2024

[Artemiy87]

2024

PS C:\GetSM> .\Publish-SteamAppManifests.ps1
Steam is installed in 'f:\progi\gaming\steam'

10 hours more

That's all.

[VL4DST3R]

+1 same issue. I think it may be due to not having the user profile public to get the game list?

[dethzord]

Anyone figure a solution for this?

[VL4DST3R]

This project is very dead. Judging from the last commit, it is 7 years out of date.

If you are like me and only needed this for a single game, you can jury-rig your own appmanifest file by copying one from another game and changing the game id in both the filename and inside of it, where appropriate. Even if other fields are not exactly right i.e. the depot number, it will still let steam detect it and link your game install. From that point just let it verify the files and you're good to go.

[dethzord]

I figure it's dead, but there's a chance someone with coding skills finds an interest/need, potentially forks it out or finds a simple edit to the existing script they might share. More just hopeful.

If it were one game, there would be no need for the script. You can just tell steam to install whatever the game is, point it to the library, and it will discover, validate, and tell you it's done. For me, I merged a library (failing drive, moved to a second drive), and seemed to have missed re-adding some games. Problem is, I missed them, and I didn't realize and now do not know what, if any, might be physically on the drive but not "installed". It seemed like this would do the job of detecting the game(s) for me at the least, since they'd be missing the appmanifest. Even if I didn't recreate the manifest with this script, I would still know what to manually reinstall within steam.

It's not the end of the world or anything. Just mildly hopeful. Worst case, I've got multiple gigs of wasted space.

[VL4DST3R]

If it were one game, there would be no need for the script

Reinstalling 160gb of stalker 2 files is definitely not what I wanted to deal with so I was hoping this would take care of me as well.

Worst case, I've got multiple gigs of wasted space.

Why wasted space? In your case wouldn't just a cursory glance at the folder and installing the games again cause steam to detect the already present files?

Also if what I said above is indeed the cause of the issue, then it may not be fixable, unless you change your account to public (which I admit I couldn't be arsed to)

[dethzord]

I have nearly 200 titles installed in that particular steam directory. Or should I say, there are nearly 200 directories listed in that steam library. Part of the issue is that steam leaves directories when something gets uninstalled. As such, figuring out what is actually installed vs. what is there but not "installed" vs. what is an empty, leftover directory from an uninstalled game, would be a particularly annoying, tedious task. Wouldn't be so bad if steam didn't leave things behind (which I understand why), but here we are.

On a side note, I verified my profile on steam is set to public, so that doesn't seem to be the cause of the issue. As well, I enabled verbose logging, but the log is still useless as it shows the same thing no matter the log level. Because why not, here's what I get in the log.

===========================================================================
Publish-SteamAppManifests.ps1
Executed : Tuesday, December 31, 2024 1:13:02 AM
===========================================================================
01:13:02 AM [.] : Steam is installed in 'e:\games\steam'

[VL4DST3R]

Yeah, I get the same output, which is also what OP provided.

Part of the issue is that steam leaves directories when something gets uninstalled.

Then I'm afraid that this script would not have helped you anyways. From the readme, the method of finding what games are present/installed is using exactly those folder names:

For each install directory in \SteamApps\Common:

Try to match against lookup table (fastest, most accurate)
Try to find app named identically to the install directory name (fast, accurate)

[dethzord]

It would help, even if it still required a little manual intervention. Most everything is going to be installed. Anything without an appmanifest would get detected (be it an empty directory or one with a game in it). From there, it would be a short list, and I could easily verify empty vs. not.

In such a case, while not a one and done solution, it would be a very helpful tool. Certainly better than checking 200 directories by hand. I don't mind using a little elbow grease, but doing it 100% manually isn't worth the payout of reclaiming some wasted space. Storage is cheap, ultimately.

[VL4DST3R]

The amount of wasted space is very much dependent on what games you have, and at least for me personally I would not want to keep (and potentially even backup) junk in my pc - but i understand what you mean.

Assuming space was not the reason why you needed this script in the first place, why not just go ahead with the nuclear option of reinstalling all games again? I'm assuming this was more or less what you were aiming for given the number of games in your old library.

[dethzord]

Space, along with being a little anal retentive about tidying up library, are the main reasons why I am looking for a solution. As well, the purpose of moving things is to avoid re-downloading the games again. It would be very counter-productive in that regard, to delete and re-download 420 gigs worth of installed games, just to reclaim what is likely less than 50 gigs of space (potentially MUCH less, but I can't tell for sure and none of it would be an issue if I COULD).

At some point before the end of next year, I'll be switching to linux anyhow and it won't matter, as most of my drives will get wiped. I refuse to install the privacy nightmare that will be Win11. I just need to decide on a distro. Testing Pop!_OS Cosmic right now, but I think I will want to run something with Plasma in the end. Anyhow, that's going off topic.

[VL4DST3R]

re-downloading the games again.

I'm pretty sure steam would indeed eventually find the pre-existing files present there and you would achieve essentially what you want - ultimately not redownloading the actual game data again.

In my case my core issue was that I could not attempt a reinstall for the game because I did not have an extra ~160gb free for steam to go past his stupid install step where it must pre-allocate the space needed, even if not needed in that case. Otherwise I would have went ahead with that solution as well and ultimately solve the issue "their" way.

I'm also not going to the mess that is w11 either but linux has no place on my pc. I'm not dealing with that dumpster file of unsupported hardwre, disgusting community and unintuitive folder structure. But I agree, we kinda hijacked this topic, let's call it.

Also Happy holidays :)

[dethzord]

I am confused as to what you need this script for. From the sound of it, you had Stalker 2 physically present on your drive, but it lacked the appmanifest. You don't need to recreate the appmanifest; all you need to do is tell steam (which would not see the game as installed) to install the game to the library where you physically have the files. Steam would do the rest of the work; it would make the new manifest, verify the files, and not download anything at all. You don't need an extra 160 gigs; the 160 gigs is already present on the drive, and steam would not need to download anything, it would not pre-allocate anything at all. It would see the existing files and go about its business.

I did exactly what I am describing with Watch_Dogs (the one game I got lucky to find that I didn't "reinstall" after moving). Steam doesn't need to allocate squat, it just sees the existing things and verifies. So either you've poorly explained your situation, or you're doing something very wrong.

[VL4DST3R]

Re-read my above post because that's exactly what I described:

[...]160gb free for steam to go past his stupid install step where it must pre-allocate the space needed, even if not needed in that case. Otherwise I would have went ahead with that solution as well and ultimately solve the issue "their" way.

When I attempt to install, steam does not let you proceed if you do not have enough free disk space for the game. The stage where it checks if you do indeed have files already present for a game happens only afterwards, which I could not reach. You most likely had enough for your game, so you didn't encounter it.

Amusing since essentially this is what I was also suggesting you do with the remainder of your "lost" games.

[dethzord]

The missing piece. While a good bit stupid on steams part, now it makes sense. Thanks for that clarification.

I wonder if that's something that could be brought up to Valve in their support forum. A change in the order of operations, or to have it check for files after it believes there is no space. Either would solve that issue I would think.

My issue is I don't know what games are lost. I only noticed Watch_Dogs because I had been sitting on the fence about replaying it and was curious as to when I last fired it up. I knew it was physically installed but was missing from my list. Other games aren't currently on my radar, so to speak. Many are just waiting their turn (I've had unplayed games installed for literally years). So it's difficult to know what is there and what isn't based on directories. Some of them I might prefer to simply delete. I was just looking for a way to figure out what's what, and this is the only solution I've found to ease the process (greatly so, if it worked).

Thanks for the discussion. Maybe the original dev will notice all the activity and pop back in. Haha.

[VL4DST3R]

Yeah, there's only hope lol. As for steam I find it unlikely that I'm the first to encounter this annoyance, I'm just guessing its not high on their priority lost or is a technical limitation of how the process works.