Steam uninstalled all my games

Zeo Mause

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I woke up this morning, turned on my computer, and went to my Steam. All of my games appeared to be uninstalled. The files still remain in the common folder, but every game is grayed out on the Steam interface. I tried to go to my Settings/Downloads and try to set the download folder to the common folder, but it gave me an error that I cannot add that folder due to it is within the default folder I already have, which is, C:\Program Files(x86)\Steam .
 

'77 East

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Try re-installing the games and see if the installer actually finds the already-existing files.
 

'77 East

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Find the game with the smallest file-size and just let the installer re-install, it still might find the files.
 

Zeo Mause

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Best thing I can recommend is to just kill time while you re-download everything, then.

But I'm wondering. I am re-installing games that are already installed. Where are those files going?
 

'77 East

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But I'm wondering. I am re-installing games that are already installed. Where are those files going?

Perhaps your version of steam believes that all the files are obsolete, hence they must be replaced.

Or perhaps that the folder has changed despite it still being the same; all I can throw around are guesses, since when I had this problem it simply re-found my files.
 

Zeo Mause

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Perhaps your version of steam believes that all the files are obsolete, hence they must be replaced.

Or perhaps that the folder has changed despite it still being the same; all I can throw around are guesses, since when I had this problem it simply re-found my files.

I know, but I don't want to install every damn game. Wonder why it just did this out of the blue?
 

karl-police

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@'77 East Figured it out. Accidentally deleted all the .acf files and restored them. Working now.

I actually delete .acf files on my testserver when I screw up my gmod test server to reinstall it, otherwise it thinks the game is already up to date.