Steam keeps removing non steam games

[Erol NL]

Hi,

I have been having this issue for quiet a while now and since I read that multiple people have the same issue I'd open a ticket as well.

For no apparant reason Steam removes my non Steam games. Its really frustrating cause I use the application to organize my games. I also read that other peoples tickets were closed after telling them that support would forward the problem to another department, never to hear from them again.

I only hope that you will take this request serious and not merely forward it to another department but instead try to resolve this issue. Not just for me, but for your entire client base who has the same problem.

Thanks so much.

Best,

Erol

[Kargor]

That is a very old bug.

Basically, Steam trashes your shortcut file when it's still running during a system shutdown -- which is usually the case if you run it at login time and just have it sitting in the background all the time, like I do.

Solution: make the shortcut file readonly. The file is located in your Steam folder:

...\Steam\userdata\XXXXX\config\shortcuts.vdf

Use the windows properties to set it to read-only and everything will be fine. Don't forget to temporarily remove that read-only when you want to add or remove shortcuts :-)

Steam SHOULD fix that, but considering how simple a fix that will be and how long this bug has been around, I don't think they intend to do it. Maybe they don't even have people working on the client, and just hiring them on a per-hour basis as needed, who knows.

[Ineffable Anathema]

I just keep a backup of the shortcuts.vdf on my desktop (updated when I add new non steam games) and restore it if it disappears. Mostly this seems to happen when you get a 'bad' steam shutdown.

[CaptHolt]

Thanks for the helpfull information very much appreciated

[Pheace]

the latest beta build seems to adress possible reasons for non-steam games disappearing.

[Dardantuan]

This keeps happening to me, still. I have a lot of non-steam games and it is a huge inconvenience to keep putting them back into steam and re-editing all the tags... Why is this bug still happening?!

[Chixdiggit]

I have a video showing the fix:
http://youtu.be/n3pOXz-yUF0

[Erol NL]

Thanks, I hope this works :-)