Arma 3 Update Loop (v1.38) (Issue Resolved)

[Zarithu]

First off: This is going to be a massive wall of text, please bare with me tho.

So last night Arma3 had an update (1.38) so through steam I clicked "update" (637.2mb download) after steam had finished downloading the update I clicked "play" and steam said I need to update Arma3 , I clicked "update" and it said there is a 637.2mb download.
Thought this is weird, but I let it go through anyway.

After that update I clicked play and AGAIN steam said Arma3 has to update (637.2mb download)...

You see where I'm going here?

Arma3 was stuck in a loop of needing to update. (637.2mb download every time it started the update)... So I did some research and apparently this has happened to others back in 2013, There fix was to uninstall Arma3 and re-install.

So I did the same, completely removed Arma3 from my PC, the only thing left was my player data (So i keep my progress in MP servers, EG: king of the Hill) after uninstalling Arma3 I restarted my PC, after my PC booted up I checked in control panel > programs to see if Arma3 was there, it wasn't.

So I proceeded to steam and re-download and install Arma3 , 12gb+ download. After it finished downloading I went to library on steam and Arma3 did not say "play" it said "install"... I think this is a bit stupid, so I "re-installed" the game again... another 12bg download, after that was complete I goto steam and AGAIN it says "install"... so I check control panel > programs and Arma3 is there, I uninstall it > restart PC, go back to steam and try to re-install Arma3.
Now when its downloading the 12gb it gets to 1.1gb downloaded and stops, no error message or anything, just stops.

I check control panel > Programs and Arma3 is not there, so I click re-install again, same thing happens gets to 1.1gb of 12gb and stops.. by this time I'm very angry and go to bed.

I get up this morning and try installing Arma3 from the hard copy I have (The Disk) the progress bar gets to 100%, I Check my library and Arma3 says "Install".. so no matter what I do Arma3 WILL NOT INSTALL.

So I talk to a friend and he said the same issue happened to him with C.O.D, He had to uninstall Steam to get it working, so I do the same, uninstall steam completely > restart > Check control panel > programs and steam is not there.

I re-download steam and install it. Guess what?... ALL that's right ALL of my games have uninstall. 30+ games I now have to re-download.
Anyways I re-install Arma3 AGAIN and now when I go to launch it, it says: failed to start game: could not find executable.. So I do some research on that and it told me to delete my AppCache in steam directory > restart PC > relaunch game.

I did that and it says same thing... failed to start game: could not find executable, so I check the integrity of game and it says: 1 file failed to validate and will be reacquired.
This is a 8.5mb download, I let it download, click play on Arma3 and its says it needs to update 8.5mb download.
Every time i now click on Arma3 it says i need to update with a 8.5mb download...

So basically after 4 to 5hrs of messing with Arma3 to get it working I'm back at the start, except this time it needs a 8.5mb download rather then a 637mb download.

Does anybody know how I can fix this? I have tried EVERYTHING as you can tell, I've lost all my games on my PC installed through steam (I have to now re-download them ALL!).

I'm getting really angry at this whole problem, the sad thing is I play Arma3 with about 5 other people constantly and NONE of them had this issue.

Could someone please help me!

Thank You!
~Zarithu

[Case]

Please try (1) verify your game cache of ARMA 3 and (2) if that didn't help defrag your drive (if it is not a SSD) where ARMA is installed. This was given as a hint in the release notes of the Update.

[Zarithu]

I have not Defraged (as Arma is a fresh install the space used on hard-drive for Arma does not need tobe de-fraged, its all in same location/non corrupted) in theroy.

As for verifying cache, I have done that... ALOT of times, This fix will not work for me.

Note: I HAVE changed download region (to 8+ pllus locations, all around the world)
And also have changed from stable build to dev build and tried re-downloading update, none of that worked either.

Thanks for trying tho =)
~Zarithu

[Case]

Wow that is really bad then. You can try to clear you Steam download cache as well.

[Dwarden]

if you have download/update problems
then that seems to be an issue with STEAM service / STEAM client


solutions might be:
A. change download region in STEAMclient settings
B. validate the installed files (helps against corrupted files/incomplete downloads)
C. report to STEAM support about possible bug(s) in STEAMclient

[Dwarden]

incase the above failed to help then:

please try deleting contents of this directory:
<your Steam installation folder>/Steam/steamapps/downloading

Then run Steam as Administrator and try again. If the problem persists, try a complete Steam reinstallation / cache flushing:

1. Exit Steam.
2. Open Internet Explorer, Safari or Firefox and type steam://flushconfig then press Enter. (If asked to allow this website to open a program, please click 'Allow' or 'OK')
3. When prompted by Steam to reset your configuration, click 'OK' to confirm.
4. Once done, you need to login to Steam and re-test the issue.
5. Go to Steam's installation folder.
6. Delete everything there except "steam.exe" and "steamapps" folder.
7. Right-click on steam.exe.
8. Click on "Run As Administrator".
9. Steam will re-install itself.
10. Re-test the problem.
Thank you.

[Gunsmoke]

I am getting a similar issue, except MacAfee Anti-Virus flagged one of the files as a "harmful virus" and quarrentined it. I will try some of the "fixes" mentioned above, but I would like to sak anyone else who has the same problem described by Zarithu if they have MacAfee. Zarithu I would also like a response from you. Because it could be that MacAfee is being a B-i-t-c-h like usual...

[Zarithu]

Originally posted by Dwarden:

incase the above failed to help then:

please try deleting contents of this directory:
<your Steam installation folder>/Steam/steamapps/downloading

Then run Steam as Administrator and try again. If the problem persists, try a complete Steam reinstallation / cache flushing:

1. Exit Steam.
2. Open Internet Explorer, Safari or Firefox and type steam://flushconfig then press Enter. (If asked to allow this website to open a program, please click 'Allow' or 'OK')
3. When prompted by Steam to reset your configuration, click 'OK' to confirm.
4. Once done, you need to login to Steam and re-test the issue.
5. Go to Steam's installation folder.
6. Delete everything there except "steam.exe" and "steamapps" folder.
7. Right-click on steam.exe.
8. Click on "Run As Administrator".
9. Steam will re-install itself.
10. Re-test the problem.
Thank you.

This did not do anything, also my previous comments says that i have have verified files (many of times) as well as chaned region, thanks for your help tho.

[Zarithu]

Originally posted by Vitalityy:

I am getting a similar issue, except MacAfee Anti-Virus flagged one of the files as a "harmful virus" and quarrentined it. I will try some of the "fixes" mentioned above, but I would like to sak anyone else who has the same problem described by Zarithu if they have MacAfee. Zarithu I would also like a response from you. Because it could be that MacAfee is being a B-i-t-c-h like usual...

THIS FIXED IT!

I had an expired version of MacAfee on my PC, even tho its expired it still quarrentined the 8.5mb file. I unistalled the stupid never again I will use MacAfee AV and it worked, instantly it downloaded the file and fired up!

THANK YOU SO MUCH!
~Zarithu

[Gunsmoke]

OMG thanks! I will do that. My MacAfee has been expired for like a year. Thank you for testing that thoery. Have a virtual cookie. Because you deserve it.

[Zarithu]

HELL NO!...
You keep that bad boy, YOU deserve it more then me, You got Arma working for me.

I didnt even think of MacAfee cause I havent used it for over a year.

Thank you!

[Dwarden]

ah, so McAffee antivirus on it again, please uninstall that 'software'
and get something useful what works, like Avast! which is also free

[kMaN]

This is happening to me and nothing that I've read here has fixed it. I've never had McAffee so that cannot be it for me.

[Speggitツ]

I Did all this on a different pc(recently fried due to small fire in room) and it didn't work but It is happening again so I wait and it lets me in that crashes its kinda BS

[Gunsmoke]

@Speggit

I don't know what to say about this one, as this is a rather old post, but I will try to help. If you read the comments you'll have seen my fix to the old problem. (I was formerly known as Vitalityy.)

I haven't had the issue at all since, and have been using the same $500 toaster since then, because I can't afford to upgrade. However I will try to replicate this. (No garuntees though.)

Question: Have you tried using the x64 bit client yet?

[kMaN]

BIS_Wizard from the BI Forums worked with Steam to get the problem resovled for me and several others who were having the issue. See the forum post:

https://forums.bistudio.com/forums/topic/202299-workshop-continuously-trying-to-update-a-zero-byte-file/?page=2