Games randomly stop updating

[Master Po]

I had the same post a while ago, but no one responded, so I'm re-posting
Whenever I am trying to update any game over Steam, it randomly stops updating. It could go for 5 minutes or 5 seconds, you never know. Because of this, I have to sit at my PC and keep clicking the "RESUME" button which is quite annoying. I'm not sure if anyone else has this problem too, but I really don't know what the problem could be. If you need more info, you can add me and talk about it then.
Thanks

[Fishie]

Make sure Steam is open. Click on Steam among the options that run horizontally along the top of the Steam client. Under Download Restrictions, make sure the Only auto-update games between: option is unchecked and set the Limit bandwidth to No Limit.

If that don't work try clearing your Download cache.

[crunchyfrog]

There's a few things can cause this.
First off, could be the basic old corruption issue - this often happens if you've had internet outages somewhere along the line. You can try deleting your download cache and see if things work better.

If not, then you can try the "bigger" fix of going to your steam installation, and delting everything from that folder except the steamapps folder (where your games reside) and steam.exe. Run steam.exe and it will reacquire all the files it needs, fixing any corruption.

If the problem still persist then it'l likely be something else.

There is a common problem where people don't understand that Steam work a little bit differentlty to other places.

Games download both encrypted and compressed. This is typically why downloads seem slower on Steam versus other platforms. The upshot of this is you might note that the total space you need to download is up to THREE times the total file size as it has to do all the unpacking and swapping of file data.

On top of this Valve recommend you do not have more than 90% of your hard drive filled. Steam really starts to go wonky if that happens. You will typically find issues like you've experienced or downlaods start happening in the wrong drives.

So, for example, if you have a hard drive that's 1TB. You've used 850GB of it, this means you've used 85% so you still have a bit left, 50GB. However, if you want to now download a games that is 50GB you will not have enough, because you would need to allow up to three times that size.

That's where a lot of people fall foul of this.

[Master Po]

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

There's a few things can cause this.
First off, could be the basic old corruption issue - this often happens if you've had internet outages somewhere along the line. You can try deleting your download cache and see if things work better.

If not, then you can try the "bigger" fix of going to your steam installation, and delting everything from that folder except the steamapps folder (where your games reside) and steam.exe. Run steam.exe and it will reacquire all the files it needs, fixing any corruption.

If the problem still persist then it'l likely be something else.

There is a common problem where people don't understand that Steam work a little bit differentlty to other places.

Games download both encrypted and compressed. This is typically why downloads seem slower on Steam versus other platforms. The upshot of this is you might note that the total space you need to download is up to THREE times the total file size as it has to do all the unpacking and swapping of file data.

On top of this Valve recommend you do not have more than 90% of your hard drive filled. Steam really starts to go wonky if that happens. You will typically find issues like you've experienced or downlaods start happening in the wrong drives.

So, for example, if you have a hard drive that's 1TB. You've used 850GB of it, this means you've used 85% so you still have a bit left, 50GB. However, if you want to now download a games that is 50GB you will not have enough, because you would need to allow up to three times that size.

That's where a lot of people fall foul of this.

Yeah my space is almost up, but it only happens to like 1 game, and it always lets me actually download it, I just have to keep clicking resume. Thank you though I'll try some of those things.

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by Master Po:

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

There's a few things can cause this.
First off, could be the basic old corruption issue - this often happens if you've had internet outages somewhere along the line. You can try deleting your download cache and see if things work better.

If not, then you can try the "bigger" fix of going to your steam installation, and delting everything from that folder except the steamapps folder (where your games reside) and steam.exe. Run steam.exe and it will reacquire all the files it needs, fixing any corruption.

If the problem still persist then it'l likely be something else.

There is a common problem where people don't understand that Steam work a little bit differentlty to other places.

Games download both encrypted and compressed. This is typically why downloads seem slower on Steam versus other platforms. The upshot of this is you might note that the total space you need to download is up to THREE times the total file size as it has to do all the unpacking and swapping of file data.

On top of this Valve recommend you do not have more than 90% of your hard drive filled. Steam really starts to go wonky if that happens. You will typically find issues like you've experienced or downlaods start happening in the wrong drives.

So, for example, if you have a hard drive that's 1TB. You've used 850GB of it, this means you've used 85% so you still have a bit left, 50GB. However, if you want to now download a games that is 50GB you will not have enough, because you would need to allow up to three times that size.

That's where a lot of people fall foul of this.

Yeah my space is almost up, but it only happens to like 1 game, and it always lets me actually download it, I just have to keep clicking resume. Thank you though I'll try some of those things.

Yup, that sounds like the culprit.

It's likely doing this because every time it downloads a chunk and has to decompress it, it runs out of room. Then you resume it, and it somehow squeezes it out and tries the next bit. The fact that it keeps failing also underlines this.

Best advice I can give - do what I do. Buy some external drives. Last one I bought was a 2TB one from Amazon for about £40 (or was it £30, can't remember). Bung any files you wish on there and make sure to reserve that space so that it never goes over 90% or it will keep happening.

If you do go this route, and run Steam with external drives, there are three things you must do to avoid issues.

First off, make sure to connect your drive and have it recognised in Windows BEFORE starting steam each time. Second, make sure you don't have the drive properties set to any power saving stuff like going dormant after a priod of no activity. Lastly, ALWAYS shut your PC down and don't use sleep mode.

[Master Po]

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

Originally posted by Master Po:

Yeah my space is almost up, but it only happens to like 1 game, and it always lets me actually download it, I just have to keep clicking resume. Thank you though I'll try some of those things.

Yup, that sounds like the culprit.

It's likely doing this because every time it downloads a chunk and has to decompress it, it runs out of room. Then you resume it, and it somehow squeezes it out and tries the next bit. The fact that it keeps failing also underlines this.

Best advice I can give - do what I do. Buy some external drives. Last one I bought was a 2TB one from Amazon for about £40 (or was it £30, can't remember). Bung any files you wish on there and make sure to reserve that space so that it never goes over 90% or it will keep happening.

If you do go this route, and run Steam with external drives, there are three things you must do to avoid issues.

First off, make sure to connect your drive and have it recognised in Windows BEFORE starting steam each time. Second, make sure you don't have the drive properties set to any power saving stuff like going dormant after a priod of no activity. Lastly, ALWAYS shut your PC down and don't use sleep mode.

Alrighty thank you! I have been looking for a hard drive for a day or two already cuz I thought that would be the issue and now you're just confirming that so thanks. And yeah I'll make sure to not do that lol