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

Inari Telvanni

I have tried EVERYTHING there is to try short of submitting a ticket. Ultimately, reinstalling the game from scratch is what allowed the launcher to load and begin applying the patch.

MafiaCat115

hanszimmers wrote: »

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

This fixed the issue for me! Removed all screenshots from Steam\steamapps\common\Zenimax Online\The Elder Scrolls Online\game\client, closed the launcher, then reopened it and it worked. There were quite a few screenshots from months ago in there, though, so whatever is causing this issue has to be a recent change.

alucardwickershampreub18_ESO

I'm still stuck trying to download the patch for 2 days. obviously can't log in redownloaded the game no change anyone else in this situation?

alucardwickershampreub18_ESO

Okay there's an update I ran check disk and now the patch seems to be uploading fingers crossed

tinythinker

Thanks for the weird fix

rootkitronin

hanszimmers wrote: »

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

Amazing, this worked like a charm (just moved them out on the client folder) - thank you so much for the information, really appreciate it!!!

hanszimmers

StabbityDoom wrote: »

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

@StabbityDoom I had to perform a ritual, summon spirits... but they said they didn't know how to solve this problem... And then I just started going through all the options... even the craziest...)

StabbityDoom

I've since taken a bunch of screenshots and have not had any repeat. Whatever program/addon I used that was saving things there isn't doing it anymore (I checked) so I probably havent had it installed for at least as long as this bug. Those of you who had this issue, do you notice it still happening (more screenshots to the client file?)

HowardL

@StabbityDoom I was making screenshots of the new dlc, and they are still being saved to the Client folder. However, no problems with the launcher anymore
@ZOS_Kevin Maybe it's worth checking if the quantity of those png files matters somehow? Because I initially had over 850 screenshots when the issue happened.

ZOS_Kevin

@HowardL This is something we are looking into as a part of our investigation. Thanks for your feedback here as well.

Inari Telvanni

@ZOS_Kevin Completely reinstalling my game has fixed it for me. Nothing else worked, but this did... very strange.

HappyDan

HowardL wrote: »

@StabbityDoom I was making screenshots of the new dlc, and they are still being saved to the Client folder. However, no problems with the launcher anymore
@ZOS_Kevin Maybe it's worth checking if the quantity of those png files matters somehow? Because I initially had over 850 screenshots when the issue happened.

I doubt it has anything to do with quantity, I've had idk like 100, 150 tops and it bugged out for me and before the random launcher bug I've had hundreds of screenshots for years and never had this issue. So quantity has nothing to do with it. ANd you are correct taking new screenshots doesn't effect launcher anymore, I wonder if us sending zos the actual screenshot files can help them decipher the cause for the bug.

dragonlord500

i woke up at 3am just now and i got a different issue. the game ran just fine today but now i got an error.

error 1005 - OSError_AccessDenied

this started right after i couldnt click the play button and launch the game on the ESO launcher and this isnt a steam version.
so i click repair and this happend.

now im stuck and it wont fix itself.

dragonlord500

Update: Uninstalling and reinstalling didn't work.

also the error has a message it says:

Access Denied. A file could not be updated due to either insufficient permissions, or the file is used by another process.

this is the official ESO launcher and i have to set to admin mode and it still doesn't work.

dragonlord500

@ZOS_Kevin

can you help me with this issue?

dragonlord500

UPDATE:

restarting my PC made it work.

Inari Telvanni

Inari Telvanni wrote: »

I have tried EVERYTHING there is to try short of submitting a ticket. Ultimately, reinstalling the game from scratch is what allowed the launcher to load and begin applying the patch.

I got this issue yet again. It was working fine up until last night. I don't understand why this is happening.

Interestingly, removing all my screenshots from all my folders DID actually fix it, as opposed to last time.

@ZOS_Kevin I would like an update, if at all possible.

ZOS_Kevin

@Inari Telvanni the team is still investigating this, but they did note that the amount of screenshots could trigger a repeat. But even that is still under investigation. Do you happen to remember how many screenshots you had before deleting? I can get that information back to the team.

Inari Telvanni

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

@Inari Telvanni the team is still investigating this, but they did note that the amount of screenshots could trigger a repeat. But even that is still under investigation. Do you happen to remember how many screenshots you had before deleting? I can get that information back to the team.

The first time I tried to delete, back when I first got this issue, I had upwards of 10,000 screenshots. Deleting them did nothing, and I was forced to reinstall, leading me to lose all of them.

Today, I had approximately 2,500 screenshots. Deleting them fixed my launcher issues.

@ZOS_Kevin

amig186

I had the same problem, but only 236 screenshots. Moving them fixed the problem. I've had this launcher issue twice before, once on 1.11.2022 and once on 7.11.2022. Before today I would just reinstall the game, when that didn't work this time I looked here and moved the screenshots.

acastanza_ESO

I started getting this error today. Per a suggestion I saw on the ESO subreddit, I went to my ESO "client" folder and deleted a bunch of screenshots that had somehow accumulated there, this fixed the issue. ESO should not be saving screenshots to the client folder so I have no idea how this happened but it did resolve the issue.

Inari Telvanni

This was not fixed with the incremental patch. @ZOS_Kevin Any updates on the cause?

MafiaCat115

Just had this issue come up again. 230 screenshots, and same fix as before fixed it again.

StabbityDoom

OMG I'm getting this again. No screenshots or anything in the launcher file. HALP.

Natakiro

MafiaCat115 wrote: »

hanszimmers wrote: »

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

This fixed the issue for me! Removed all screenshots from Steam\steamapps\common\Zenimax Online\The Elder Scrolls Online\game\client, closed the launcher, then reopened it and it worked. There were quite a few screenshots from months ago in there, though, so whatever is causing this issue has to be a recent change.

Game worked fine last night, launched today with the issue and found this thread, and moving all of the screenshot (234 files for 867mb) fixed it; thank you!

moonsugarcane

I had this problem back when this thread started in early November. Followed the instructions back then to fix it (removing the screenshot folder) and all was well.

Until today. I don't know what changed (the game was fine yesterday). My game is hung up on the "Checking for invalid game files..." error in the launcher.

The screenshot folder is not the issue (I double-checked anyway). As I cannot get into the game to disable the AddOns I simply deleted all of the addons in the folder.

I am still getting that error and I am at a loss as to what to do now.

I put in a support ticket, but while I wait for a response I figured I would see if anyone else has run into this issue. I'd rather not miss out on a day of event tickets if I don't have to.

EDIT: I scanned through my game client folder and found that, despite (presumably) fixing this issue last time, there were a handful of random screencaps in the client folder. I removed those and it worked. Once logged in I tracked down ReShade as the culprit. It was saving to the game client folder. That also solves my "why to my screenshots look so dull" issue.