@kisak-valve I mean 'Steam Library Folders'.
Default is: /home/$USER/.steam/debian-installation.
So any else game folders (except default) in Storage Manager are affected.

I have also had this happen to me several times and I use opensuse on two separate machines and the same on both - never found the trigger though. An additional piece of info for me is that my secondary location is /games/steam/.... and the library folders lists the location in the dropdown as /games only. Additionally when I reconnect the library all of the games shaders in that library get redownloaded. Hope that helps track it down

Mine ends /steam as you suggest with games in steam/steamapps

Hello @ezdev128,

We cannot reproduce this. Can you provide the following files maybe: config/libraryfolders.vdf steamapps/libraryfolders.vdf and logs/content_log.txt (under ~/.steam/steam if you use the official Valve install paths).

If the libraryfolders.vdf files are still pointing to your external steam library once the client has stopped loading it, consider archiving it and uploading it to us (you can probably remove common/ which is going to be the bulk of the content, or reproduce on an empty library).

This has been happening to me recently, usually after a reboot from a long session use.

Here are the files that you mentioned: gist link

Also noticed that content_log.txt says [2022-09-21 00:24:47] Drive removed: /mnt/NVMEData but I never did that

I am using Pop OS 22.04, installed using the distro-provided steam package, and using the Steam Client Beta version 1663634272

Have similar issue on arch. Rather than library, it forgets the games installed in that library.

I had the issue on Ubuntu that Steam kept forgetting my manually-added default library folder. I believe it's solved (survived 2 reboots...) by changing the mount point to /home/xyz rather than /mnt/ - as recommended here https://support.system76.com/articles/extra-drive/.

I had the issue on Ubuntu that Steam kept forgetting my manually-added default library folder. I believe it's solved (survived 2 reboots...) by changing the mount point to /home/xyz rather than /mnt/ - as recommended here https://support.system76.com/articles/extra-drive/.

Sadly no, it's still an issue, it seems like sometimes steam doesn't close properly when you're pressing shut down button while game is running and loses the libraries and you need to re-add them.

Try doing shutdown while game is running few times and you'll most likely encounter it again.

same issue here steam sys info

I lately had problems with this, too.
System is a current KDE Neon (Ubuntu 22.04 LTS based)
I'm not sure if this only happens on an abnormal shutdown, but keep a closer look on shutdown conditions.
My secondary paths end in SteamSSD and SteamLibrary (which than contain libraryfolder.vdf and steamapps)

I believe I am experiencing this as well. I never made a connection with abnormal shutdowns, but I do fairly often have to kill Hearts of Iron 4 when it freezes, so they could be connected.

Affects me as well, steam forgets other libraries, happens when steam gets closed/crashes while game is running. Running steam in archlinux via distrobox under fedora kinoite host.

Not to necro this thread, but I am also having this issue on Ubuntu. Seems this hasn't been fixed yet

Next beta will have some changes that may improve this issue.

Latest beta should have fixed this, if it hasn't please provide content_log.txt next time it happens ([email protected]) as it'll have more diagnostic information.

It still forgets secondary steam library folders on an abnormal shutdown of the steam client (for example, force killing client after freeze or forcibly rebooting PC after a lockup)
content_log.txt

glad to see i'm not the only once facing this problem
tho i don't think rebooting via 'sudo reboot now' is what i'd call an abnormal shutdown

@zany130 unfortunately your log is truncated and contains no useful information. It just reflects that there is a single Steam library and does not report on the Steam startup that failed to load the secondary.

happened again here is another content log this time I will attach both content_log.previous.txt and content_log.txt
content_log.previous.txt
content_log.txt

@zany130 what is /mnt/GAMES on your system? What filesystem? Is it a removable device?

The relevant lines:

[2023-06-01 22:22:38] Drive removed: /mnt/GAMES
[..]
[2023-06-01 22:22:38] Unmounted library folder "/mnt/GAMES/SteamLibrary" (68 apps)
[2023-06-01 22:22:38] Triggered async write of Steam library folders configuration (1 libraries).

Steam gets a notification from the OS that the partition was unmounted, and so it removes the library. The client doesn't keep anything around, since the filesystem no longer exists. The library and the games are gone.

I'll have to check with other devs here but I'm not sure that's 'wrong'. On Deck there's code to detect and mount the library again if an sd card gets inserted, but there's nothing like that on desktop. Maybe the Steam client should keep track of UUIDs it has seen before and match them up to try and re-add a library.

It seems like for now the OS shouldn't unmount the partition from under Steam's nose.

Yes, that's my secondary Steam library on a SATA hard drive I have permanently connected.

It should be mentioned the Steam library is not being removed consistently. So sometimes I forcibly kill Steam (or cut the power to my PC because it hangs) then re-open Steam, and it doesn't always remove the drive (before it was)

I'm facing this issue on a fresh install of Ubuntu 22.04.2.
Looking at logs/content_log.txt it seems obvious why it's happening:

[2023-06-20 23:54:02] Drive removed: /mnt/Jättis
[2023-06-20 23:54:02] Dependency removed: parent 228980, child 12120, depot 228990
... dependency messages for about 50 rows or so
[2023-06-20 23:54:02] Dependency removed: parent 228980, child 2090230, depot 228990
[2023-06-20 23:54:02] Unmounted library folder "/mnt/Jättis/SteamLibrary" (56 apps)

So, when I shut down my system, the drive gets unmounted by the OS before steam is shut down. Steam is notified and it removes the library folder. Obviously this is intended behaviour, but I wonder what one could do to work around it? Obviously shutting down steam first and then the OS will help but a less manual workaround would be nice.
Worth noting that I didn't have this issue on my previous install. The library folder is the same and even the /etc/fstab row for the drive is copied over from the old installation.

Thanks @JarnoKai. We have two confirmations of the root cause for this now.

This is really an OS problem - Ubuntu 22 only as far as I can tell? UI / desktop sessions processes shouldn't be left running while the OS is unmounting partitions...

We could put a workaround in the Steam client, either by detecting that the system is shutting down, or by keeping a mapping of library paths indexed by partition UUIDs so we can remount them later. I can't give you an ETA on us doing this though.

This just hit me, though I'm not sure I can reconstruct what happened. Was playing some game on Arch ... stopped that, but Steam was still running. Did a system update (including Kernel) and attached/detached some USB sticks.

Then (w/o rebooting) wanted to start Hunt: Showdown, it ran but caused some exception ... I figured I should probably reboot to get everything aligned, did that, Steam library is empty :/

Under Downloads, I only see /home/uqs/.local/share/Steam and my other location of /opt/steam is gone. NB: /opt is not a separate filesystem, but resides on / just as /home, so it's essentially a symlink-like situation.

With the UI bug in the new steam (see issue #9273 ) I also can't seem to re-add /opt/steam ... I'll probably symlink things over at this point to get things unstuck?

Ok, lol. So I had a look at .local/share/Steam/steamapps/libraryfolders.vdf and it looked hopeless, but then I saw that I also had a /opt/steam/libraryfolder.vdf, so I just copied that contentid over to a second entry.

{
        "0"
        {
                "path"          "/home/uqs/.local/share/Steam"
                "label"         ""
                "contentid"             "1611104819401591390"
                "totalsize"             "0"
                "update_clean_bytes_tally"              "0"
                "time_last_update_corruption"           "0"
                "apps"
                {
                        "228980"                "883257504"
                        "1493710"               "1229396969"
                }
        }
        "1"
        {
                "path"          "/opt/steam"
                "label"         ""
                "contentid"             "2619151340883743646"
                "totalsize"             "0"
                "update_clean_bytes_tally"              "0"
                "time_last_update_corruption"           "0"
        }
}

Started steam, and voila presto it looks same as before. Though the "Storage" setting is weird, in that it shows Local Drive (/) and External Drive (/)

So is it possible that my (not so old, mind you) installation of Steam with a separate games folder is no longer a supported setup? It sure is impossible to add it like so in the UI. It only seems to truly want to add different drives, not different locations from the same drive ...

I think this isn't specific to Linux either. In addition to my Linux desktop I also have a mac and I occasionally run games off of an external drive. Sleeping the device while steam is still running will cause the external drive to "eject improperly" and steam will not recognize the drive anymore until manually readding the library. Admittedly this may be a separate issue but I wanted to contribute this in case it was useful

Thanks @NathanielH-snek - this is clearly the same problem.

I have the same issue occasionally on Arch. I believe it happens at OS shutdown if Steam is still running, the OS unmounts the drive or at least signals it is being removed before Steam shuts down. My steam library is on an internal SSD mounted at /ssd (/ssd/steamlibrary).
content_log.txt

same issue seen on manjaro. I have 3 internal ssd's beside a root ssd and all non root need to be manually re-added to the steam storage on occasion after shutdown. about once a week.

This issue should be fixed in latest beta (Aug 18 build).

fixed for me

This issue should be fixed in latest beta (Aug 18 build).

I'm still getting this issue on ubuntu 22.04.03

For me the problme is still there on Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon with (deb) steam client:
Steam-Version: 1696019606
Steam-Client: Build-Datum: Fr., 29. Sept. 19:38 UTC -08:00

Folder structure defaults for automatic recognition is Disk->SteamLibrary
this may solve the issue

Recently have experienced this problem, or a similar / related one in #10207.

$ cat /home/josiah/.local/share/Steam/config/libraryfolders.vdf
"libraryfolders"
{
	"0"
	{
		"path"		"/home/josiah/.local/share/Steam"
		"label"		""
		"contentid"		"5825306130931075617"
		"totalsize"		"0"
		"update_clean_bytes_tally"		"19153542857"
		"time_last_update_corruption"		"0"
		"apps"
		{
			"2610"		"2856881654"
			"105600"		"715107635"
			"212680"		"413405254"
			"228980"		"325850690"
			"233450"		"550031103"
			"244850"		"38908453485"
			"268130"		"199464047"
			"466300"		"1788376799"
			"588650"		"2097862719"
			"858280"		"375543351"
			"961940"		"399675883"
			"1054830"		"506437594"
			"1070560"		"12779"
			"1113280"		"910331459"
			"1321660"		"19131135224"
			"1391110"		"644161696"
			"1420170"		"909574564"
			"1493710"		"1234949917"
			"1887720"		"1098535663"
		}
	}
}

I don't know if this helps:

$ cat /mnt/bigpool/steam/libraryfolder.vdf
"libraryfolder"
{
	"contentid"		"7853347000011732665"
	"label"		""
}

compat_log.previous.txt
content_log.previous.txt
client_networkmanager.txt

Edit: Updated compat and content_log files to be more complete, not sure how I missed those other lines.

ETA: upgrading from Ubuntu 20.04 to 22.04 seems to have solved the issue where the add storage location dialog showed nothing.

I've started to experience this on Void Linux. Don't know exactly when it started but it was in the last couple of months. I didn't notice for a while, but I thought it was weird none of my games had updates.

I can add it back fine through the Settings->Storage dialog. There's a libraryfolder.vdf on the second drive, but none under ~/.local/share/Steam.

EDIT, so I read this thread more carefully. I have 7 libraryfolder**s**.vdf files on my system:

.local/share/Steam/config/libraryfolders.vdf
.local/share/Steam/steamapps/libraryfolders.vdf
.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/3707308416/pfx/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/libraryfolders.vdf
.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/3282767048/pfx/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/libraryfolders.vdf
.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/2850755078/pfx/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/libraryfolders.vdf
.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/2188986171/pfx/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/libraryfolders.vdf
.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/3488194580/pfx/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/libraryfolders.vdf

The two not in compatdata are identical, but different from the ones in the WINE directories. The ones in the compatdata directories are all identical to each other:

"LibraryFolders"
{
	"0"
	{
		"path"		"Z:\\home\\me\\.local\\share\\Steam"
	}
	"1"
	{
		"path"		"Z:\\home\\me\\.local\\share\\Steam"
	}
}

Should I change the second path to my secondary drive? I.e. "path" "Z:\\home\\me\\gamesvol\\SteamLibrary"

Getting the same problem on my Windows 10/Ubuntu/Mint machine. It seemed to works fine in Mint (21.2 Cinnamon), but Steam on every Linux install forgets the path - I guess I'll have to force a mount on boot...
...which didn't work.

I also have this problem on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.
I am using one 2TB m.2 drive which has 1 Parition for Windows NTFS, 1 Partition for Storage and my Steamlibrary NTFS, and 1 Partition for Ubuntu. Every time I restart my computer, Steam shows no entries in the library HOWEVER if I open a folder on my NTFS Partition that has my steam library on it (which causes the partition to be mounted), my steam library instantly fills up wit all the games.

So my uneducated guess would be to tell the OS to mount that partition on startup?

I also have this problem on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. I am using one 2TB m.2 drive which has 1 Parition for Windows NTFS, 1 Partition for Storage and my Steamlibrary NTFS, and 1 Partition for Ubuntu. Every time I restart my computer, Steam shows no entries in the library HOWEVER if I open a folder on my NTFS Partition that has my steam library on it (which causes the partition to be mounted), my steam library instantly fills up wit all the games.

So my uneducated guess would be to tell the OS to mount that partition on startup?

I'm fairly uneducated (on Linux) too - I did try mounting at startup, but all I got was a bunch of mounted drives on my desktop and Steam was still missing the libraries I'd previously 'mapped'.
A heads up though: I eventually figured out that I really needed to install the games on Linux's Ext4 partition as only 6 of the 36 games that were on my NTFS partition wanted to work in Linux. As soon as I copied/installed a few of them into the Ext4 partition they started to work in Linux - I understand it to be a read/write issue (?) and you seem to have to commit to installing them under one OS or the other and boot to that particular OS (still, they did work).

I also had all kinds of weird problems when my Steam library was on an NTFS drive. I moved to ext4 and most games Just Work now.

It's happens just yesterday. Sadly, almost 2 years since this bug report...

The identical problem occurred today, but with a different sequence of events.
I left Dota2 running overnight and in the morning, I realized that it had frozen. When I tried clicking the close button, there was no response. Then I've closed the entire Steam application and then Dota2 has closed, but in result in the secondary library being lost once again.

Same just happened to me.
Arch linux, steam version 1709846872.

This is occurring on regular shutdown for me as well sometimes. It is easy enough to add the folders back, but annoying.

Same case here, Debian 12, Steam Families Beta 1713825714

Same problem on brand new installation of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.
Secondary library is located on a partition in a separate drive. Separate drive is internally connected like the system drive.

Re-adding it every time works, but is annoying.

Edit: Using steam from downloaded .deb file from steam website and not the snap/apt versions.

I was running into this issue as well
OS: Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon
Steam: 1716242052 (package v 1.0.0.79 installed from .deb)

I think the root of my problem is that my secondary drive wasn't actually be automatically mounted at startup.

Under Mount Options for the drive in question, User Session Defaults was enabled, leaving all other options grayed out but Mount at system startup was checked. This must not have been the session default because i found out it was in fact not being mounted at start-up. If i unchecked User Session Defaults and made sure to have Mount at system startup checked, I confirmed that my secondary drive is now being mounted at start-up, and steam is no longer forgetting about my secondary drive :)

Mount options with User Session Defaults enabled -> this drive was NOT being mounted at start with this config

Mount options with User Session Defaults disabled -> now my drive mounts at startup

this has been happening to me ever since i installed mint for the very first time a week ago. Meek97's solution of auto-mounting on "disks" doesnt fix the problem

I have encountered this due to my usage of Satisfactory's dedicated server tool. If I use external methods of shutting it down (often useful due to lack of a GUI), my main library directory will be missing after Steam restarts.

• Up-to-date Arch Linux
• Steam version 1726256783
• The directory is a secondary drive, persistently mounted via /etc/fstab

I'm having the same trouble for quite some time now.

The Steam Linux Client's additional game library drive entry under Settings > Storage seems but to persist, if 'Online mode' is active at shutdown time (otherwise, I need to re-add it every time).

To actually make the games in the additional drive accessible / runnable (white instead of grey in the Library view), I still need to navigate to Settings > Storage and select/click the drive in the drop down box in the Storage menu once.

It all started by trouble with the steam folder after some update, as I remember, when the Steam Client would only start in 'Big Picture Mode' and wrong user permissions (root-only) in the main '.steam' and/or 'MYGAMEFOLDER/../compdata' folders seemed to have prevented the client and also the games from running.

After re-setting with 'sudo chown -R 1000:1000 STEAMFOLDER MYGAMEFOLDER', I could launch the client and run my games normally again - except for the problem described above.

EDIT:
More transparency from Steam, about the configuration details (what's stored in which folders and files), consistent and USER-rights-centric file/folder permissions and at least a clear plain-text info in each 'compdata/1234xxx' subfolder, about what's installed here, would certainly be appreciated and might help a lot in troubleshooting. And it may also help to prevent tremendous cluttering issues from hard-to-identify dangling program and game Proton prefix folders, from various failed, or outdated Proton version tryouts.

Happening to me on Arch using the Arch-provided Steam package since ~2025-08-01. Has never happened before, since then it happens 100% of the time.

(I am not entirely sure of the date, as I did not have Steam open every single day.)

My first library is '/' (actual path ~/.local/share/Steam/. My second library is '/mnt/ssd0' (actual path /mnt/ssd0/SteamLibrary/) and marked as default.

Whenever I start Steam, the second library is gone and the default transferred to the first library. Even if I start Steam immediately after closing it.

I always close Steam using its menu bar entry Steam|Exit.

Steam package:

$ pacman -Qii steam
Name            : steam
Version         : 1.0.0.82-2
Description     : Valve's digital software delivery system
Architecture    : x86_64
URL             : https://steampowered.com/
Licenses        : LicenseRef-steam-subscriber-agreement
Groups          : None
Provides        : None
Depends On      : bash  coreutils  curl  dbus  desktop-file-utils  diffutils  freetype2  gcc-libs  gdk-pixbuf2  glibc  hicolor-icon-theme  libxcrypt  libxcrypt-compat
                  libxkbcommon-x11  lsb-release  lsof  nss  python  ttf-font  usbutils  vulkan-driver  vulkan-icd-loader  xdg-user-dirs  xorg-xrandr  xz  zenity
                  lib32-alsa-plugins  lib32-fontconfig  lib32-gcc-libs  lib32-glibc  lib32-libgl  lib32-libgpg-error  lib32-libnm  lib32-libva  lib32-libx11  lib32-libxcrypt
                  lib32-libxcrypt-compat  lib32-libxinerama  lib32-libxss  lib32-nss  lib32-pipewire  lib32-systemd  lib32-vulkan-driver  lib32-vulkan-icd-loader
Optional Deps   : polkit: to setup SteamVR without root access [installed]
                  steam-native-runtime: steam native runtime support [installed]
                  xdg-desktop-portal-impl: file & folder picker [installed]
Required By     : steam-native-runtime
Optional For    : None
Conflicts With  : None
Replaces        : None
Installed Size  : 18.65 MiB
Packager        : Levente Polyak <[email protected]>
Build Date      : Tue 01 Apr 2025 17:37:22 CEST
Install Date    : Sun 06 Apr 2025 14:54:05 CEST
Install Reason  : Explicitly installed
Install Script  : No
Validated By    : Signature
Backup Files    : None
Extended Data   : pkgtype=pkg

Mount point:

$ cat /etc/fstab 
# /dev/sda1
UUID=af0d636f-d2fb-441a-b03f-0b70a9186ba3	/         	ext4      	rw,relatime	0 1

# /dev/nvme0n1p1
UUID=0459-BCFA      	/boot     	vfat      	rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro	0 2

# /dev/nvme0n1p2
UUID=523df5c3-6c01-48ef-87c7-97f54242eab4	/mnt/ssd0	ext4	rw,relatime,discard	0	2

# /dev/nvme0n1p2 swapfile
/mnt/ssd0/swapfile	none	swap	defaults	0	0