I’m unsure if this is a Linux specific issue but when I add or remove a hard drive steam will unlink family share which is a hassle to relink, I know it’s a niche question but does anyone know if reformatting a disk or partition will also cause an unlink? Thank you in advance.
the data is probably stored in your home directory, I think it’s in ~/.share/steam. if you delete that directory, you will probably lose your family share on that computer.
Hi Justin, Steam seems to validate your machine using some hardware info as removing or adding even unrelated disks will cause an unlink even if the home directory remains entirely intact, I’m not sure if it’s a bug or intended behaviour but it definitely does happen and why I was hoping just a reformat of the unrelated disk would still pass those hardware checks.
One more reason to run the steam flatpak: At least I can sandbox away things steam does not need to concern itself with.
I think it’s account linked, not device linked.
Changing hardware definitely unlinks it as I’ve had to relink it every time I remove or add a hard drive or ssd.
I’ve had issues with family link staying linked on a steam deck with zero hardware changes, so it could be unrelated to your hardware changes fwiw.
My steam deck also unlinks family libraries with almost every os update. It might be an issue of overzealous hardware validation but it could also just be a bug.
I’ve changed my OS three times since I set up my main games SSD (where my steam library lives) and with each OS change, I copied my .steam folder from home to the new home folder. Had zero issues with family sharing.
