Steam games in collections defaulting to 'Uncategorized' for multiple players

Steam users are actively reporting a peculiar bug that has caused their favorite games to be labeled as ‘Uncategorized’ in the library.

Multiple gamers have shared their reports on the official Steam subreddit, with all of them experiencing the same issue.

When opening Steam, a game randomly left it’s collection and removed itself from “Favorites”, what happened? (Source)

I have 1000+ games, and over the last 10 years, I’ve slowly categorized them all to what I like. The categories all work fine on my desktop, they all work fine on my steam deck. I just got a new laptop, and all 1000+ games are showing as uncategorized. (Source)

Steam is a platform and store for PC games. It also serves as a collection hub for countless enthusiasts who possess hundreds or even thousands of games in their libraries.

To manage their expansive game lists, users have the option to organize games into specific categories.

However, as per multiple user accounts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), a significant issue has arisen where games are becoming uncategorized within users’ libraries.

According to them, games are abruptly losing their assigned categories and being relocated to the ‘Uncategorized’ section.

I’ve not opened Steam for weeks and last week when I opened it almost all my games had lost their respective categories and were moved into “Uncategorized” which I never had before. No idea what happened TBO. Categories themselves are intact. (Source)

Furthermore, some users have noted that all their custom categories have been wiped, except for the persistent ‘Uncategorized’ section.

So I have a lot of games and I’m extremely particular when it comes to organization. As I signed into Steam I noticed all my categories were gone besides just “uncategorized”. Is there any way to get them to sync from my old laptop to my new PC? (Source)

The problem appears to predominantly manifest when users log into Steam from a new PC or another device, or after they have formatted their PC.

As the reports continued to accumulate, a potential workaround emerged from the community.

One user claimed to have found a “semi-fix” by manually renaming all categories.

This renaming process might trigger a new sync with the Steam cloud, potentially resolving the issue.

Go back to your old PC, open Steam, and you need to go through each collection one by one and rename them all. You don’t have to do a full rename, just add in a number or letter to each one. This should initiate a new sync to the Steam cloud, and when you open Steam back up on the PC where they’re missing from they should now be restored. (Source)

Thus far, no official statement has been released regarding this issue.

Nevertheless, one user suggests that the support team is already aware of the problem.

We will diligently monitor the situation and provide updates as any further developments arise.

Feature image source: Steam

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