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Platforms and games

Each platform lanstash caches has a page of its own in the sidebar, under Platforms: Battle.net, Steam, Epic Games and Riot Games. A platform's page shows what the stash holds of it and, where the platform allows, the games your accounts own, prefills, and how to set up a PC. Each game has a page too, with its builds and how much of each the stash holds.

The Battle.net page

Note

The web UI follows your system's light or dark theme.

The Battle.net page in the light theme

A platform's page

The chips

Under the platform's name, a row of chips sums it up:

  • how much is stored, and the platform's share of the cache;
  • how many games and objects the stash holds;
  • whether games are downloading now;
  • whether every game is current (all current), or which ones are behind.

The parts

The list on the left switches between the platform's parts. A part shows only where the platform has it, and some only for an account that may use them (see Accounts).

Part What it shows
Cached The games in the stash, as covers with their size, version and when they were last used. Sort them by Size, Name or Recent, and find one with Find a game... (by its name, its id or a store code). When some games are behind, Bring the games behind up to date queues prefills for them, the smallest first. Launcher data (a launcher's own catalogs and configs) is listed apart.
Library The games the platform offers that are not in the cache yet: for Steam and Epic Games, the games your signed-in accounts own; for Battle.net, every game in Blizzard's catalog. Choose games here to queue prefills; see Prefill.
Prefill The prefill running now, Up next (the queue) and Past prefills. See Prefill.
Account The platform accounts lanstash is signed in to (Steam and Epic Games).
Activity What of this platform is downloading right now, and About the platform in lanstash: how its content arrives and how it is checked.
Setup How to set up a PC for the platform (Epic Games).

The Library part of Battle.net

A game's page

Click a game anywhere (a cover, the palette, History, Clients) to open its page.

A game's page: World of Warcraft

The hero

The top of the page shows the game's art, its platform and code, whether it is current, and its facts:

  • stored: how much of it the stash holds;
  • objects: how many objects that is;
  • last used: when a client last got something of it;
  • region (Battle.net): the region whose builds count;
  • updates: automatic when lanstash keeps the game current on its own, by hand when not (see Prefill).

Builds

Builds lists the game's current build and how much of it the stash holds, for example "133.28 GB of 133.28 GB". A build is current once the stash holds all of what an install of it downloads. Details opens what that build is made of: for Battle.net, whole files, archives, the requests a prefill sends and files the CDN does not have.

  • A Pre-release build shows up when Battle.net publishes one, which the launcher downloads ahead of a launch. Its Pre-load button puts it in the stash early.
  • Other products of the same directory are listed as builds of their own. Battle.net files several games under one directory: World of Warcraft's page also lists World of Warcraft Classic flavours, each with its own version, product code and Prefill button.
  • When the stash holds some of an install for another platform (say, macOS beside Windows), that install has a row of its own with how much of it is stashed. See Prefill.

A game's page: Hearthstone

In the stash, and old builds

Beside the builds, for an account that may delete games:

  • In the stash with Delete...: everything lanstash keeps of the game goes, and the next download of it comes from the internet again. A Steam game's depots go with it. lanstash asks once more before it deletes.
  • Old builds with Check and Prune...: Check finds the files of builds no player gets any more (it can take a minute for a large game), for any platform or language. Prune deletes them. Files used in the last week are kept for now. lanstash also prunes on its own, one game at a time, about once an hour.

Updates and who got it

  • Updates lists the game's History: its new builds, and when the stash came to hold them whole.
  • Who got it lists the clients that got the game over the last 30 days, with how much each got and how much of it came from the cache. It shows for signed-in accounts only (see Clients).

What each platform needs

Steam games are cached as soon as a PC downloads them; nothing else is needed for that.

For the Library, prefills and build tracking, lanstash needs a Steam account signed in. Open the Steam page's Account part, choose Sign in, and scan the QR code with the Steam mobile app (Steam Guard shield, then the QR scanner), then approve the sign-in in the app. No password is involved: lanstash keeps only the sign-in Steam hands out. You can also sign in on lanstash's machine with lanstash steam login.

  • Several accounts may be signed in. Each one's games are fetched as that account, and the Library lists the games of all of them, with who owns each (Owned by).
  • A Steam game arrives as depots: its content split by platform and language, each stored on its own. The game's page and cover show its depots together, under the game's art.
  • Chunks are checked against the CRC Steam sends with them before they are kept.
  • Settings has a Steam group: the Operating system, Languages and Architecture your PCs use. Prefills, builds and sizes follow it.

The Steam page

Battle.net needs no account. lanstash reads Blizzard's own catalog for names, art and the list of games.

  • Games are named by a product code (for example hs is Hearthstone, osi is Diablo II: Resurrected).
  • The Library lists every game in the catalog, so any Battle.net game can be prefilled before anyone downloads it.
  • Each game's current build is checked with Blizzard's patch service every few minutes, for the Region set in Settings. A game is current when the stash holds all of that build's install for the configured Install tags (platform, architecture, locale) and region.
  • Large archives are fetched in ranges, so a game a client downloaded is often only partly in the cache until it is prefilled.

Epic's launcher downloads over HTTPS, which lanstash passes through but cannot keep. So each Windows PC needs setting up once before its Epic downloads are cached.

  1. Open the Epic Games page's Setup part and choose Windows.
  2. Download the file Epic Games (lanstash).cmd and start it once. Windows may ask whether to run a downloaded file: choose Run. It puts itself in place and makes a shortcut on the desktop and in the Start menu.
  3. Start Epic with that shortcut from now on, in place of Epic's own. Each time, it closes the launcher if it runs, adds a few lines to Epic's settings file (asking Windows for permission only where it must), then starts the launcher as usual.
  4. Check that it works: install or update a game. It shows under Activity while it downloads and under Cached once done. If it shows in neither, the launcher is still downloading over HTTPS.

macOS is not checked yet, and Epic has no launcher for Linux.

For the Library and prefills, sign lanstash in to an Epic account in the Account part: open Epic's sign-in page from there, sign in, and paste the code it shows back into lanstash. Several accounts may be signed in. Chunks from Epic's CDN are checked against the SHA-1 their build's manifest gives before they are kept.

Setting up a PC for Epic Games

Riot games are cached only: there is no Library, prefill or build tracking for Riot. Riot has not been tried with a real Riot client yet.