Why is steam wanting to redownload my game?

sithus1966_ESO

Same, no launcher, just a small Steam screen that says it will be ready in about 4 hours.

And I wish people would stop posting this "workaround" link that does not work for a majority of the people.

Verbal_Earthworm

my random eso steam update is now at 74% after 12 hours of downloading.

not surprised at the lack of support from ZOS.

too busy deleting comments that make them look bad.

coj901

wow

phairdon

sithus1966_ESO wrote: »

Same, no launcher, just a small Steam screen that says it will be ready in about 4 hours.

And I wish people would stop posting this "workaround" link that does not work for a majority of the people.

Its called trying to help others. Sorry it failed to work.

Verbal_Earthworm

phairdon wrote: »

sithus1966_ESO wrote: »

Same, no launcher, just a small Steam screen that says it will be ready in about 4 hours.

And I wish people would stop posting this "workaround" link that does not work for a majority of the people.

Its called trying to help others. Sorry it failed to work.

No, it's called Click-Bait.

You yourself state on that link "what did you expect, a real fix? i ain't zos."

it's 2019, don't post a fix for versions bought before 2016.

phairdon

Excuse me. Some players might actually have bought the game before 2016.

Verbal_Earthworm

phairdon wrote: »

Excuse me. Some players might actually have bought the game before 2016.

You're excused.

max_only

Have you tried to stop the download and just right click the game name in Steam list and choose "Verify"? Some people said they had success with that.

Verbal_Earthworm

max_only wrote: »

Have you tried to stop the download and just right click the game name in Steam list and choose "Verify"? Some people said they had success with that.

The verify button is greyed out for me and many others.

max_only

Verbal_Earthworm wrote: »

max_only wrote: »

Have you tried to stop the download and just right click the game name in Steam list and choose "Verify"? Some people said they had success with that.

The verify button is greyed out for me and many others.

sucks man, i've been on wacky train since yesterday https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/456241/eso-on-steam-58-1-gig-update-and-saying-i-dont-have-eso-what-gives#latest someone in that thread said valve posted to Reddit, i asked for a link

dakkiii

Same here. I am not required to login through Steam, but my controller settings are through Steam, which sucks.

max_only

IndyWendieGo wrote: »

Other useful links;

• Potential fix for the large download if you haven't uninstalled yet, use at your own risk or success (Steam)
• Supposedly this works for unlinking Steam, but again use at your own risk or success (ESO Forums)
• Another Steam fix for the large download (in the answer box), this one will probably vary in results too. (Steam) It also has relevant information about what people are experiencing.

Will update more as I find them. This is the thing though;

For the ESO64.exe thing, quite a lot of people can't because of the swap of logging systems back in 2016. If you bought the game OUTSIDE of Steam and linked it and you're getting that error, I -think- you can ask to get the account unlinked. But if you bought the game through Steam, I'm pretty sure you can't, according to BillE. So to those people saying "drop Steam", when you've recently bought the game and have certain collectibles that are no longer easily accessed- That's neither a solution nor is it helpful.

Addendum: I would also like the note that the time that BillE said that it wasn't possible, that was back in 2018 (rather the thread I found). You could still try and contact support to try and do a more safer workaround, but until they remove the asinine Steam mandatory login those are pretty much the options I could find that had some reported success.

NoMoreChillies

another bad PR move
yet people still give them $$$

bluebird

Update: Steam released a fix in the Steam beta client an hour or so ago.

Opt into the beta by going to Steam --> Settings --> Account --> Beta participation. It will then download the Steam update, and once it re-launches Steam, the issue will be gone. No downloads, updates or intsall verifications were needed, I was able to launch ESO normally without any further prompts or problems.

Hope it helps you too, but bear in mind that the fix they pushed out may not work if you started to delete/alter your Steam or game files in the meantime.

D0PAMINE

How the hell do you guys deal with that steam crap constantly? I feel blessed to have a non steam version.

FleetwoodSmack

bluebird wrote: »

Update: Steam released a fix in the Steam beta client an hour or so ago.

Opt into the beta by going to Steam --> Settings --> Account --> Beta participation. It will then download the Steam update, and once it re-launches Steam, the issue will be gone. No downloads, updates or intsall verifications were needed, I was able to launch ESO normally without any further prompts or problems.

Hope it helps you too, but bear in mind that the fix they pushed out may not work if you started to delete/alter your Steam or game files in the meantime.

Added this to the list of options in the other thread. Thanks for pointing this out!

Uryel

bluebird wrote: »

Update: Steam released a fix in the Steam beta client an hour or so ago.

Opt into the beta by going to Steam --> Settings --> Account --> Beta participation. It will then download the Steam update, and once it re-launches Steam, the issue will be gone. No downloads, updates or intsall verifications were needed, I was able to launch ESO normally without any further prompts or problems.

Gonna try that. At least it should stop the files from being corrupted again. My wife is in the process of downloading the whole game for the THIRD TIME. Took her all day yesterday, and then all night, and then probably will take her the whole day again. Hopefully this time it will work.

I feel bad for her considering I do not play through Steam and can login normally...

ruengdet2515

Uryel wrote: »

bluebird wrote: »

Update: Steam released a fix in the Steam beta client an hour or so ago.

Opt into the beta by going to Steam --> Settings --> Account --> Beta participation. It will then download the Steam update, and once it re-launches Steam, the issue will be gone. No downloads, updates or intsall verifications were needed, I was able to launch ESO normally without any further prompts or problems.

Gonna try that. At least it should stop the files from being corrupted again. My wife is in the process of downloading the whole game for the THIRD TIME. Took her all day yesterday, and then all night, and then probably will take her the whole day again. Hopefully this time it will work.

I feel bad for her considering I do not play through Steam and can login normally...

That solution is ok and can play game now.
But i wonder when steam client become non beta version(full version) what will happen again, re-download whole game?

Uryel

ruengdet2515 wrote: »

That solution is ok and can play game now.
But i wonder when steam client become non beta version(full version) what will happen again, re-download whole game?

There shouldn't be the need. The beta setting os for Steam itself, not ESO. Theoretically, they should fix that in the next stable update, and thus no need to redownload the game whatsoever. Until the next ESO update that is.

Gotta wait about 2 more hours here to see if that will work. If it doesn't my wife is gonna go berserk. Wish me luck :P

Caelnir

I just switched to Beta client and it reduced my download from 77gb to 47gb
I am still not convinced to download that size as it will take me a day. Will wait for a bit more and see if there is any other fix that will appear soon.

Inerar

bluebird wrote: »

Update: Steam released a fix in the Steam beta client an hour or so ago.

Opt into the beta by going to Steam --> Settings --> Account --> Beta participation. It will then download the Steam update, and once it re-launches Steam, the issue will be gone. No downloads, updates or intsall verifications were needed, I was able to launch ESO normally without any further prompts or problems.

Hope it helps you too, but bear in mind that the fix they pushed out may not work if you started to delete/alter your Steam or game files in the meantime.

Tried that and it started my downloads from beginning but total download size lowered 77 to 56. Now i'm thinking gave up on Steam but if i gave up on Steam, then i have to cancel my ESO Plus too, because there is a price difference for me. Can give a break to ESO because of this. Feel bad today...

Propagate

This is honestly becoming a joke! All we get is a woops, sorry! must be great taking people money and not caring about customer service.

For anyone having the issue, try opting into the steam beta as apparently there is a fix. It didnt work for me but other people have had success.My download started already which means and for some reason i couldnt stop it.

MajBludd

Didn't have this problem, but I was able to put the launcher on my desktop a year or 2 back, so I don't use steam to launch it.

I've heard that made it so you can no longer do this, but I'm not sure if that is correct.

Halcyon_blue

While this is frustrating - and I"m in my fourth hour of downloading / verifying and given what I suspect is the higher traffic from this issue, at a whopping 5.70 mb/s - it's important to be aware that this is a STEAM issue, not an ESO one.

That's like getting up a drinks manufacturer (ESO) because the supermarket (Steam) accidentally tipped a whole aisle over.
Not sure that kind of histrionics is helpful, especially on this forum.

Some learnings I've had on this one : -
1) the Steam beta step above helps to a degree - it seems to reduce the ESO re-download by about 30% but doesn't eliminate it; and
2) it will also prevent Steam from re-downloading the entire / majority of your Steam library. ESO is by far my biggest HDD capacity impost, but it still does help.

Best of luck to everyone - I just ended up getting a lot of housework and life admin done tonight instead XD

FleetwoodSmack

MajBludd wrote: »

Didn't have this problem, but I was able to put the launcher on my desktop a year or 2 back, so I don't use steam to launch it.

I've heard that made it so you can no longer do this, but I'm not sure if that is correct.

You're halfway correct. If you bought the game prior to November of 2016 (I forget exact dates, but it's around this time), you can go through the back way by using your credentials. The reason being is that it was an actual ESO Account ID before that date that was created. Unfortunately, those who bought the game AFTER through steam are using their Steam Account ID instead and people who are tied to this can't get in through the back way.

myskyrim26

Steam made to download the game again yesterday. Not enough disk space. I uninstalled my ESO and downloaded it. Now the launcher updates the game. What a crap! I regret I bought ESP through Steam

ihazzit

Steam has had this issue for several years now and in most instances it's a corrupted Steam-related cache file. Sometimes there's a corruption with Steam files and sometimes there's a corruption with the game files within Steam. I would assume (I know what assuming does) that ZOS probably can't provide a solution to fix Steam-related problem and that it legally needs to go through Steam. Some have mentioned verifying the files is a possible solution and it sometimes works.

However, if Steam want to keep trying to download ESO and you already have downloaded the game, here's a possible fix that is safe and easy to try.

Close all Steam and ESO programs and make sure it's closed via Task Manager. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to your steamapps folders. By default it's Program Files x86 --> Steam --> steamapps. In that folder you will find several files named appmanifest_xxxx with the xxxx being numbers. You will see a file numbered 306130. Copy that file to your desktop for backup purposes.

Open 306130 found in your steamapps folder using wordpad or whichever file editor you have (wordpad lists it line by line as compared to notepad) and in your first few lines you will see:
"AppState"
{
"appid" "306130"
"Universe" "1"
"name" "The Elder Scrolls Online"
"StateFlags" "4"

It is StateFlags you are looking for and StateFlags as above should show "4". If it shows "36", change it to 4, save it and startup Steam again. If it shows "128" and changing it to 4 fails then you have a corruption somewhere and need to reinstall the game unfortunately. Any number other than 4 tells Steam the game files are not all or correctly downloaded even if you know they are.

If that all fails you may have a corruption in your Steam program files and possibly need to uninstall and then reinstall the Steam client. If you have to do that make sure you first go to x86-->Steam and copy the steamapp folder and userdata folder (you should do this as a backup anyway) so that you can simply copy them back when the Steam client finishes reinstalling. Otherwise you have to download all of your Steam games again.

BaylorCorvette

So I played on my crappy laptop this morning fine and after work I got on my gaming computer and I started to have the download problem with steam. I tried the below fix and it worked for me. Steam relaunched and it booted ESO no problem.

bluebird wrote: »

Update: Steam released a fix in the Steam beta client an hour or so ago.

Opt into the beta by going to Steam --> Settings --> Account --> Beta participation. It will then download the Steam update, and once it re-launches Steam, the issue will be gone. No downloads, updates or intsall verifications were needed, I was able to launch ESO normally without any further prompts or problems.

Hope it helps you too, but bear in mind that the fix they pushed out may not work if you started to delete/alter your Steam or game files in the meantime.

Inerar

Got another beta client update today and it restarted downloading from beginning. I'm bored. Canceled my ESO Plus on Steam. I'll wait until an absolute solution. If i download it from ESO Website can't get ESO Plus again (more expensive to me) and u can consider that how important it is. Even if i delete and download again the game via Steam, I can't trust that it will work. That's really bad issue. I can't play the game...

Perwulf

Before anyone loses their mind. This only works if you still have steam ESO in \steamapps\common or you have a backup, you can also simply switch your ESO from drive to drive by using this technique as long as you have the appmanifest_306130.acf file.

If you don't have appmanifest_306130.acf

Go through C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps (default install folder or depending where you installed your ESO.)
Right click> New> Text Document > Copy paste bolded text above
e.g. New Text Document.txt should now be appmanifest_306130.acf

Then simply copy and paste the codes below:

"AppState"
{
"appid" "306130"
"Universe" "1"
"name" "The Elder Scrolls Online"
"StateFlags" "4"
"installdir" "Zenimax Online"
"LastUpdated" "1405917202"
"UpdateResult" "0"
"SizeOnDisk" "72841159392"
"buildid" "320559"
"LastOwner" "0"
"BytesToDownload" "72841159392"
"BytesDownloaded" "72841159392"
"AutoUpdateBehavior" "0"
"AllowOtherDownloadsWhileRunning" "0"
"ScheduledAutoUpdate" "0"
"UserConfig"
{
"language" "english"
}
"InstalledDepots"
{
"306131"
{
"manifest" "1455114842083244130"
}
}
"MountedDepots"
{
"306131" "1455114842083244130"
}
"InstallScripts"
{
"0" "_CommonRedist\\vcredist\\2010\\installscript.vdf"
"1" "_CommonRedist\\DirectX\\Jun2010\\installscript.vdf"
"2" "installScript.vdf"
}
"SharedDepots"
{
"228983" "228980"
"228990" "228980"
}
}

I suggest doing this by using Notepad++