<![CDATA[Invalid game folder]]>So i've been playing with BO1 and BO2 for a while and decided to get MW3 today. The game has installed in the same Steam folder as BO1 and 2 on my D drive. So I link the game path to the Modern Warfare 3 folder like I did with BO1 and BO2 but every time I start the game I get this error saying I didn't link to the right path... I've looked around with people who had a similar problem but I don't understand since my directory is correct, am I missing something? Thanks!

Screenshot 2026-09-03 182521.png Screenshot 2026-09-03 182625.png

]]>https://forum.plutonium.pw/topic/46402/invalid-game-folderRSS for NodeSat, 05 Sep 2026 18:57:39 GMTFri, 04 Sep 2026 00:37:39 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to Invalid game folder on Sat, 05 Sep 2026 10:36:31 GMT]]>Stolen from a unfinished guide written by INeedGames

You will have to copy paste the url into either you browser or press win+r and paste in there

Open the Steam Console, you can click this to open it: steam://open/console

Now to download the older 32bit IW5 game files, you can do the following commands:

download_depot 42680 42682 6067691797475126381
download_depot 42680 42683 6381783964590594065

this will download the English IW5 32bit content

2959188e-8e2e-4d36-8bc4-9c3e6b8569e0-image.jpeg Image
1d27c290-2923-48b9-90d2-430e8c07f79e-image.jpeg Image
Downloaded files will be in <YOUR STEAM FOLDER>\steamapps\content\app_*\ folder (as indicated in the console output)

d3b71da0-6c23-40a9-b146-06fc31e49a73-image.jpeg
65b98b22-73ee-4858-90a0-89024c533a24-image.jpeg
ad729346-1404-4dd0-bc54-d3c569236254-image.jpeg
b8bd0e6e-59b9-4fde-beb3-f28295072816-image.jpeg
You will have to merge the depot folders all into a single folder,

Here I will choose to merge everything into the depot_42682 folder,
which means I will be cutting and pasting the files inside of the depot_42683 folder into the depot_42682 folder.

First highlight all the files in the folder, right click them and select Cut.

b1280135-dfd7-4729-82c3-0f28b48780f3-image.jpeg

Then go into the folder you want to merge everything into (in my case its depot_42682 as stated before), right click and select Paste

de723f12-e5b9-4ef1-a44d-e91a3466eef9-image.jpeg

You will likely be prompted to merge folders, confirm with Yes

e29785b6-2605-4e36-b31f-6cc061526e01-image.jpeg

Repeat this process for all depots you have downloaded
Once all depot folders have been merged into one, you will have complete game files ready to be used with Plutonium

ba3f8c99-e515-4e47-afd7-9c7709cc352e-image.jpeg

You can choose to move and rename the merged folder (my case its depot_42682), here I will move it to my Desktop folder and rename it to MW3
eedd61c8-0ed0-4fb6-8ad3-e5f73d8eb775-image.jpeg
Just to confirm, inside of my MW3 folder, I will find all the of game files
62c4459d-85be-4e2a-ac01-f36c33aafe0d-image.jpeg

]]>https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178531https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178531Sat, 05 Sep 2026 10:36:31 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Invalid game folder on Sat, 05 Sep 2026 03:07:56 GMT]]>ohfrankyboy seriously how did you downgrade.. its not working for me

]]>https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178507https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178507Sat, 05 Sep 2026 03:07:56 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Invalid game folder on Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:28:46 GMT]]>ohfrankyboy howd you downgrade?

]]>https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178499https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178499Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:28:46 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Invalid game folder on Fri, 04 Sep 2026 21:12:27 GMT]]>Talk about timing, i just downloaded this program because i missed MW2 RSE bots and such and now im trying to play this... and i see that only a couple of hours ago they updated this stuff and now its broken...

]]>https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178487https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178487Fri, 04 Sep 2026 21:12:27 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Invalid game folder on Fri, 04 Sep 2026 16:56:17 GMT]]>hopefully this gets fixed soon, i enjoy playing iw5 on plutonium, but its not so amazing that i'll go thru the trouble of downgrading.

]]>https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178476https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178476Fri, 04 Sep 2026 16:56:17 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Invalid game folder on Fri, 04 Sep 2026 16:30:52 GMT]]>will the plutonium devs fix this?

]]>https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178475https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178475Fri, 04 Sep 2026 16:30:52 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Invalid game folder on Fri, 04 Sep 2026 15:32:32 GMT]]>ohfrankyboy well, that and select the correct folder 😉

glad to hear the downgrade worked for you!!! 👍

]]>https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178467https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178467Fri, 04 Sep 2026 15:32:32 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Invalid game folder on Fri, 04 Sep 2026 15:30:22 GMT]]>DirkRockface yeah I had to downgrade the game version and now it works

]]>https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178466https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178466Fri, 04 Sep 2026 15:30:22 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Invalid game folder on Fri, 04 Sep 2026 12:06:46 GMT]]>There was a call Of Duty Modern Warfare 3 giant update and it deleted a bunch of important files or changed the .exe and other files I need for the Plutonium mod to work, thankfully I can still play MW2, WAW and BO2 (But I had to update the entire IW4X using the IW4X launcher and that overwrote files but MW3, isnt working.
Error files and file problems 'AIL_set_redist_directory@4 from module 'mss32.dll'

Possibly that mss32.dll needs updating perhaps.

]]>https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178458https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178458Fri, 04 Sep 2026 12:06:46 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Invalid game folder on Fri, 04 Sep 2026 12:00:30 GMT]]>ohfrankyboy well, as you can see in the picture you posted:

aeac79e0-6ebd-4d67-a3bc-bc97b2eb0fa9-image.jpeg

plutonium is LOOKING in the Call of Duty Black Ops folder... so i don't know what to tell you!

BUT if your game was auto updated, then the new version won't work with plutonium and you'll need to get the old version.

]]>https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178456https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178456Fri, 04 Sep 2026 12:00:30 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Invalid game folder on Fri, 04 Sep 2026 11:58:41 GMT]]>el_chapo710 that folder selection window only shows folders, that's why you don't see the extra files in that view (they are there, they are just hidden to help you find the folder)

Your issue is that MW3 got an update and it is not compatible with plutonium. so your game files probably auto updated and now you can't play. I think there are a few ways to downgrade (posted in the plutonium discord).

]]>https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178455https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178455Fri, 04 Sep 2026 11:58:41 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Invalid game folder on Fri, 04 Sep 2026 09:52:39 GMT]]>Same issue here. so no fix as of now?

]]>https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178449https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178449Fri, 04 Sep 2026 09:52:39 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Invalid game folder on Fri, 04 Sep 2026 09:44:35 GMT]]>ohfrankyboy i am also having the same issue as well, whenever i go to the MW3 folder not in the plutonium client it shows a bunch of stuff like the exe and all that. but when i go to locate the directory it shows just the two folders that you have in the screenshot and then fails to launch.

]]>https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178448https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178448Fri, 04 Sep 2026 09:44:35 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Invalid game folder on Fri, 04 Sep 2026 07:05:09 GMT]]>I can confirm i'm also now unable to launch MW3 since the steam executable update 😞 their file is about 15gb for me as opposed to 6mb ? hopefully the mods make a workaround

]]>https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178441https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178441Fri, 04 Sep 2026 07:05:09 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Invalid game folder on Fri, 04 Sep 2026 05:37:31 GMT]]>Tried To fix this multiple times by reinstalling plutonium and MW3 nothing works steam is bugged.

]]>https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178432https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178432Fri, 04 Sep 2026 05:37:31 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Invalid game folder on Fri, 04 Sep 2026 02:55:29 GMT]]>sashagreyfan69 steam seems to have broken the executable with their update.

]]>https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178420https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178420Fri, 04 Sep 2026 02:55:29 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Invalid game folder on Fri, 04 Sep 2026 02:41:47 GMT]]>im having the same issue reinstalled/redownload the game 3 freaking times thinking it was my games files being corrupted, verify games file, deleted plut nothing after 3 hours i gave up something its wrong

]]>https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178418https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178418Fri, 04 Sep 2026 02:41:47 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Invalid game folder on Fri, 04 Sep 2026 02:30:59 GMT]]>Zaxby29 yeah, I just saw other people saying the 13 gb steam update broke the executable so thats why....

]]>https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178417https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178417Fri, 04 Sep 2026 02:30:59 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Invalid game folder on Fri, 04 Sep 2026 02:24:40 GMT]]>same issue here

]]>https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178415https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178415Fri, 04 Sep 2026 02:24:40 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Invalid game folder on Fri, 04 Sep 2026 02:02:38 GMT]]>DirkRockface No. I can verify that black ops was not selected. Same error. no reason for that error.

]]>https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178413https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178413Fri, 04 Sep 2026 02:02:38 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Invalid game folder on Fri, 04 Sep 2026 01:59:43 GMT]]>DirkRockface no, here is the path, i didn't select the black ops folder but the Modern Warfare 3 folder Screenshot 2026-09-03 215735.png

]]>https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178412https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178412Fri, 04 Sep 2026 01:59:43 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Invalid game folder on Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:58:01 GMT]]>the error message tells you the issue:

6edf8ad5-926d-42d7-a289-9332d3cea8ff-image.jpeg

you selected the Call of Duty Black Ops folder... select the Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 folder

]]>https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178408https://forum.plutonium.pw/post/178408Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:58:01 GMT