RF2 forces uninstall/reinstall all workshop mods if steam has trouble connecting to workshop

This issue has been going on for at least a month now, many of our league players have encountered this issue.

This issue happens (as we observed) when steam client has trouble communicating with workshop (or steam community page) and steam can not verify user log-in status. Then if player tries to start RF2, RF2 would start to uninstall or reinstall all workshop mods forcefully, which this process is not possible to skip or stop. Terminate RF2 process would not help, as RF2 would continue uninstall or reinstall the next time launch RF2. This puts great pain for many users as a lot time have wasted, and is not good hard-drive.

It would looks like this:


Hope this issue can be fixed, or give us an option to not trigger auto-forced-update everytime launching the game.

Thanks!

 

Dear 397 please fix it. It's annoying

 

Thanks for reply.

The main issue is that all those hundreds of subscribed workshop & DLC mods were already correctly downloaded and installed, there wasn't any update to the mods before triggering this problem. We have several players simply launched rf2 and got all of their mods uninstalled by game, then reinstalled later on, without any changes to mod version. The time it takes to uninstall & reinstall had made them missed several races.

 

HI, I have this issue as well. Also my steam keep on loosing the common redistributables.

 

Interesting.

On a sidenote, we have this issue when it comes to our servers at RD, when using SteamCMD for downloading mods, it starts to download every single mod/updated mod we've ever downloaded. Could that be related to the same file?
However, deleting that, will just cause hundreds of GB of downloads to happen, no?

 

Thank again for your help.


You have mentioned that steam is trying to download and update files, however this doesn't seem to match our experience.

What we had:
1. Before, while, and after triggering rf2 auto-force-reinstall, Steam was not downloading mod, or updating mod & game, it was not deleting any workshop mod files from workshop folder. Only the game was uninstalling and reinstalling everything from game folder. There was no change to the local workshop files.

2. Before triggering rf2 auto-force-reinstall, every subscribed workshop and DLC mods were downloaded, installed, and running perfectly fine in game. In fact, we have players who just played game a few minutes ago without any issue, but right after they restarted the game, game began to uninstall everything without any sensible reason, and there was nothing steam was trying to download or update in the meantime.

3. Since steam wasn't trying to delete, download, or update mod files, there is no reason to delete ACF file. And if I'm not mistaken, deleting ACF file will cause steam to re-download all subscribed mods forcefully again(hundreds of GB of downloads), which is the opposite of what we are trying solve. And since game was already uninstalling & reinstalling everything, there isn't a point to do integrity check again, which would take another half hour of time, that players will miss their races.

 

Got this issue as well with Sebring 2018.

I unsubscribed from it a while back, but the game still downloads and installs it over and over again.

 

That's not the same issue. You're talking about one item. This thread is about all items.

Sebring 2018? Is that DLC?

 

I found I had 2 ACF files, where other players only had one. I deleted both so we will see if that works. Thanks for the reply and help. Hope this sorts the OP as well.

 

True. It was just in case it could be the same issue.
I've set it up - and it worked before, which is why it baffles me.

Oh well, not the samme issue, and not the same fix for me and svictor's people.

 

Thanks @Outrun @Myrvold , hope those (different) issues will be solved for everyone.

So far I have encountered this problem twice (one was about a month ago and then two days ago), while my friends have encountered more than 4-5 times already.

 

@Mangoletsi thanks for the info.

I'll pass down this info to the players in our league, and make sure they check NeedsDownload value everytime before launching RF2, and see whether it will eliminate the issue.

Also the method to bypass workshop sync could be handy for important race event, will give it a try.

 

A little update to the situation of the issue:

One of my teammates just had triggered this issue(first time for him) and had all mods uninstalled and reinstalled by game.

Before triggering the issue, he was participating a LFM race in qualify session, then suddenly he had a network issue and dropped out of server. After trying to reconnect to server multiple times without success, he then decided to restart rf2, and immediately after restarted rf2, rf2 starting to uninstall everything forcefully. Then he also noticed that his IP address was changed (likely due to ISP issue).

The above encounter also further confirms our early speculation on how players' network communication to steam workshop has influenced to this auto game uninstall bug. It doesn't have any obvious relation with the ACF file and Needsdownload value. There is something that caused the game to force uninstall all mods when players has network problems and trouble communicating with workshop.

Note also, as far as we have observed, this issue only started to happen since about Q3 update.

And the fact is, whether the player has network or communication issue with steam workshop or not (or even changing IP address), steam does not delete or uninstall or change any local workshop mod files that were already downloaded previously. However for some reason the game is doing all the forced uninstalling/reinstalling.

 

I have this problem, too. I was playing Nuburgring dlc with Formula Pro, then the game crashed, I restarted the game, all my workshop and dlc mods were uninstalled, I restarted again, mods were installing.

 

We just had another player in our local league who reported that he had a sudden game crash today, and upon restarting game, game proceeded uninstalling every mods he had subscribed from workshop.

I understand that this issue may not be centered on game itself, however for such problem that has significantly impacted user experience, there should be a solution, whether done on steam or game side. Sooner or later, there will be more players encounter this issue, just to imagine what will be if this issue happens in the middle of a big race event, will the players be able to continue and finish the race？ (we already have several players given up race due to this)

Hope this issue will be solved eventually, thank you.

 

It's definitely rF2 issue. The logic is simple: I've been playing rF2 for 3 years and this issue never happened until about one month ago. Steam doesn't have big update but rF2 has. Please fix it my dear 397

 

I met many times in November and let me miss a few games.I hope 397 can check this problem. I don't know when it will occur

 

Understand, but there should be something done. If game has trouble communicating with STEAM or verify workshop subscription status, then game should provide a dialogue, asking player whether they wish to continue sync even if the results may be wrong and broken, or skip sync so that player can have a chance to get around.

Also with the permission from the player that I mentioned ealier, here is his original words (chat) of the issue and text translation:

 

Just as an update here. I finally had some time to spare, and got around to check a bit. I did remove the appworkshop_365960.acf file from our servers.
The SteamCMD mod downloading works perfectly again now. So that was actually the fix here!

Not the same issue at @svictor but as I did go OT in this thread, I felt like I should update it with me knowing the fix as well.