SteamVR workshop content keeps attempting to download but fails, blocks (solution added in comments)

[BOLL]

ISSUE

I just built a new PC and installing SteamVR it downloads 16GBs of subscribed SteamVR environments and stuff. It will not complete properly, now I am stuck with a SteamVR Workshop item in my downloads, persistent through reboots and client restarts. that keeps retrying and blocking other updates.

OS

Windows 10 Pro

STEPS

Install SteamVR with a lot of Workshop subscriptions on a clean system
Wait for workshop items to download
Notice stuck download that will neer go away
* Probably requires a specific subscription, I've used SteamVR since April 2016, so I have a pletehora of things subbed and I don't know how to figure out what is broken.

RESULTS

I'm stuck with a repeated download that never finished and blocks other updates. Only way around it is to pause it in Big Picture Mode. See this clip (re-upload)

EXPECTED

Not to get an eternally looping retry of downloading Workshop content.

UPDATES

2019-03-16 Temporary fix
I had to find the items referenced in the workshop_log.txt in my list of subscribed items manually, something impossible without the items still downloaded somewhere to check what they are, and then unsubscribe from them in that list. Read full description in this comment.

2020-01-06 Still an issue
As many in this thread has noted over time, this has never been fixed, and it's still an issue today. Most recently I experienced it with backgrounds, so it's not isolated to environments, which are now completely deprecated.

[neogoatse]

I have the exact same issue and it's so annoying. No idea what to do about it...

[BOLL]

An update on this. I still have this issue, a month later, with workshop content not downloading and blocking other updates. Today I had to try tens of times to pause it in the big picture overlay before it would actually pause, maybe as it kept switching places with other content so I mis-clicked all the time.

I have no idea how to see all my subscribed items in one place so I can either unsub to ALL OF THEM or try to figure out what is no longer available or whatever is causing this issue. It was OK for a while now, but today it was out of whack again.

Or is this perhaps ANY workshop content update, just that it cannot download while SteamVR is running? That sounds plausible as well...

[Cargo Cult]

Can you post a copy of your 'workshop_log.txt'? This should live somewhere like 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\logs'.

Thanks!

[BOLL]

@Cargo Cult: here you go! https://pastebin.com/vZCnTzEK (log was split but merged it)

[BOLL]

Additional notes.

I hadn't noticed this, as I mostly play VR games nowadays, but while my download queue was just fine now, the workshop download came back as soon as I booted SteamVR. Now it's there again, attempting to download, doing the same thing as before. Closing SteamVR makes it appear complete and calm down. This is repeatable, it comes back if I boot SteamVR anew and keeps trying to download yet again.

[BOLL]

As a side note this still happens, every time I have SteamVR running, it keeps trying to download some workshop content. I can get it to pause by double-clicking the pause button in the desktop client, but it resumes immediately, still blocking installs, updates and anything else that wants to download, this until I shut down SteamVR. This is the workshop_log[pastebin.com] this time around.

[BOLL]

Checking the log it feels like it's trying to update items that have been set to private or been removed, this as it repeatedly mentions "Access Denied". I looked up the items in question on my old system which has them downloaded, and it looks like three old environments, with IDs:

• 850763941
  
• 851370409
  
• 900650576

As can be noted they have all been removed and I cannot unsubscribe from those pages, but, if I in the desktop client go to:

Me > Profile > Workshop Items > Subscribed Items

I can find them in this list (of almost 200 items of all kinds of subscriptions) but only from the description which I have to relate to the contents of the item folders on my old PC.

This way I knew it was a castle[i.imgur.com], the Thousand Sunny[i.imgur.com] and some random item that was a room when I checked the model but the name and thumbnail[i.imgur.com] was unrelated, which was the hardest to find by far. Clicking them in the list would lead to the links listed above showing they had indeed been removed. Going back to the list I was able to unsubscribe to all three items and I can confirm that I no longer get the forever-downloads.

In conclusion

Removed workshop items for SteamVR does not appear to get unsubscribed for users which gives them a download item that pops up when running SteamVR that blocks all other downloads.

A solution? Cascade the removal to subscriptions so users don't try to download them anymore, or, just ignore trying to update removed workshop items.

This was quite the laborious task, to find the IDs in the log, luckily having the referenced items downloaded on an old PC, look through the files to see identifying information through the thumbnail, textures and model, and then browse through all my subscribed items to try and find the things that matches to finally unsubscribe.

As the individual pages for the items is unavailable when the item has been removed it's impossible to unsubscribe by creating a direct link using the IDs from the log, now we have to find the items again in the list of subscribed items. And, that list cannot even be filtered on item for individual titles, it shows items from all titles across Steam.

[GROMOVNIK]

STILL HAPPENING. JULY 26TH 2019, 4 YEARS LATER,.. 'EPIC' TIME... Funny thing is when I went into Steam today it looked as if it had FINALLY finished it's 5 month long download of 'SteamVR - Workshop Content', so CURIOUS as to what took so long, I pushed the PLay Button nthe entry... IT IMMEDIATELY STARTED TO DOWNLOAD AGAIN AND IS IN THE SAME LOOP.

OCULUS FANBOY, RETURNS HESITANTLY TO FANBOY STATUS!

[St33lD13hl]

I was wondering why all my downloads stopped progressing while playing VR. Turns out I'm hitting this same issue! I have dozens of subscriptions that I'd rather not go through the same pain that @BOLL did...

[FELIX]

Same issue here..

[Tactical]

Having the same issue. I can't play No Man's Sky anymore because Steam wont update it due to "Steam Workshop" Queuing/Starting endless loop. Does anyone have a reasonable fix for this?

[St33lD13hl]

Hi @Tactical, using Steam client, go to the Steam VR community hub / Workshop and filter to your subscribed workshop items. I had 6-7 pages of them. Manually click on each one. If it shows the item's page successfully, back out and click on the next. If it goes to a page that does not exist anymore, back out and click the unsubscribe button. Keep going down the list.

It took me about 5-10 minutes. A pain, but...it works now. Some of the ones that were dead were probably Mario related (maybe got pulled due to copyright?) and a couple other random ones.

[Desertwhale]

Worked perfectly @St33lD13hl ! Ended up being a Kakariko Village theme i subbed to awhile back.

[Tactical]

Originally posted by St33lD13hl:

Hi @Tactical, using Steam client, go to the Steam VR community hub / Workshop and filter to your subscribed workshop items. I had 6-7 pages of them. Manually click on each one. If it shows the item's page successfully, back out and click on the next. If it goes to a page that does not exist anymore, back out and click the unsubscribe button. Keep going down the list.

It took me about 5-10 minutes. A pain, but...it works now. Some of the ones that were dead were probably Mario related (maybe got pulled due to copyright?) and a couple other random ones.

St33ID13hI - your solution fixed my problem. Thank you!

[BOLL]

As a note on why I just didn't go through all my items instead of doing some detective work, I have 21 pages of subscribed workshop content, 203 entries 😅 Which motivated me to do some digging instead of brute forcing it.

I sure hope Valve does something to fix this, it's slightly disappointing that such an annoying issue has yet to be fixed.