I've launched the launcher and got "checking invalid game files..."

Epona222

hanszimmers wrote: »

I just deleted all the screenshots from: The Elder Scrolls Online - game - client... And it worked lol

How... just how...

You my friend, are a blimmin genius.
This worked.
You absolute star, you gem.
Thank you.

Now patching.

HowardL

Yaaaay it worked, thank you very much!

However, it yet must be fixed on eso side, reshade saves screenshots to client folder by default and god knows how many users have been or may be affected by this in future

now, onwards to Galen
I will be making screenshots anyway and will follow up here if the issue reoccurs

hanszimmers

Thank you all for your gratitude! I was glad to help you

Epona222

Well due to the change in Daily Login Reward reset I managed to not miss any.

I did however miss out on 2 event tickets on each of my 3 accounts for yesterday.

I am considering putting in support tickets requesting these be provided, since I was sitting here all day yesterday trying to get my game patched but unable to, it was through no fault of my own that I missed out on yesterday's tickets. (Have managed to get today's thanks to the screenshot fix provided in this thread)

raccoonism

Removing screenshots stored in the Client folder has finally solved the issue for me.

StabbityDoom

I dont see where there's screenshots stored in the client folder. (EDIT: DERP, I was looking for a file, they're just sitting there without a file.)

@hanszimmers HOLY CROW IT WORKED. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

EnerG

Can confirm moving the screenshots out of the steam eso files solved the issue for me. Seems like there is a threshold of screenshots available in that folder for the game to be unable to load past that point.

StabbityDoom

HowardL wrote: »

Yaaaay it worked, thank you very much!

However, it yet must be fixed on eso side, reshade saves screenshots to client folder by default and god knows how many users have been or may be affected by this in future

now, onwards to Galen
I will be making screenshots anyway and will follow up here if the issue reoccurs

reshaders aren't zos's files? they are separate downloads, like addons. Seems like the reshader needs fixing

StabbityDoom

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin you may want to tell people about this fix, it worked for almost all of us

IrisDupree

My file structure is different, (no idea why) but inside my game files, I had a LOT of png files. 1316 to be exact I am guessing every image I had taken since I reinstalled the game years ago.
I deleted all those files and the launcher started patching. I am hopeful it will continue and work.

Edit to confirm the launcher did its thing and the game is loading.

Cominfordatoothbrush

Removing screenshots from /game/client worked for me as well

Epona222

StabbityDoom wrote: »

HowardL wrote: »

Yaaaay it worked, thank you very much!

However, it yet must be fixed on eso side, reshade saves screenshots to client folder by default and god knows how many users have been or may be affected by this in future

now, onwards to Galen
I will be making screenshots anyway and will follow up here if the issue reoccurs

reshaders aren't zos's files? they are separate downloads, like addons. Seems like the reshader needs fixing

Not really, I haven't used Reshader for a while and the png files in my client folder had been there since 2019, yet the launcher worked fine until Monday. It's the launcher that needs fixing.

StabbityDoom

What even made you think to try that, @hanszimmers ?

Zyva

I still can not log in. Invalid Game files.

StabbityDoom

Zyva wrote: »

I still can not log in. Invalid Game files.

See above, go into your client folder and delete all the .bmp files in there. Should work great after that.

Inari Telvanni

StabbityDoom wrote: »

Zyva wrote: »

I still can not log in. Invalid Game files.

See above, go into your client folder and delete all the .bmp files in there. Should work great after that.

This is not a guaranteed fix. Deleting the screenshots has done nothing for me, for instance.

Zyva

I tried no change.

StabbityDoom

Zyva wrote: »

I tried no change.

If you have any reshader in there, or other files that shouldn't be in there, try removing them

Zyva

Nope, The only thing I've ever added to ESO was addons through minion.

StabbityDoom

Zyva wrote: »

Nope, The only thing I've ever added to ESO was addons through minion.

At this point by the way I'd submit a ticket on the website, under support, above, and then tag kevin in this thread with the number of the ticket. Secondly, I still have screenshots of your crystal dragon in lakemire, it was awesome.

Epona222

In case this helps anyone - Just to clarify, the folder you need to be deleting screenshot files (.png) files from, is NOT the folder in your user Documents path where screenshots go by default.

It is your .../Elder Scrolls Online/Game/Client folder.

The default location for this folder the path will look like:

For non-Steam installs: whichever drive you installed to ...Program Files (x86)/The Elder Scrolls Online/Game/Client

For steam installs: whichever drive you installed to ...Steam/steamapps/common/The Elder Scrolls Online/Game/Client

I mention this, because I thought "oh, screenshots" and went straight to my Documents folder and deleted the screenshots from there, and it didn't work, because that is not the folder people are referring to.

I also suggest that any other stray files that might have been put in that folder (if you accidentally downloaded something there once) might be causing the same launcher bug, it might not only be screenshot files - so check the folder to make sure there is nothing in there that shouldn't be in there.

ZOS_Kevin

Hi All, we believe we have a fix for this issue. Please see below:

If you are receiving a "checking invalid game files" error when you try to launch ESO, you may have files like "screenshots" saved under your Game Client Directory. (These will be detected as invalid.)

Some addons may save your ESO screenshots in the game client folder, and this can result in the "checking invalid game files" error.

Please locate the folder where your screenshots are being saved and either delete them or save the screenshots folder on your desktop.

Your default ESO screenshot folder file path should look something like this:
C:\Users\<user name>\Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live\Screenshots

This is where your screenshots should be saved to avoid the patcher detecting "invalid files" under your Game Client directory.

Epona222

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, we believe we have a fix for this issue. Please see below:

If you are receiving a "checking invalid game files" error when you try to launch ESO, you may have files like "screenshots" saved under your Game Client Directory. (These will be detected as invalid.)

Some addons may save your ESO screenshots in the game client folder, and this can result in the "checking invalid game files" error.

Please locate the folder where your screenshots are being saved and either delete them or save the screenshots folder on your desktop.

Your default ESO screenshot folder file path should look something like this:
C:\Users\<user name>\Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live\Screenshots

This is where your screenshots should be saved to avoid the patcher detecting "invalid files" under your Game Client directory.

Something did change with the launcher though, because as I have already said, I've had screenshots in the client folder for years (although no new ones added since 2019) and the launcher only decided that it wasn't going to work any more on Monday this week.

Zyva

@StabbityDoom thanks! I still have that dragon xD

So I'm now downloading a massive patch, Fingers crossed.

StabbityDoom

Zyva wrote: »

@StabbityDoom thanks! I still have that dragon xD

So I'm now downloading a massive patch, Fingers crossed.

So glad!!!

StabbityDoom

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, we believe we have a fix for this issue. Please see below:

If you are receiving a "checking invalid game files" error when you try to launch ESO, you may have files like "screenshots" saved under your Game Client Directory. (These will be detected as invalid.)

Some addons may save your ESO screenshots in the game client folder, and this can result in the "checking invalid game files" error.

Please locate the folder where your screenshots are being saved and either delete them or save the screenshots folder on your desktop.

Your default ESO screenshot folder file path should look something like this:
C:\Users\<user name>\Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live\Screenshots

This is where your screenshots should be saved to avoid the patcher detecting "invalid files" under your Game Client directory.

Thanks for making this official so I can send it around. I'm going to kick anything's butt that saves files there in the future.

ZOS_Kevin

Epona222 wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, we believe we have a fix for this issue. Please see below:

If you are receiving a "checking invalid game files" error when you try to launch ESO, you may have files like "screenshots" saved under your Game Client Directory. (These will be detected as invalid.)

Some addons may save your ESO screenshots in the game client folder, and this can result in the "checking invalid game files" error.

Please locate the folder where your screenshots are being saved and either delete them or save the screenshots folder on your desktop.

Your default ESO screenshot folder file path should look something like this:
C:\Users\<user name>\Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live\Screenshots

This is where your screenshots should be saved to avoid the patcher detecting "invalid files" under your Game Client directory.

Something did change with the launcher though, because as I have already said, I've had screenshots in the client folder for years (although no new ones added since 2019) and the launcher only decided that it wasn't going to work any more on Monday this week.

We are still investigating what happened here to see what the exact cause of the issue is, but we wanted to make sure the issue was at least fixed so everyone could play. So we're still looking into it.

Zyva

Whats weird is I saw screenshots saved there throughout 2020 and 2021. Never had any issues before.

Myrio

hanszimmers wrote: »

I just deleted all the screenshots from: The Elder Scrolls Online - game - client... And it worked lol

Thank you, I've been stuck on this issue for days and when I saw your comment I had to try it, and it worked for me too!

LadyJohanna

Yes! Moving the screenshots from the /client folder to the Documents/ESO/live/screenshots folder worked!

I just grabbed all the .bmp files and cut/pasted them over.

Launcher is finally running and downloading the patch.

I do have the reshader addon and would have never guessed that it saving screenshots could be causing this issue.

Mad kudos to @hanszimmers for providing this fix! Thank you thank you thank you! Now I'll be able to play and crash with everyone else lol.