WELL.

[MiriaJiyuu]

That sucks buddy. I've had it before where a game was greyed out, but my game files were always still there. I'm sitting here hoping you don't have a Usage Cap.

May want to tell Valve though, this may not be the first time it's happened.

 

[D-Class 198482]

What did you do recently on your system? (New software? New updates? Any maintenance? An unusual crash? A blue screen?) Because I cannot imagine a single scenario in which the program would just erase your games... I mean, even if they wanted to revoke your Steam account for some reason, it wouldn't erase anything on your end; everything would still be on your hard drive. Apparently they've even changed the way they lock people out of their accounts now where even if they ban you permanently for something serious, you still get to keep and play (except online on VAC secured servers) the games you bought.

Were your games on another partition or just in the default folder? Anything else gone from your system?
Are you absolutely positive that not even a single file remains from your various games? Because Steam has a new folder management capability now where you can create new "Steam Library Folders" so you can spread your games on different drives, so maybe that has something to do with it...

Not a single file. Originally I was lucky to even have more than a few GB, and now it's up to 200. Checked my Steam folder, there wasn't even a steamapps/common. Heck, it somehow even deleted my backups.

 

[distortedreality]

That's bizarre. As others have said, your first port of call should be steam support. I've honestly never heard of something like that happening before. I've seen Steam have to re-validate unchanged and up to date game files before, and then decide to download large portions of the game files for no apparent reason, but never anything like you describe.

 

[lacktheknack]

Not a single file. Originally I was lucky to even have more than a few GB, and now it's up to 200. Checked my Steam folder, there wasn't even a steamapps/common. Heck, it somehow even deleted my backups.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhh

Do you have a vengeful girlfriend?

 

[DementedSheep]

Damn, Steam doing its retarded shit again.


I hope someday Steam gets what it deserves and gets destroyed/improved, right now its like a virus in your computer or something, and worst of all people actually aprove of this! (Ok maybe virus is an exageration... but still)

This isn't a common Steam error, so no, it's not doing this "again".

And "but still" what?

OT: Ow. Did you accidentally switch hard drives? Check to see if the games are still in place. If so, try running them from the folder and see what happens.

Goddamn, you?re avatar is creepy. Thanks for the nightmares.

 

[gideonkain]

That's a really weird thing to happen...do you own a cat that walks on keyboards at night?

 

[D-Class 198482]

Not a single file. Originally I was lucky to even have more than a few GB, and now it's up to 200. Checked my Steam folder, there wasn't even a steamapps/common. Heck, it somehow even deleted my backups.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhh

Do you have a vengeful girlfriend?

Unless she decided she wanted to give me a Halloween scare, I doubt it was her :U

 

[dyre]

Do you live in a dorm in college? It sounds like you left for class without locking your computer...

 

[oplinger]

Not a single file. Originally I was lucky to even have more than a few GB, and now it's up to 200. Checked my Steam folder, there wasn't even a steamapps/common. Heck, it somehow even deleted my backups.

Steam doesn't just suddenly do things like that. It would leave the file structure intact if it did. It creates this file structure when you launch it initially.

So, it was manually deleted, not automatically. Someone fucked your shit up dude.

 

[Easton Dark]

That's a really weird thing to happen...do you own a cat that walks on keyboards at night?

God, if my cat deleted all of my steam games, I'd... I'd...

Probably pet him and call him a bad kitty. ;_;

(I only have like five of the 100+ installed right now)

 

[Palademon]

Sounds like some random glitch.
But I must say this is my favourite thread title in a while. It conveys so much with so little, and almost made me laugh just reading it.

 

[Jason Rayes]

The title of this thread is misleading, I was expecting a deep, dark, brick lined hole with a pool of water at the bottom and maybe a treasure chest and a foe. *Sigh* I'll have to seek my XP elsewhere.

 

[Sacman]

Here's an idea, look for the files...<.<

Should be under, System Volume/Local Disc > Program Files X86 > Steam > steamapps > And than either, Commons, or username... depending on the game...<.<

if they're there, you can start the games through the application file...

though, my computer did this before, and it was only cause I had steam on a different drive than all of my games... so it might be that... just had to be moved to the directory...

But either way, it's probably nothing... just a glitch or random error when looking for the games...<.<

 

[newfoundsky]

I thought CMOS batteries only controlled system settings (clock, which hard drive to access, bios settings, etc). Can you tell me what Steam checks that runs off the battery?

I guess you aren't aware that most programs actually check themselves against the system clock on a regular basis. Every file on Microsoft's OS (I'm not sure about Mac or Linux) come with three distinct time-stamps and those time-stamps are used for several different verification processes. Steam might even time-stamp your transactions on it's own server then checks them against the time-stamps and system time on your machine.

Now, that's not to say that I know Steam, for sure, checks your system clock... but I wouldn't doubt that time-stamp verification is in its design. A clue I'm basing this off of is that his Steam Launcher seems to have reverted to old advertisements.

I am missing some key bits of info... like if his computer was factory programmed at a time when Steam was advertising for TF2 items or if something had happened to his account on the server side. I'm just working with the knowledge I have and my best guess is a time-stamp verification issue.

I wasn't doubting you (tone is hard to communicate over the internets, which is why I think you thought I was )

I was unaware of the time stamps actually. (I took a computer class so this is kind of embarrassing).

 

[D-Class 198482]

It isn't a big deal anymore, you gaiuse. For some reason, even though the files were gone, they are suddenly downloading in about ten minutes or less. So far I've downloaded games I had that originally took me two-three days to install that currently take about twenty minutes.