Some gamers have recently reported a peculiar issue where their all installed Steam games are appearing to be uninstalled. Steam caters to a huge number of PC gamers and, this problem, even reported by a small fraction of those gamers, can be a very problematic issue. In this article, we have discussed some possible reasons and quick resolutions so that you can get back your games in no time.
Fix 1 – Look for the external HDD
You can install your favorite games on any external drive. But, if you remove the external hard disk drive from your system, and try to play the game, Steam will show you the game as uninstalled.
1. In that case, exit the Steam client.
2. Closing the Steam client usually doesn’t exit the app. It continues to run in the background. So, right-click the “Steam” icon and tap “Exit“.
3. Once you have completely closed the Steam client, plug in the external hard disk drive to your system.
4. Now, launch Steam using the search box.
5. When it opens up, head on to the “Library” pane. Here, check all the games one by one.
6. Test whether all the games appear to be installed or not.
This way, you can solve the problem.
Fix 2 – Add alternate installation libraries
If you have moved the game directory or except the main Steam directory you can manually add the game to Steam.
1. At first, open the Steam client on the affected machine.
2. Once it opens up, click on the first menu “Steam” option.
3. Then, from the drop-down, tap “Settings“.
4. On the Settings page, click on “Downloads” on the left-hand pane.
5. Now, click on the “STEAM LIBRARY FOLDERS” on the right-hand side.
6. Click on the side arrow button and then click the “+” icon to add a new Steam Library folder.
7. Now, click on the drop-down menu and choose the drive where your game is located.
8. Then, select “Let me choose your location” from the drop-down menu.
9. Now, click the “Add” button to add the game folder.
10. Next, select the game directory from the drop-down list.
11. Then, tap “SELECT” to select and add the directory.
Once you have added the Steam directory, go back to the Steam directory. Try to play the game on your system.
Fix 3 – Move the game directory
You can move the game directory to the Steam folder of another drive. This also works if you want to move the game files from an external drive.
1. Open the File Explorer and then, go to the game directory.
2. Once you reach there, select the game directory that you are facing this trouble with.
3. Then, press the Ctrl+C keys together to copy it. [Or else, you can press the Ctrl+X keys together to cut it.]
4. Then, go to the drive where you want to move it.
Choose a driver with a lot of empty space and have at least one Steam game already installed there.
5. Once you have selected the drive, go this way –
SteamLibrary/steamapps/common
6. Then, paste the game inside the common folder.
Depending upon the storage type you are using and the size of the game folder, this process may take some while.
7. Once you have completed the transfer, open the Steam client.
8. Now, head on to the “LIBRARY” section, where you can find all your game content.
9. After this, right-tap the problematic game and tap “Install” to install the game.
10. Now, on the installation page, set the directory where you have moved the game folder. (Refer – Step6)
11. Then, click “Next” to install the game files.
Steam scans the whole folder for existing game files.
It automatically detects the game files there, showing the “Discovering existing files for” message on the Installer page. It takes just a few minutes to scan the game files.
12. If it detects some game files are missing, Steam completes the download.
Once the process is complete, you can play the game.
Repeat the same process for all the games that you are facing this problem.
Additional NOTE –
Moving game files is always a risky process that may corrupt some game files. There is something that you can do to verify the game file installation –
1. Open the Steam client.
2. Go to the “LIBRARY” section.
3. Here, on the right-hand pane, you can find all the games.
4. Then, right-click the game and tap “Properties“.
5. Now, tap the “LOCAL FILES” on the left-hand pane.
6. Click on the “Verify integrity of game files…” option to verify the game files.
Steam will now scan the entire game folder and all the components. If it detects any game file corruption, it mends it.
This way, you won’t face any other game-related issues.
Fix 3 – Change the ClientRegistry.blob file
You can rename the ClientRegistry.blob file and test if this works.
1. Go to your desktop.
2. Now, right-click the “Steam” application and tap “Open file location“.
[If you don’t have the Steam icon on your Desktop, you can use the search box to find the Steam app location.]
This leads to the original game directory of the Steam application.
3. Once you are there, you can find a particular file name “ClientRegistry.blob“.
4. Then, right-tap the file and tap on the rename icon to rename the file.
5. Rename this file to “ClientRegistry.old.blob“.
After this, close the Steam directory. If the Steam app is already opened, close it.
6. Click on the upward icon and right-tap the “Steam” and click “Exit” to exit the Steam directory.
Now, launch the Steam client.
Then, visit the ‘Library’ and test whether the game files appear to be installed or not.
Fix 5 – Repair the Appmanifest files
Steam uses the Appmanifest file to store appdata, AppID, installation location, and some crucial information about the Steam games.
1. Navigate to the Steam folder where you have installed the game.
2. Whenever you install a game from Steam, it automatically creates a unique Appmanifest file for it.
3. If you have installed multiple games on the same drive, you have to identify which Appmanifest file belongs to which game.
4. There is an easy way to identify this. Each Appmanifest file contains a particular number in its name. This unique number is the Steam APPID of that particular game.
5. Go here and click on the search box to type the game name.
6. Next, click on the name of the game from the search results.
7. Now, let’s come back to the SteamLibrary folder.
8. Here, double-click the “common” folder to go inside.
9. Check the name of the game folder that you are in facing this problem. Then, go the back to “steamapps” folder.
[Here, in our case, the name is – “Raji An Ancient Epic Prologue“. ]
10. Check which Appmanifest is carrying the Steam AppID along it.
11. Once you have identified it, right-click that and tap “Open with>“.
12. Then, click “Choose another app” from the context menu.
13. Now, select “Notepad” from the list of apps and click “OK“.
14. Once the Appmanifest file opens up, check the “name” tag. It should be the name of the game.
15. Now, carefully notice the “installdir” value. It should be exactly the same name as the game folder that you have noted before.
[Example – In our case the “installdir” is set to “Raji An Ancient Epic Prologue“.]
16. If you see the name is not the same, correct it yourself.
Then, press the Ctlr+S keys together to save the file.
After that, close the File Explorer page.
Close the Steam client and relaunch it. Try to install the game. The problem should be fixed as Steam recognizes the correct Appmanifest file.
Additional Tips –
If none of these solutions work out for you, you should just uninstall the game and reinstall it. This way, your problem will be resolved.