Steam library question

[mjs warlord]

I have not altered anything on my steam client and it is set to automatically download and install updates and patches to my games as soon as i launch my steam client.
I recently noticed that a lot of my half life games had updates available but they were all on pause instead of downloading as they should.
I contacted steam and they said the client " might " be corrupted so i should uninstall it and re-install it and it would only take a few minutes.
If i did that i would have to re-install over 100 games as the client would be empty because it would think it was going onto a new pc.
I estimate it would take nearly 2 weeks to do that

 

[ZedClampet]

I have not altered anything on my steam client and it is set to automatically download and install updates and patches to my games as soon as i launch my steam client.
I recently noticed that a lot of my half life games had updates available but they were all on pause instead of downloading as they should.
I contacted steam and they said the client " might " be corrupted so i should uninstall it and re-install it and it would only take a few minutes.
If i did that i would have to re-install over 100 games as the client would be empty because it would think it was going onto a new pc.
I estimate it would take nearly 2 weeks to do that

Have you tried just uninstalling those games and reinstalling them from scratch? They aren't very big downloads.

Also, you can easily and quickly move your games to a different folder or drive before you reinstall Steam and put them back when you are done. You may have to make sure Steam doesn't know where they are. If you don't know how to do that let me know. I think you get the quick move option by right-clicking on the game and then clicking properties and then installed files. You can also make backups of your game files this way. Not sure how long that takes.

Other generic suggestions:

1. make sure your hard drive doesn't need repair. you can scan it from the file manager
2. reboot
3. shut steam completely down and reboot
4. empty your download cache
5. run Steam as administrator
6. change your download region
7. verify the integrity of the game cache (If it's too messed up it may interfere with updates)
8. make sure you have enough space on your hard drive

 

[Pifanjr]

My games don't always download their patches automatically either, I think it only does it for games I've played frequently or something like that. Sometimes I just have to check if there are any updates available and manually start them. But it's never been a big enough issue for me to check if I could do anything to change that.

You could try switching settings and then switching them back, maybe that'll help.

 

[Colif]

If i did that i would have to re-install over 100 games as the client would be empty because it would think it was going onto a new pc.

no, you don't have to download them all, you can move the files onto another drive and point the library location to the already installed games and it will find them again.

And for those coming in 2023:
I happen to use an external NVME drive over USB3.1 (for most games performance is on par, for newer games where GPUs read textures right from the NVME SSDs that wouldn't work)

Anyway, here's how I did it:
- Renamed my SteamLibrary folder on my external SSD to SteamLibrary2
- Create an empty SteamLibrary folder on the external SSD (right beside the one I renamed above)
- Settings > Storage > "+" > Added the newly created folder.
- Quit Steam.
- Delete the new folder.
- Rename the SteamLibrary2 folder back to SteamLibrary
- Opened steam again and it worked! (Steam started downloading only the updates).

Restoring game from external HDD without steam re-downloading the game. :: Help and Tips

steamcommunity.com

uninstalling client doesn't remove the games. They still there...

there are easier ways like just having all your games on another drive and point the library location at it.

Steam always updates my games when I load it, but I don't have that many installed.

 

[Zloth]

Some of my games update immediately, some schedule themselves to update later (and then I update them immediately myself). I agree with @Pifanjr, I think it has to do with how long it has been since you last played.

If i did that i would have to re-install over 100 games as the client would be empty because it would think it was going onto a new pc.

When I got a new PC, I set up my Steam games directory the same as my old PC. It didn't do much of anything when I wanted to play a pre-installed game. So, even if it thinks it is a new computer, it won't matter.