Verify your game files on Steam

Verifying your game files makes Steam check that the copy of the game on your own PC is installed correctly. Valve suggests it for missing textures or other content in the game, or for crashing while you play. It's worth trying when one player crashes or can't load into your server while everyone else is fine, because that points at their install and not at your server.

Verify the files in Steam

These are Valve's steps from Steam Support:

1. Restart your computer and launch Steam.
2. Right-click the game in your Library, or select the gear icon on the far right of the game's Library page.
3. Choose Properties... from the menu.
4. Open the Installed Files tab and select Verify integrity of game files.
5. Wait while Steam checks the game's files. This can take several minutes.

When it finishes, start the game and try joining your server again.

If Steam says some files failed to verify

One or more files may fail to verify. Valve says this is normal for most Steam games: the files that fail are local configuration files that shouldn't be replaced by this process. You can safely ignore the message.

What verifying does and doesn't fix

Verifying repairs the game files on the player's PC. It does not touch your server. Use it when the symptoms are on one computer:

• The game crashes on that player's PC while loading or while playing.
• Textures, models or other content look missing.
• That player can't join but others can, with the same address and password.

It won't help when nobody can join. In that case the problem is on the server or in the address, so start with the checks in fixing a server players can't connect to.

If it's the server's files that are damaged

A player can't repair your server's copy of the game from Steam. Your server has its own installation, which you repair from the panel with Reinstall. That runs the server's installer again, and files may be overwritten or removed, so take a backup first. The guide on how to reinstall your server or switch game walks through it, and how to create and restore backups covers the backup.

Still crashing after verifying

• Restart the game and Steam once more, then try again.
• Check the join address against the Server address shown in your server's side rail, and confirm the password.
• Tell us which game, what the player sees and when it started by opening a ticket. How to contact support and open a ticket shows how.