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ library setup, and I couldnt see any way of separating the installation from the DATA (the games) without having to use a separate drive. I bet this stupid decision causes heaps of extra load on their servers but they still have not implemented even a basic warning message saying WHAT DATA will be removed, and HOW MUCH will be lost.
I already decided never to pay their overly inflated prices and use 3rd party sites, and this just confirms that decision, and they definitely do not deserve a single cent more than they already force out of us.

I thought when you uninstall steam it does not remove the steamapps folder. I could be wrong. Maybe your steam apps folder is on your other drive? What don't you like about the new library setup? I personally use it with the low bandwidth setting. I think you can just cut and paste everything except the steam apps folder to move steam. I would highly agree with them making a simpler process of moving steam without moving the games. I highly agree with a warning message too.

Your last point contradicts itself. You don't buy from them yet they force money out of you. If I recall correctly, ?epic games?, sold games on discount without the permission from the game's companies. It did not go over well for them. You're pointing your finger at the wrong person.

Anyways hopefully your steam apps folder didn't get deleted and you can point your new installation of steam to it. If not I hope you have fast internet, and a fast drive to pair.

[Byron1c]

引用自 ELK：

I thought when you uninstall steam it does not remove the steamapps folder. I could be wrong. Maybe your steam apps folder is on your other drive? What don't you like about the new library setup? I personally use it with the low bandwidth setting. I think you can just cut and paste everything except the steam apps folder to move steam. I would highly agree with them making a simpler process of moving steam without moving the games. I highly agree with a warning message too.

Your last point contradicts itself. You don't buy from them yet they force money out of you. If I recall correctly, ?epic games?, sold games on discount without the permission from the game's companies. It did not go over well for them. You're pointing your finger at the wrong person.

Technically the steamapps folder was still there, but the Common folder was no longer there, and any sign of any installed applications and games were gone. As already stated, it was not a reinstall or moving steam etc, it was a problem with steam forgetting how to communicate with the internet (to paraphrase in a simpler way). Its pretty easy to find around 100gb of data on a hard drive, and also easy to notice all the extra free space.

Sorry, I should have clarified my past and present participles - "forceD". That clear up the contradiction? Also - there are a TON of third party steam key resellers out there, and so far Steam has not rejected or had issues with any of the ones Ive purchased. The point also was that Valve have more money than god, and spend hardly any time on QOL issues for their app. They spend more time making and selling useless cosmetic junk (and trying not to get caught facilitating laundering money).

Re the library BS - I mean their library file system setup. Ie.You can create a separate library on each drive, but you cannot move/create a library on the drive that you install Steam to, other than its default location which is mixed in with the steam application files, and the whole point of this thread. Eg. if you install steam to D Drive, you cannot create/shift the library on D Drive to a different folder - it is fixed and I cannot find any setting to change it.

引用自 KingNasheed53：

Simply get a better PC... Pooron. 😂👋

Gotta love the confidence of idiots - it is a new system d!ckhead. 12th Gen i7, RTX3070 (4 months old). And even then, your comment is a non-sequitur - WTF does a new system have to do with Steam deleting games when uninstalling? Asphinctersayswhat?

[Tev]

Next time don't uninstall Steam, and just remove everything except Steam.exe, steamapps and userdata folders and relaunch Steam.exe.

The uninstaller, at the very least used to, remove everything in the folder it's located in, and the uninstaller even specifically says that it will.

[ELK]

引用自 Tev：

Next time don't uninstall Steam, and just remove everything except Steam.exe, steamapps and userdata folders and relaunch Steam.exe.

The uninstaller, at the very least used to, remove everything in the folder it's located in, and the uninstaller even specifically says that it will.

This is the way I would have done it.

BUT

It is not self evident / immediately clear that this is the correct way of doing it which is the problem. Making it self evident would not only save people from the hassle of having to redownload all their games, it would also save steam some money.

[Firefurusty]

For me, somehow there was another folder "SteamLibrary" got created in my drive and Steam was referring to it instead of the correct one. I changed the path to the correct location from Steam Settings -> Downloads. It resolved my issue.

[Tev]

引用自 Firefury：

For me, somehow there was another folder "SteamLibrary" got created in my drive and Steam was referring to it instead of the correct one. I changed the path to the correct location from Steam Settings -> Downloads. It resolved my issue.

That's usually created by utilizing the secondary installation location tool.
[Steam > Settings > Downloads > Steam Library Folders]

For example, I have Steam installed on one drive; and the 5 other SSDs have games within SteamLibrary\steamapps\

[Iceira]

Post is to old and outdated, its missing all the new ways steam do now, and there is not one helper that will help with past gen OS, and what about all the new way steam has been update, past post will only offend old post replyer , because that was when, this is here now, and steam client is not same they have change alot.

how will you even compare, 2014 to 2023, thats not possible even if we only compare with steam new librarys ways, feel free to read old post but make comment in them is so wrong in so many ways. ( steam might need to re-think steam user right to make update comment, its so rare a solution from the past will even help, but sure it can happend, and thats why reading is one thing but add to them is another.

[FudgePumper]

If anyones having this issue go Settings Downloads Steam Library folders and add the drive your games are downloaded too, check to see if they are still downloaded with something like WinDirStat

[salmon]

wtf steam uninstalled all my games and it takes 10 h to download 1 game and i have 15 games

[Joke]

引用自 ☺salmon：

wtf steam uninstalled all my games and it takes 10 h to download 1 game and i have 15 games

Steam doesn't uninstall games like that, but if steam for some reason cannot access the game folders when starting up it will treat the games as uninstalled.

The game files are still there.

If you keep games on an external usb drive, this can easily happen due to windows turning off a drive that isn't used for a while.

How to fix:

1. Exit steam (from the "Steam" menu at the top left of the steam client).
2. Access the drive where your games are installed (with the windows file explorer), so you are sure the drive is active.
3. Start steam again. Hopefully it now sees your games as installed again.

If that didn't fix it:

1. Open the Steam file manager. ("Steam" menu -> Settings -> Downloads -> Steam Library folders)
2. Click the drive where your games are installed.
3. Click the "three dots" at the right of the bar graph, and select "Repair Folder".

If that didn't fix it, then try installing a game. It should see that the files are already there, but it will verify them so it still takes some time. Not as much time as downloading though.

[Slorup]

引用自 Joke：

引用自 ☺salmon：

wtf steam uninstalled all my games and it takes 10 h to download 1 game and i have 15 games

Steam doesn't uninstall games like that, but if steam for some reason cannot access the game folders when starting up it will treat the games as uninstalled.

The game files are still there.

If you keep games on an external usb drive, this can easily happen due to windows turning off a drive that isn't used for a while.

How to fix:

1. Exit steam (from the "Steam" menu at the top left of the steam client).
2. Access the drive where your games are installed (with the windows file explorer), so you are sure the drive is active.
3. Start steam again. Hopefully it now sees your games as installed again.

If that didn't fix it:

1. Open the Steam file manager. ("Steam" menu -> Settings -> Downloads -> Steam Library folders)
2. Click the drive where your games are installed.
3. Click the "three dots" at the right of the bar graph, and select "Repair Folder".

If that didn't fix it, then try installing a game. It should see that the files are already there, but it will verify them so it still takes some time. Not as much time as downloading though.

nope i just saw that my drive cleared 200 gb of space for no reason steam just say nah you dont need those games :)
idk if my steam is special or something but i just lost 200gb of downloaded files.

[crunchyfrog]

引用自 Slorup：

引用自 Joke：

Steam doesn't uninstall games like that, but if steam for some reason cannot access the game folders when starting up it will treat the games as uninstalled.

The game files are still there.

If you keep games on an external usb drive, this can easily happen due to windows turning off a drive that isn't used for a while.

How to fix:

1. Exit steam (from the "Steam" menu at the top left of the steam client).
2. Access the drive where your games are installed (with the windows file explorer), so you are sure the drive is active.
3. Start steam again. Hopefully it now sees your games as installed again.

If that didn't fix it:

1. Open the Steam file manager. ("Steam" menu -> Settings -> Downloads -> Steam Library folders)
2. Click the drive where your games are installed.
3. Click the "three dots" at the right of the bar graph, and select "Repair Folder".

If that didn't fix it, then try installing a game. It should see that the files are already there, but it will verify them so it still takes some time. Not as much time as downloading though.

nope i just saw that my drive cleared 200 gb of space for no reason steam just say nah you dont need those games :)
idk if my steam is special or something but i just lost 200gb of downloaded files.

Well if you tried what they wrote and it didn't work it's quite likely your drive is failing or it got diosconnected at the wrong time and corrupted.

Here's what you should do - download something like CrystalDiscMark (or whatever it's called nowadays) and run it to do an intensive scan on your drive. It will likely take a couple of hours.

This will report if there's any errors. If there are, then ensure any data you do still have on there is got off asap.

Second for the future, if you're using external drives, NEVER use sleep mode with Steam as it can cause issues. And always shut your system down fully, and make sure you do not have any power saving settings on your drives or the USB ports.

[vadimaleks]

I confirm. The steam update removes all (ok, almost all. Elite has its own installer - that's why it survived) games from the library. I live in the forest. Internet via 4g modem. Traffic is paid. I don't have the ability (and desire) to download 500 gigabytes again - it will take more than 2 weeks, not even mentioning the cost. Thanks STEAM! Your programmers have once again demonstrated their professional incompetence. Damn you!

[crunchyfrog]

引用自 vadimaleks：

I confirm. The steam update removes all (ok, almost all. Elite has its own installer - that's why it survived) games from the library. I live in the forest. Internet via 4g modem. Traffic is paid. I don't have the ability (and desire) to download 500 gigabytes again - it will take more than 2 weeks, not even mentioning the cost. Thanks STEAM! Your programmers have once again demonstrated their professional incompetence. Damn you!

While corruption can happen, that's not likely to be the case here.

Again please read the tips given above and confirm what's happened at each step.

[crunchyfrog]

引用自 Precision_Melt：

Ok, I don't have the patience to rant here... I would just like this issue resolved (but needless to say this goes so far beyond the realm of acceptable... I mean, maybe if these games didnt cost any money? i would have little recourse I guess... but as it stands... enormous games I am paying for and then wait patiently - sometimes for days for them to install - and finally they uninstall themselves without warning...? Time to allocate some resources to this problem, because im downright embarassed on your behalf... this is pretty much the one thing that can't happen, besides games no actually launching at all - and this one is probably even worse... although I appreciate that the save files seem intact.)

So please, lend a hand folks and I don't mean to be rude, but this is probably one of the most pressing and worse technical issues i've ever seen... and at every turn it gets dumber, so im pretty annoyed. Here is the background:
First of all, NO ONE with any computer literacy is installing anything on a C: drive... on the default windows partition? seriously? So we know the target market must be stupid people. So, I have 2 main partitions on my 2tb NVME - a C: and a D:. Nothing goes on the C:, except a few apps and whatever mandatory windows files etc. On the D: is where my programs and ultimately my NEW steam library is. It is new, because i ran out of space on another (E:) drive which contains the majority of my steam games. SO to be clear there are 2 directories on 2 different nvme drives respectively, that contain steam games. Now I have repeatedly encoutered the suggestion to go to Settings>Downloads>Steam Library folders but of course, after 1 billion mandatory daily updates, this folder/option/setting no longer exists...? theres no trace of said option. I do see that there is a STORAGE setting, so within that I have selected the drop down and chosen the Drive in question, where the games seem to keep uninstalling themselves from. This drive has nearly 1tb free, so space is not the issue. No other programs on my computer have had any issues on this drive - no glitches, or uninstalls or anything - the drive seems quite sound. I have chosen "repair library" and apparently this has been completed, although the latest game to uninstall itself remains uninstalled (marvels guardians of the galaxy). Should I set the new library on the D: drive as the default library? will this make any difference? I often put the comp into hibernate with steam running in "idle"/background tasks but there are basically never any games running, or even updates in progress. I have made no changes to my disks lately and it was months ago when I (correctly) installed the new drive and I have had zero issues until recently - even having created that new steam directory which was around the time I installed the drive. I have now cleared the Steam cache, but when I begin a download of one the installed games in the hope that it will prompt the game to look for the files it simply begins and continues the entire installation progress - the games shortcut will even still remain on the desktop despite the game being identifed as uninstalled. Despite the fact that I'm sure I used to remember an option to "browse" for game files, no such option appears to be available in the main game library splash page, where the game settings are located (the gear icon). Not only that, changes I make to settings also revert themselves without warning... in an attempt to fix my issue, and for whatever difference it would make, I corrected my "download region" in downloads, which prompted a restart and now a day or two later, it reverted itself back to Toronto.
So yes, this is getting tedious - every week that another enormous game i have both already downloaded and installed and even played (in some cases for 40+ hours) uninstalls itself...Or steam needs yet another new patch... or STEAM has mysteriously logged me out, no matter how many times I ask for my info to be saved...
Please, what is happening? why are you punishing people who pay for your games? When a better more reliable experience exists through piracy?? its bonkers.

Please help, sorry for so many words and the sarcasm... but damn, how many hundreds of dollars have i paid now for games that are uninstalling themselves...? I certainly hope you agree that I have every right to be frustrated.

Thank you. Hoping to hear from you.

Please don't necro old thread - you've wasted your rant.

Also you shouldn't rant as nobody is going to read that and help you.

Here's what you should do - make your own NEW thread and post CLEARLY and simply what your problem is. DO NOT rant.

Use punctuation and keep it short. We will help then.