"Steam failed to validate N files and will reacquire them" issue

[hazelnut2]

After any game session (running and quitting), if I use Steam's file integrity checker on KSP, it will tell me that anywhere from two to nine files failed to validate and will be reacquired. I have already filed a bug report about this, however would like to know if more versions/platforms are susceptible to it.

I've tried on Linux, versions 1.11 and 1.10.

[VoidSquid]

As per my experience, this is normal, probably these are files that on first run are customized, for example settings.cfg

[hazelnut2]

It looks like you are right. It's a pity that Steam doesn't seem to offer a way for developers to exclude certain files from being checked, such as these runtime/configuration files, which kind of defeats the purpose of having a file integrity checker in the first place.

On further thought, however, why not have all user configuration files (and runtime files) where they actually belong - outside Steam's game data folder, under user's home dir.

Edited January 6, 2021 by hazelnut2

[severedsolo]

4 hours ago, hazelnut2 said:

On further thought, however, why not have all user configuration files (and runtime files) where they actually belong - outside Steam's game data folder, under user's home dir.

Because if you did that then we wouldn't be able to have multiple installs with different versions of the game and settings any longer.

I gather from the section you've posted this in that you don't use mods, but most alot of the people on the forum do. Keeping settings contained to the program directory allows us to fiddle with different versions/mod sets without having to worry that we are going to mess  up a different installation. Personally, I'm already annoyed that player.log (or output_log as it used to be known) is no longer in the games directory, but as KSP.log is just as good I pretend it doesn't exist.

[VoidSquid]

What @severedsolo said. Plus I strongly recommend to have your actual KSP folder outside the steam directory, this way Steam can't interfere with any unwanted updates, nor (for Windows/Mac users at least, i don't know how Linux does) does the OS interfere with any user permissions/rights annoyances.