Multiple Steam Games Uninstalling Themselves. Help!

[Skidd17]

This does seem really wack but its been a recurring thing lately and nothing of help has come up on the forums so heres the situation if you didnt get it from the title.

2 days ago (23/01/15) I opened up Steam to see that my Killing Floor has somehow uninstalled itself. I wouldn't have uninstalled it because I play it regularly and there is no-one else in my house so there is no chance of someone getting onto my PC that knows my steam.
I assumed it was just a bug or just a one time thing and reinstalled it and went along my day as if it never happened.

Until today.
(25/01/15) I opened up steam and 14 games in total had just somehow been uninstalled ALL BY THEMSELVES. (games: Battle Block Theatre, Counter Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source, Fallout NV, Gunpoint, Killing Floor (again), Mafia 2, Napoleon Total War, Postal 2, Risk of Rain, Rome Total War (not Rome 2), Saints Row 4 (Me and a friend played that just last night), Civ 5 and Rust) The games seem to have uninstalled at random with no real pattern as a bunch of games are still installed. This is extremely weird and rare by the looks of forums and it's freaking me out that I have to reinstall several large size games back onto my computer.

If anyone could help me out with this problem I would very much appreciate it.
~Skidd17

[TirithRR]

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8379-RYIP-2998

[The Giving One]

Where is Steam instealled on your PC ?

What is your OS ?

Read this and post if your have ANY of them especially antivirus..

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

[Skidd17]

Originally posted by TirithRR:

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8379-RYIP-2998

No luck with anything here, All of the games are already in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steamapps\Common and Steam is still asking to fully install the game as if it isn't there so it just tries to create a copy of the game files, taking a huge chunk of my hard drive space, and time... Thanks for the help though!

[TirithRR]

If the files are already there, start the game directly from the folder.

[Skidd17]

Originally posted by The Giving One:

Where is Steam instealled on your PC ?

What is your OS ?

Read this and post if your have ANY of them especially antivirus..

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

Steam is installed on my main 2tb harddrive (C Drive)
Im using Windows 7 Home Premium
and I do have Avast! but I've dealt with the firewall so that it bypasses anything it doesnt like with Steam and its been running well with Steam for something like 3 years now so I see no reason for it to interfere now.

[Skidd17]

Originally posted by TirithRR:

If the files are already there, start the game directly from the folder.

There isnt an EXE, Steam must have removed it for some reason, I guess I should just delete it, but if reinstalling a game thats been unistalled didnt help before (with killing floor) wouldnt it just happen again?, I'll delete what's left of the game files and reinstall the games, but I really don't want to have to go through several hours of reinstalling again in the future. Thankyou for the help guys

[The Giving One]

TirithRR has got this for you pretty well here....

I just like to try to figure out why this happens to some people...I have never seen this on my rig.

Even if a program causes no problems with Steam for years, that does not mean it never will...that list is a good thing to go by so I use antivirus that is not on that list....

And never install Steam in any Program Files folders....put it all by itself all alone in a floder elsewhere.

Just my two cents....

EDIT...You may also be able to go to Steam them settings then downloads and use the top button concerning folders to show steam where the games are....

[Skidd17]

I actually think that steam file may have come up corrupt or faulty because this is the first steam problem I've ever had (ever ever ever) and I just did a check up of my fire wall for Avast! and I refreshed the set up I had that allows Avast! not to interfere with Steam and its associated files. So I'm starting to think its more of a Steam problem by itself rather than my anitvirus. As for the steam settings > Downloads > top button by adding the folder with the games in do you mean 'Common' or the individual games?

[The Giving One]

Try to add the "common" one and then check your library...if you have no .exe files, then you will most likely have to validate the game caches for every game unless steam auto updates them..

The reason I mentioned what I posted before is because it is pretty interesting that you say you have no .exe files now in the game folders....that is something that an antivirus program or windows UAC could probably have something to do with....just saying here...that is why I never have any of thoes programs and I never instal Steam in any program files folders....

[Skidd17]

Originally posted by The Giving One:

Try to add the "common" one and then check your library...if you have no .exe files, then you will most likely have to validate the game caches for every game unless steam auto updates them..

The reason I mentioned what I posted before is because it is pretty interesting that you say you have no .exe files now in the game folders....that is something that an antivirus program or windows UAC could probably have something to do with....just saying here...that is why I never have any of thoes programs and I never instal Steam in any program files folders....

The only game files that were missing EXEs (and I assume others) were the ones in the list i mentioned that had seemingly uninstalled themselves, when I try to add folders : common it says the folder needs to be empty? I think I'm doing something wrong :p

[The Giving One]

You could just right click the folder and copy it to the one in program files (where the rest of your games are and Steam is) and then merge them together also...then validate the games that you moved that were "missing" unless steam does it for you automatically.

But copy it and don't move it so you have a backup in case something goes wrong..

EDIT...

Again, it is pretty interesting that you said the games that are missing .exe files are the ones in your title post...that goes back to what I said before....

Never install Steam in any program files folders and don't have any programs from that list....

You can search the net for the program files point here I am making all you want and you can see what I mean...

[Long Ago [Linux]]

Before your games appeared to uninstall, when you logged in, did Steam e-mail you a code to authenticate your computer again? If that happens and you notice your games uninstalled, just exit Steam and start it again and see if everything is back to normal. That fixed it for me when that happened to each of my accounts in Linux at different random times.

But people have mentioned this issue in general forums, so maybe it is happening in Windows too. But I have only played in Windows once this week (while out of town) in the past 6 months, so I cannot confirm that.

[Skidd17]

Originally posted by efflandt:

Before your games appeared to uninstall, when you logged in, did Steam e-mail you a code to authenticate your computer again? If that happens and you notice your games uninstalled, just exit Steam and start it again and see if everything is back to normal. That fixed it for me when that happened to each of my accounts in Linux at different random times.

But people have mentioned this issue in general forums, so maybe it is happening in Windows too. But I have only played in Windows once this week (while out of town) in the past 6 months, so I cannot confirm that.

I didnt get one of those codes, because I only use my steam account on the one computer, It mainly happens when you install steam on a new hard drive or log in on another computer.

[Skidd17]

OK guys so I decided to do the whole re-installing thing the next day because I was busy enough at night, Today I restarted steam and all the games that had supposedly uninstalled...have appeared to have reinstalled, the EXEs (and other missing files) have been fully restored in the steam files and honestly I have no idea how, or why they went missing or came back. Hopefully they should stay for good this time. With this happening all I have to say is thankyou for all the help and assistance. If anyone else (or me again) happens to get this problem you guys are definatly the people to go to! :D The only thing I really remember changing before I closed my computer for the night was restarting steam in offline mode and then starting again in online mode, that may have made steam search for the gamefiles (for an update or something) again and found the "uninstalled" games that it lost. But your guess is as good as mine. Again cheers for the help (and fast response too) and hopefully this issue never happens again.