Anyone else getting a Disk Write Error? [SOLVED]

[Memelord Kek]

Ark had to update last night, but refused to due to a disk write error. I've spent hours going through all the common solutions to no avail. I had plenty of space on my C drive. I uninstalled it and tried to reinstall it on my G drive but it gave the same error (G drive has over 400Gb worth of free space). I ran disk check, no issues. I've tried running steam as an administrator. I reinstalled steam, the error persists. The only other thing I can think is that steam is having trouble communicating with Ark (because all my other games download fine). Is anyone else experiencing this, or is the issue local to my machine?

Thanks in advance!
-The Memelord

[Pentifex]

i had the same thing and what i had to do was switch to admin and fully delete Ark and then reinstall it

[Lewimaron]

I'm having the same issue lately but not just with ark. Started around the last steam client update. So far had it with rocket league and space engineers.

[Memelord Kek]

Funny, I just download rocket league and space engineers fine. Ark is still giving me trouble though.

@SoulReaper I am the admin on my machine and I thought I did fully uninstall Ark and reinstall it. Did you do something extra?

[margalus]

Are you actually running Steam as admin? Right click on the Steam.exe and in the compatibility secton check the box that says "Run this program as an administrator".

[Memelord Kek]

Yup, I've tried that. Forgot to say that in the first post, I'll add it in. Thanks anyway though!

[Pentifex]

don't just uninstall it from steam, go through your HDD or SSD to where steam is located and delete it from there, that it what i did to fix my problem

[Memelord Kek]

Well now I'm trying to install it on a drive where it's never been installed before, so there are no files there (I delete local content after each botched download for a fresh install). Just to be safe I went back to the C drive and deleted the Ark folder there, on the off chance something there was still causing the problem. Still getting a disk write issue though.

[Pentifex]

the only other thing that i can think of is i had did a defrag on my system and found that it was very fragmented, other than that i have no idea what is causing your problem

[margalus]

Have you tried just rebooting your computer?

[Memelord Kek]

I have tried rebooting, and I've tried installing on different drives, one of which is brand new, so I doubt defragging is going to help. Honestly I don't think the issue is on my end. I'm chalking it up to the steam client. It sounds like this is happening randomly to some people on the latest version of steam. Kind of disapointed, but hoping steam fixes this soon.

[margalus]

Do you run any antivirus? I remember seeing once that somebody got this from their AV. They completely disabled their antivirus and firewall and the diskwrite error stopped and they could install their game.

[Memelord Kek]

Reinstalling steam didn't resolve the issue, but I was able to find a solution. Using the log i figured out it was having trouble downloading ShooterGameServer.exe. Just for the hell of it i tried deleting just that file and letting steam start the download from there and it worked.

My guess is that something that occurs earlier in the download messes up the download of that file. That's why deleting all local files did nothing to help. But deleting just the problem file allowed it to start there and skip the portion of the download where it messes up. So I'm not sure if the problem is on steams end or Ark's end (I'm guessing steam) but be advised I think there is a bug somewhere in the downloader. Use the log to figure out what file is giving you trouble, delete just that file, and try installing again. That worked for me at least.

Thanks to everyone who helped me try to resolve the issue! Hope this thread helps someone!

[GingaHannah]

I was contemplating deleting the file but didnt. Then after I saw this, I deleted the file and mine works too. Woo!

[rusty shank holder]

I did what Memelord kek did lmao and it still doesnt work pls help gais

[Pegas519]

OK This is my investigation step by step.

Ark: getting a disk write error for a 2.6 GB download. I have noticed that this has started to happen when I downloaded a MOD and removed it. It was the NPC mod i think. Ultimately, I can play but each time I start the game, a stupid 2.6GB update is initiated... and fails.

Log file location: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\logs

- I looked into workshop_log.txt. (sort files by name and look at the ones modified TODAY, open them all and look for errors).

There I see the last 2 lines...

[2017-04-12 12:47:31] [AppID 346110] Update canceled: File commit failed: failed to move unchanged file "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\346110\570371714\LinuxNoEditor\NPC\Female\Assets\Nude\Nude_Human_Female_Body_D.uasset.z.uncompressed_size" (Disk write failure) "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\346110\570371714\LinuxNoEditor\NPC\Female\Assets\Nude\Nude_Human_Female_Body_D.uasset.z.uncompressed_size"
[2017-04-12 12:47:31] [AppID 346110] Finished Workshop download job : Disk write failure

AppID 346110 is ARK. You can verify this by opening ARK forum in a browser and look at the URL: (this page in web browser... https://steamcommunity.com/app/346110/discussions/0/152391995405429652/ )

- Deleted root folder of the mod : 570371714 470MB big

- Clicked on UPDATE REQUIRED arrow in steam download page. Steam downloaded the update again.

It fixed it for me, and you can apply this investigation technique to find out the root cause of your error, because the "Disk Write error" is a misleading error, you need to find which file (or folder) that gives you the error. In my case, the "Nude" folder was empty. It has nothing to do with your drive, or how fragmented it is.

Deleting the game wouldn't fix anything (and you would loose your saves) because most of the time, the issue is in steam folders.

hope this helps others.