Tiny part of MSFS installation corrupted during backup, please help!

User Support Hub Install, Performance & Graphics
, ,
1

Hello. The 2TB CMR HDD i’ve been using for MSFS Official and Community folders (among other things), started dying.
Unfortunately it took a while before i could get a fitting replacement HDD, and as a result, a very small chunk of the Official folder found itself in the bad sector zone.
During the backup process (basically just copying from old to new HDD), certain files pertaining to Grand Caravan 208EX became unreadable and i wasn’t able to copy them to the new HDD.

Thanks to the horrendously LOOONG times MSFS takes to download and install, i’m willing to try pretty much anything i can to AVOID that.

Sadly, thanks to some VERY SMART DECISIONS at Asobo/Microsoft, i cannot just click on Steam’s Validate function, because that just deletes everything added by the user, and when i did it the last time, it left MSFS in such a state that i had to reinstall from scratch anyway. So that was a hard lesson.

My question is - is there a way to somehow redownload the few missing files, without having to reinstall the entire monstrosity from scratch?

Any tips how to make Caravan EX 208 complete again? From what i gathered, the bad sector treatment affected some LOD files.

If i rename/move the Community folder somewhere else, then try Steam validate, and THEN rename/move the Community folder back to its original place, will the sim work as before? Does the Steam validation process actually fix anything, or does it just delete everything it finds in the community folder?

I already had to go through MSFS installation twice. Sadly, i live in one of the countries that Microsoft time-shifted to pre-broadband days, and if i don’t “cheat” with VPN, the download sometimes goes slower than 10Mbps.
I guess developers consider users from certain nations personae non gratae so they throttle their download speeds.

My initial MSFS install in 2021 took THREE DAYS IRL. THREE FREAKIN DAYS i couldn’t use my computer before i found out about the VPN trick.
But even with VPN, i get nowhere close to my actual bandwidth. So my second installation took around five hours. I REALLY don’t want to go through that again.

I’m welcoming any tips how to deal with this. Is there a way to maybe somehow try to disable, then re-download Caravan EX 208 directly from the content manager?

Thank you, safe flights!

2

I know you can (normally) select it in content manager and delete it from there. I “THINK” it will redownload it when you restart start the sim since it’s a default aircraft and the sim should fix that issue.
But I’d wait and see if someone else can verify or correct this idea.
Regards

1 Like
3

Oh thanks, that would be the best possible solution.
I already spent the entire day by formatting hard drives, copying TBs of files, i still have to swap the HDDs physically (and then move the installation to a SSD), and i really wouldn’t want to spend ANOTHER day (or more) by waiting for MSFS to redownload. Thanks for the tip!

4

Moved to Install, Performance & Graphics that is more appropriate.

1 Like
5

That is correct.
You can delete the files using the content manager, or just manually delete them.
The sim will install the missing files the next time you start it.

2 Likes
6

Ok, thanks to everyone who helped. Especially thank you for confirming that smaller errors, especially with default planes, can be fixed by deleting/redownloading the affected components through content manager.
Unfortunately, later during the backup, i found there were more files affected by the dying hard drive.
Another affected plane was Ford Trimotor, which could also be fixed via the content manager, but later i found more corrupted files in the actual app install folder.

Sadly there was too many files broken, so i begrudgingly decided to reinstall from scratch.
I backed up my community folder and hit the dreaded VALIDATE option in Steam, which completely deleted the Official folder, and i could start redownload of MSFS, this time to a brand new SSD.
I was getting ready to start a VPN, but to my surprise, this time Microsoft did not throttle the downloads, and the base MSFS redownload went at around 290Mbps, which is almost 100% of my bandwidth.
I already moved the Community folder back, and today, i’m also redownloading the addons and updates, but these are going a lot slower (around 100Mbps). But it’s still a far cry from earlier MSFS download speeds and especially from my initial install in 2021 that was downloaded at speeds BELOW 10Mbps.

Again, thanks everyone and please, wish me luck that when everything is redownloaded, the sim is gonna work as it should.
But i already missed the opportunity to watch solar eclipse in the sim in realtime.
:frowning:
Should i close this thread?

p.s.
for anyone interested, i’m including notes i made during the install, which log files that were impossible to read and therefore backup.

MSFS corruption.txt (1.2 KB)

2 Likes