This games updates are going to kill my hard drive. -- They never install.

[Striferx84]

I've been having issues where updates for ARK will take 3-5+ days to install after they've downloaded 27GB or whatever it needed to download.

The problem is they never complete installing. The update keeps making movement, constantly reading/writing to my disk drive.

This is the only game I have issues running into this type of problem with updates through steam.

I've uninstalled and relocated the game files to my SSD awhile back, but for some reason steam keeps running the update files from my external drive where the game was saved there before, but the directory for the game is no longer on that drive, as I completely did that remove and reinstall on my SSD.

So I'm not sure why this game is having problems, as I've had success changing game directories with other games with no issues, but I do not feel inclined to delete and reinstall the game again, as I've did that and the problem with the updating issue and reading and writing to my external drive constantly with this games specific updates persists.

So what's the deal, and what's a permanent fix other than just ignoring this title and the money I spent on it.

As for the drive functionality, the external drive that this game keeps writing to works fine, and I don't have any delayed performance issues when reading/writing to it, so there's no drive failure at play here.

[Ancient]

Usually, the constant installing loop is caused by not having enough free space.

I only ran into it once and it was because the game was trying to do a 25GB update and I only had around 50GB free and it wasn't enough.

The way Steam does the updates, you need enough space for the extracted patch files from the download, the original unpatched ones *and* the new copies it makes when it applies the patches to the original files simultaneously. It ends up meaning that the 25GB update required 80GB of free space to actually go through the process. After it was all done and the update ran it's clean-up phase, the extra space it used was freed up but the process would not complete until I had 300%+ of the size of the download free for it to work.

[liberator65853]

Originally posted by Striferx84:

I've uninstalled and relocated the game files to my SSD awhile back, but for some reason steam keeps running the update files from my external drive where the game was saved there before, but the directory for the game is no longer on that drive, as I completely did that remove and reinstall on my SSD.

Quick question, is this the drive steam is installed on by chance? If so then thats normal I think. steam downloads and unpacks the updates and the game to the drive its installed on and then moves them to the drive the game is actually installed on.
As for the game not installing I've had this issue in the past with other games like Warframe and Evolve, and Ark just the other week. It took steam 3 times to finally install Ark for me after moving to a new SSD which destroyed my limited data. Others have been posting about this a lot in the past week though for Ark

[Whiplash711]

I have had the same issue over and over again. With plenty of space on the target drive. Always the same free space on the drive where the OS and Steam are. Sometimes I have the issue sometimes I do not. Have had the same issue with Atlas and a few others. Steam is no help and I have never figured out the why. I usually just clean the drive out of the game entirely clear the download cache. Then I change download region to something less populated. For me that is Alaska as I am in Mid West US.
I can say the complete reinstall has yet to fail me. Though I will say this uninstall through Steam is inefficient. Steam does leave some files behind. You have to manually go find the game and its saves and delete them. Then proceed to install.
If you go to Steam with this as that is where the issue is. They will tell you it is something with your PC and to replace it. That is typical corporate BS if you ask me.

[Semirotta]

If ARK keeps downloading a patch constantly on Steam it means its failing. Your connection is most likely the reason, it just cant load the patch and Steam times it out or something perhaps? Hard to say.
I have had no issues, only had one download when the DLC came out and then the smaller fix patches and what not.

[Seneca]

Steamfolder and steamapps folder are often mixed up. If you have them both on different drives you need lot of free space on both drives. Also keep in mind that drive C should always have ~10% free space, or the operating system becomes very slow if it don't have enough space for temporary files. That leads to endless extracting.

[( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)]

1tb ssd for ark... Problem solved :)

[Striferx84]

Originally posted by Ancient:

Usually, the constant installing loop is caused by not having enough free space.

I only ran into it once and it was because the game was trying to do a 25GB update and I only had around 50GB free and it wasn't enough.

The way Steam does the updates, you need enough space for the extracted patch files from the download, the original unpatched ones *and* the new copies it makes when it applies the patches to the original files simultaneously. It ends up meaning that the 25GB update required 80GB of free space to actually go through the process. After it was all done and the update ran it's clean-up phase, the extra space it used was freed up but the process would not complete until I had 300%+ of the size of the download free for it to work.

Yeah I remember reading something about Steam's convoluted way of patching game files, but makes sense. This might be what's going on, I'll look into this further. I also do recall the maps data cache as you explore game worlds eats up a ton of extra space. I already cleared mine out a few days ago that was taking 190GB of data, so I was aware of this specific problem.

Originally posted by liberator65853:

Originally posted by Striferx84:

I've uninstalled and relocated the game files to my SSD awhile back, but for some reason steam keeps running the update files from my external drive where the game was saved there before, but the directory for the game is no longer on that drive, as I completely did that remove and reinstall on my SSD.

Quick question, is this the drive steam is installed on by chance? If so then thats normal I think. steam downloads and unpacks the updates and the game to the drive its installed on and then moves them to the drive the game is actually installed on.
As for the game not installing I've had this issue in the past with other games like Warframe and Evolve, and Ark just the other week. It took steam 3 times to finally install Ark for me after moving to a new SSD which destroyed my limited data. Others have been posting about this a lot in the past week though for Ark

No. My Steam app is installed on C: which is an M.2 NVME. And yes that behavior is correct where it downloads to the installed drive and moves to the other. Problem is my Steam is on C: 500GB M.2 NVME -- Steam is downloading the patch files reading and writing to my E: 6TB 7200 WD Black drive, and my Ark install is on X: M.2 SSD 1TB -- so not sure why its choosing E: over C: as that has more storage, but Ark was installed on E:, of course that was before I did the file relocate and Ark reinstall to X: .

Originally posted by Whiplash711:

I have had the same issue over and over again. With plenty of space on the target drive. Always the same free space on the drive where the OS and Steam are. Sometimes I have the issue sometimes I do not. Have had the same issue with Atlas and a few others. Steam is no help and I have never figured out the why. I usually just clean the drive out of the game entirely clear the download cache. Then I change download region to something less populated. For me that is Alaska as I am in Mid West US.
I can say the complete reinstall has yet to fail me. Though I will say this uninstall through Steam is inefficient. Steam does leave some files behind. You have to manually go find the game and its saves and delete them. Then proceed to install.
If you go to Steam with this as that is where the issue is. They will tell you it is something with your PC and to replace it. That is typical corporate BS if you ask me.

Yeah when I relocated the game folder previously, I made sure the associated files were deleted from the original location when I did my reinstall, did not resolve the issue.

Originally posted by Semirotta:

If ARK keeps downloading a patch constantly on Steam it means its failing. Your connection is most likely the reason, it just cant load the patch and Steam times it out or something perhaps? Hard to say.
I have had no issues, only had one download when the DLC came out and then the smaller fix patches and what not.

The 27.9GB file is already downloaded, not sure how it would be connected related, as the patch install is actively reading/writing and steams status report states installing / validating when its patching the game files.

Originally posted by Howard:

1tb ssd for ark... Problem solved :)

I got a total of 7.5 TB to work with, so I should be good :)