Moving games fails and compatdata is still deleted

steamopen Steam client

ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux#9682 · opened 2023-06-19 by Saroumane · updated 2025-08-06 · 3 comments · github

SSaroumane 2023-06-19 github

Your system information

Steam client version: 1686880776
Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Ubuntu 23.04
Opted into Steam client beta?: No
Have you checked for system updates?: Yes

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

I think that now Steam can't handle anymore moving games from library A to library B when the folder compatdata of library B is symlinked to the one of library A. (Why symlink ? Because it makes sense to have all userdata in one single place)
The move fails in the end, with "content locked", and the compatadata/xxx of the game has vanished from library A.

Steps for reproducing this issue:

Have compatdata of library B symlinked to the one of library A
Use Steam client to initiate a "move" for a (proton) game in library A, to relocate it in library B
Watch the move failing with "Content locked"
Notice data loss : the compatdata folder of the game has been deleted from library A

PPockets-byte 2023-08-15 github

this happened to me as well. hours of gamedata in arma 3 (which isn't cloud sync'd) wiped out because I moved arma to a nfts drive which has to be symlinked to my compatdata folder to work with proton.

Edit: OS: Fedora 35
Beta: No
system is up to date

SSaroumane 2023-08-15 github

Valve is 100% guilty on this.

To begin : deleting user data without user consent is the worst idea a dev can have. (I'm referring to the 'feature' of silently erasing compatdata saves when uninstalling a game)
And to make matters worse, in this context the basic checks of a 'move' operation (checking that data has really been duplicated before erasing source) are not done.

@kisak-valve Could you please 'elevate' the priority of this bug before other catastrophic user data losses happen ?

SSaroumane 2025-08-06 github

@kisak-valve sorry to insist : any news about this critical data loss problem ?

Steam game forums are populated with many "saves lost" threads, I wonder how many of them are triggered by this... (Some of them are just caused by the unusual behavior "uninstall game = erase saves")

Nothing extracted yet.