16 replies to this topic

[the Battle Cat]

I was gaming on the PC yesterday but today I fire it up and Steam won't run any games.  Rebooting Windows and steam didn't help.  I went into the properties of one game I was trying to run to verify the files.  It found a file needed to be replaced and downloaded it.  No dice.  Reverifying the game found the error still existing.

There is a button in the properties that is labeled, "Delete local game files".  Will I lose my saves if I do that?

Also, what do you think is wrong?

[macdude22]

Actually re-download the steam client, reinstall it, let it update, and see how it goes. Don't uninstall anything, just let the steam installer run over top.

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[Janichsan]

the Battle Cat, on 07 December 2016 - 02:26 PM, said:

There is a button in the properties that is labeled, "Delete local game files".  Will I lose my saves if I do that?

No, this will only delete the game executable and data. You saves are stored in a different location.

[Frigidman™]

Most saves are stored in a different location... but some games put their saves in the steamapps game folder. But luckily, steam wont delete those since they are not part of the original 'depot of files'. This is what happens when you uninstall Oblivion/skyrim after modding... all the mods and the gigabytes of extra files persist even if you 'delete local content' in steam heh.

ANYHOW, as for the problem........ could be:

1) Steam servers just fubar'd at the moment, give it an hour, try again.
2) Take two aspirin and re-install steam like macfood69 suggested.
3) Email steam support for help, and have it fixed in about 3 weeks.

[the Battle Cat]

macdude22, on 07 December 2016 - 03:08 PM, said:

Actually re-download the steam client, reinstall it, let it update, and see how it goes. Don't uninstall anything, just let the steam installer run over top.

I'm kicking myself.  I should have thought of that because it happened to me before in Windows.  I am so used to the Mac never needing an app redownloaded...

Janichsan, on 07 December 2016 - 03:14 PM, said:

No, this will only delete the game executable and data. You saves are stored in a different location.

Thanks.  The Steam cloud, of course.

Frigidman™, on 07 December 2016 - 03:28 PM, said:

Most saves are stored in a different location... but some games put their saves in the steamapps game folder. But luckily, steam wont delete those since they are not part of the original 'depot of files'. This is what happens when you uninstall Oblivion/skyrim after modding... all the mods and the gigabytes of extra files persist even if you 'delete local content' in steam heh.

ANYHOW, as for the problem........ could be:

1) Steam servers just fubar'd at the moment, give it an hour, try again.
2) Take two aspirin and re-install steam like macfood69 suggested.
3) Email steam support for help, and have it fixed in about 3 weeks.

Thanks for the heads up about all the crap left behind after a delete.  I'll log into the PC tonight and take your 3 step program for great justice.

[the Battle Cat]

OK, reinstalling Steam did the trick.  Another corrupt app that needed downloading and reinstalling.  Earlier when I was using Bootcamp my GPU drivers in Windows needed redownloading and reinstalling.  What does OSX do differently than Windows to prevent these things from happening?

[macdude22]

the Battle Cat, on 08 December 2016 - 10:22 AM, said:

OK, reinstalling Steam did the trick.  Another corrupt app that needed downloading and reinstalling.  Earlier when I was using Bootcamp my GPU drivers in Windows needed redownloading and reinstalling.  What does OSX do differently than Windows to prevent these things from happening?

[Frigidman™]

the Battle Cat, on 08 December 2016 - 10:22 AM, said:

OK, reinstalling Steam did the trick.  Another corrupt app that needed downloading and reinstalling.  Earlier when I was using Bootcamp my GPU drivers in Windows needed redownloading and reinstalling.  What does OSX do differently than Windows to prevent these things from happening?

Or maybe the question is... what is OSX doing to the windows partition that causes these issues?

Maybe I'm a one in a million case, but I dont encounter these sorts of issues under windows (win7) since winxp days.

[Sneaky Snake]

Frigidman™, on 08 December 2016 - 12:59 PM, said:

Or maybe the question is... what is OSX doing to the windows partition that causes these issues?

Maybe I'm a one in a million case, but I dont encounter these sorts of issues under windows (win7) since winxp days.

I've never had an issue with OS X corrupting my bootcamp partition and my multiple Mac desktops/laptops in the last 9 or so years running everything from XP to 10.

Only OS X 'tampering' i see is the spotlight index files that it puts on USB sticks. I have Tuxera NTFS and VMware Fusion installed on my MBP and OS X completely ignores boot camp. I can manually go in there and copy/move files, but automatically I have not noticed it doing anything.

[Frigidman™]

Sneaky Snake, on 08 December 2016 - 04:00 PM, said:

I've never had an issue with OS X corrupting my bootcamp partition and my multiple Mac desktops/laptops in the last 9 or so years running everything from XP to 10.

Only OS X 'tampering' i see is the spotlight index files that it puts on USB sticks. I have Tuxera NTFS and VMware Fusion installed on my MBP and OS X completely ignores boot camp. I can manually go in there and copy/move files, but automatically I have not noticed it doing anything.

Hmm.

Wonder what keeps corrupting things on tBC's windows partition

Maybe time to run a disk check?

[Frost]

I find myself wondering if Windows does something frakky with how NTFS stores data on hard drives. Now that I think about it, all my issues with apps being randomly corrupted and bootcamp issues all cleared up about the same time I went 100% SSD for Windows on all machines.

[macdude22]

Frost, on 08 December 2016 - 05:29 PM, said:

I find myself wondering if Windows does something frakky with how NTFS stores data on hard drives. Now that I think about it, all my issues with apps being randomly corrupted and bootcamp issues all cleared up about the same time I went 100% SSD for Windows on all machines.

Spinning disks are incredibly complex machines with tolerances the near the size of DNA when talking about the actual physical properties of the magnetic bits. As we have physically shrunk bits the error rate has gone up up up. Modern hard drives and Operating systems both employ a number of error correction mechanisms to mask this ongoing low level error rate. Some drives will report their internal ECC rate as a SMART value.

My opinion is this is the single most useful value for determining spinning rust's health status. Modern drives incorporate error correction capabilities which allow them to recover the data as originally written even when it can no longer be read as such. This is done by appending a block of “checksum” data to the end of each data sector to allow the original state of unknown missing bits to be reconstructed. ECC used to be the exception but now the the error tolerances on mechanical drives are so low that ECC constantly corrects some errors at a low rate and there is an assumption that a low number of errors can easily, and consistently be corrected. While the error rate will vary from drive to drive, it will typically be consistent. If this value spikes over time, it can be indicative of rusty failure.

The other really important value is reallocated sector count, again on modern drives some are to be expected. But if this value spikes or increases significantly over time, it is indicative of rusty failure.

Basically when you look at modern multi TB hard drives, it's basically magic that there are not MORE errors and corrupt files. That said Windows/NTFS seems to be drastically worse than other OS's/file systems at dealing with this.

Don't get me started on the ACTUAL quantum magic that makes modern high density flash memory work. Because of the nature of floating gate transistors they are not really susceptible to paramagnetic effect that causes bits to flip on magnetic media. However there is inconclusive data on the longevity of the stored bit without power. Magnetic media left 10 years without power, basically will be intact. Flash memory left 10 years without power 10 years, we're basically not sure but depending on the memory used there is some empirical evidence that the floating gate transistors will eventually lose their charge (the equivalent of a bit flip in magnetic media.) . Alvin Cox from seagate did a presentation a few years back on the data retention properties of unpowered flash memory.

[Frost]

I know optical media doesn't exist anymore in Apple's imaginary universe, but that kind of storage is one area where Blu-ray is awesome. The 100GB M Disc BDXLs will hold data until 2500. If you accept a 5% failure rate, the other 95% will make it past the year 3000.

I've got three BDXLs burned with data I want to never lose, and it's nice to know as long as something that can read a BD exists, then that data will outlive me several times over without my having to do anything special with it.

[the Battle Cat]

To make myself clear, I never did run windows in a MacOS partition.  Bootcamp was run by rebooting to it's own SSHD, that was where the graphics driver corruption happened as well as Steam needing reinstallation.  This latest error was on my new PC, the Mac was turned off.

[macdude22]

the Battle Cat, on 09 December 2016 - 10:32 AM, said:

To make myself clear, I never did run windows in a MacOS partition.  Bootcamp was run by rebooting to it's own SSHD, that was where the graphics driver corruption happened as well as Steam needing reinstallation.  This latest error was on my new PC, the Mac was turned off.

Windows acting like windows, that's a classic windows move.

[Frigidman™]

the Battle Cat, on 09 December 2016 - 10:32 AM, said:

To make myself clear, I never did run windows in a MacOS partition.  Bootcamp was run by rebooting to it's own SSHD, that was where the graphics driver corruption happened as well as Steam needing reinstallation.  This latest error was on my new PC, the Mac was turned off.

Ahh.

I would blame Steam more than Windows for it. Steam does for more goofy popsnizzle seemingly randomly, for no good reason. Even today, steam stil lhas issues handling 'tiny' updates to games without corrupting the game folder and needing to do a Verify Integrity on.

Then there is the whole depot service going up and down, and them deciding to do full on server maintenance during PRIME TIME USA every tuesday...



Honestly. Whenever I have issues, I can usually track it back to usually one of:

- Steam just being stupid
- The game developer porting crap from console
- Graphics driver update that is garbage this time round
- Too many porn sites visited...

[Frost]

macdude22, on 09 December 2016 - 10:54 AM, said:

Windows acting like windows, that's a classic windows move.

Windows is like a cat. It decides if it likes you or not in the first few seconds. If it doesn't, it'll find ways to subtly annoy you for the rest of its existence.