Factorio Forums

So, I was running Factorio last night, all well and good. I just went to launch it now and it goes into the install screen. Game was not installed. Has anyone ever encountered this?

Once in was re-installed my mods were there and save games in tact but it is just weird. I had to re-opt into the beta install too.

Did it happen to only factorio or other steam game as well ?

You may have change the folder in which Steam check for games (Settings -> downloads -> Steam Library Folder). Or You moved/deleted factorio installation folder by mistake. (As mods and saves aren't in the installation folder, they were untouched).
If your are not the only one using your computer, they may have uninstalled Factorio through their own steam library as they may see it if they use the same library folder as you (but they can't play it).

Apart from that I see no reason for your Factorio installation to disappear.

Maybe you got an update and not a clean install?

If the update is scheduled for later and you start the game, Steam asks you to update immediately.

Greetings steinio

It happened to me in this way....
I switched in steam from beta to regular and the game got uninstalled...
Then, later i went back to beta...it didn't uninstall.... it just updated.

However, it no longer saves my game settings or steam achievements....
so....

if you using steam version, then it can happen.

you can find plethora of posts on steam forums for various games, that one day after steam did selfupdate, game was "uninstalled" from disc.

explanation is, that steam somehow deciced, that installed game metadata are corrupt, so it deleted "offending" product from disc, so you can install it again.

mind this can something also happen, if steam fails multiple times to sync your gamedata to cloud (if you have cloudsave enabled, which is by default i think).

also for some reason this was mostly reported by users, that have steam and games installed on SSD (but might be just coincidence indeed).

i once found dota2 uninstalled - and that's lots of gigabytes you need to redownload, friend of mine even needed to reinstall fallout (steam version) after steam selfupdate.

TL;DR if in doubt, don't use steam version.

mexmer wrote:i once found dota2 uninstalled - and that's lots of gigabytes you need to redownload, friend of mine even needed to reinstall fallout (steam version) after steam selfupdate.

Typically Steam doesn't "delete" the game unless you use the delete local content option. It got marked as uninstalled probably due to an issue saving its game list. If you re-install the game in same folder it will find all of the files that are already downloaded and only download missing/changed files.

Nexela wrote:

mexmer wrote:i once found dota2 uninstalled - and that's lots of gigabytes you need to redownload, friend of mine even needed to reinstall fallout (steam version) after steam selfupdate.

Typically Steam doesn't "delete" the game unless you use the delete local content option. It got marked as uninstalled probably due to an issue saving its game list. If you re-install the game in same folder it will find all of the files that are already downloaded and only download missing/changed files.

guess, you didn't read my whole post, anyways it's know issue with steam client. it's not one random guy issue, but multiple times reported issue. from time to time, steam client happens to delete already installed game.