Problems with WF on Steam

[FierceRadiance]

I recently switched from playing WF thru the standalone client to linking my account through my existing Steam. I immediately began seeing system pop-ups during gameplay, with a warning that roughly said (IIRC) 'another program is trying to access the cache, and WF couldn't update the cache'. I could click past it, so I didn't pay it much attention, although I'd never seen this warning prior to linking to Steam.

Yesterday, WF began hanging during the "Searching for New Content" screen, and the game became unplayable. I looked to Steam for help, and their help page suggested verifying the game files. The button they described wasn't a button for me, just unclickable text. I didn't know whether that meant the suggestion was out of date with the current Steam client, or if my Steam install had somehow become pooched. (When the pop-up windows first started happening I verified the game cache through the WF launcher tools.) So I figured the best thing to do at this point was simply tear the whole thing down and just delete & re-install the game.

While doing that I got a message that a file was being used by a Windows system file (a .dll file) and for that reason was locked and could not be deleted. The same problem file is also preventing me from re-installing the game, and can't be manually deleted for the same reason. I've never run into this issue before, with WF or any other game delete/install. So I'm effectively prevented from playing WF right now. Any suggestions?

In case it matters, my computer is about 2 weeks old, my OS is on my SSD "C" drive, and all Steam DLs including WF are on a stand-alone mechanical remote drive.

[sati44]

Verify the cache from the warframe launcher not from steam. Run warframe wait for the launcher to start go to option and hit verify.

[Kalvorax]

Are you an admin on your computer? If not, then i could see why there are a number of issues arising.

Also where is your steam installed to on your remote drive? Best practice is to have steam NOT in /Program Files or /Program Files (x86). Having Steam and any Steam Libraries in those two locations can cause a bunch of issues exactly like your describing.

Common practice is to have steam installed on the C:/Users/{user logged in}/Desktop/Steam and then have a library on the main directory of the hardrive or even in another folder on that drive (such as D:/Games/SteamLibrary). Doing this would, i think, also not needing to run Steam as Admin, though I'm not sure as I've always done /Desktop install method.

For example, my steam warframe install is here D:\SteamLibrary\SteamApps\common\Warframe
and my standalone is D:\GAMES\WARFRAME

Edited July 29, 2018 by Kalvorax

[Babellon]

linking the client outside of steam doesn't put it on steam. therefore steam cannot verify data because it is not in steams folders. Try downloading the client via steam. or unlink from steam and verify through your client. 

 

one note- you can download the client on steam, and keep the offsteam client as well. you cannot log into both at the same time on one computer, how ever you can have the option of logging into either if you wish. 

Edited July 29, 2018 by Babellon

[FierceRadiance]

5 hours ago, sati44 said:

Verify the cache from the warframe launcher not from steam. Run warframe wait for the launcher to start go to option and hit verify.

No longer have that option; as I mentioned, WF is now almost entirely deleted (or so Steam claims), except for the file "appmanifest_230410.acf", which is locked by the "rundll.exe" system prog: the file can't be deleted, and is also preventing re-installation of the game. I'm stuck.

5 hours ago, Kalvorax said:

Are you an admin on your computer? If not, then i could see why there are a number of issues arising.

Also where is your steam installed to on your remote drive? Best practice is to have steam NOT in /Program Files or /Program Files (x86). Having Steam and any Steam Libraries in those two locations can cause a bunch of issues exactly like your describing.

Common practice is to have steam installed on the C:/Users/{user logged in}/Desktop/Steam and then have a library on the main directory of the hardrive or even in another folder on that drive (such as D:/Games/SteamLibrary). Doing this would, i think, also not needing to run Steam as Admin, though I'm not sure as I've always done /Desktop install method.

For example, my steam warframe install is here D:\SteamLibrary\SteamApps\common\Warframe
and my standalone is D:\GAMES\WARFRAME

I'm always an admin - I like being the one in charge. I don't recall Steam giving me the option of choosing an install location. My remote drive Steam library is right off the main directory, under F:/SteamLibrary/... My Steam client install is under C:/Program FIles (x86)/Steam/... but this is also where it installed (I believe) on my old system, and I've got well over a hundred Steam games in my library and that install never even farted loudly. I see no cause why the same installation on this new system would cause game-crashing errors - am I missing something? My standalone WF client is on my old system, but on the new system I DLed the Steam version of WF so I could purchase TennoGen items, which you (mostly) can't using the standalone client.

5 hours ago, Babellon said:

linking the client outside of steam doesn't put it on steam. therefore steam cannot verify data because it is not in steams folders. Try downloading the client via steam. or unlink from steam and verify through your client. 

 

one note- you can download the client on steam, and keep the offsteam client as well. you cannot log into both at the same time on one computer, how ever you can have the option of logging into either if you wish. 

I did previously verify the Steam DL via the WF launcher tool, but it didn't solve the problem, which at that time was just the pop-up windows. I tried using the Steam client to repair any damaged files from the Steam DL, but when I got to the window the Steam help page described, the text was just that - text. My client didn't show it as a clickable button, (as the help page described it) which made me wonder if the help page had simply gone out of date with a more recently-updated Steam client. In any event, the option to Repair Files was unavailable to me via Steam.

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. But right now I need to know how/why this particular file is considered "locked" by Windows, and thus preventing me from either deleting it, or installing over/around it.

[FierceRadiance]

FYI, I found this on someone's post from last year, who apparently had this very same issue:

Go to Steam>steamapps folder and look for appmanifest_230410.acf, open it with notepad search and edit StateFlags from 1036 change to 4, then save.

Also, to add to that delete the folder 230410 inside Steamapps>downloading.

I tried this, but rundll.exe apparently uses keeps this in use, and won't allow me to change anything about it while it's in use. (Not sure why it's in use...) So no joy there, either.