Weird Disk Write Error (not your usual Disk Write Error ;-D)

[Hurt]

Hi everyone,

I know, a quite common error, but I think this one is special ;-)

Already tried the usually suggested things to fix this error (didn't help), like:
Restart router, change download region, limit download bandwidth, clear download cache, start Steam as admin, disable antivir/firewall, and so on.

The weird thing is: It does only happen for some games. At the same time, I'm able to update/install other games without any issues.

So far I had the issue for Darkest Dungeon, ARK and Elite Dangerous.

See images of the errors for Elite Dangerous and ARK here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Gpso8iomYBkHfE6u5

For ARK (trying to update), the error was:
D:\Steam\steamapps\downloading\346110\ShooterGame\Cont???1?#9IC?]h2Effects\Materials\SciFi\MT_EnergyWave_Trans.uasset

For Elite Dangerous (trying to install), the error was:
D:\Steam\steamapps\downloading\359320\Products\elite-d?O? i??S?@?+4\0a\ae09bd27a5a651326716109f5e2241627d984c70

So something weird is going on with filenames here.

Deleting the specific game folder in the "downloading" folder doesn't help as well, as soon as I click on update or install, the same error occurs.

I already checked my drive several times (chkdsk, Samsung Magician, and another free partition tool, which name I can't remember) - did SMART test (short and long) and all other available tests. I keeps telling me that there are 0 bad sectors, so I guess the disk is okay.

My D-Drive is a "Samsung 870 QVO 2TB SATA" SSD (MZ-77Q2T0BW).
I also created a new Steam Library on my C-Drive (Western Digital - M.2 2280 PCIe 3.0 x4 500GB WD_BLACK SN750) and tried to install Elite Dangerous there, which worked fine.

Any ideas? Thanks!

[Crashed]

Did you run chkdsk with the /r switch?

[Hurt]

Mmmh, can't remember, but I will run it again.
Only /R checks for bad sectors? (because I got a report at the end for "0 bad sectors")

[Crashed]

Hurt původně napsal:

Mmmh, can't remember, but I will run it again.
Only /R checks for bad sectors? (because I got a report at the end for "0 bad sectors")

Yes, the /R tells the OS to do a surface scan. 0 bad sectors means the $BadClus hidden file has no allocated sectors. If bad clusters are found during a surface scan they will be added to that file.

Even without the /R switch ChkDsk will report the size of the $BadClus file.

[Crazy Tiger]

Check whether the cable connecting the D-Drive is properly connected. Might want to try a different cable.

That has fixed it in the past for users who were experiencing disk write errors in only a few games, often games that install slowly/with a lot of movement like Ark.

Can still be other things, but worth a moment to check.

[Hurt]

@Crashed:

I saved the old command and result I did with chkdsk on May 15th:

C:\>chkdsk d: /f /r /x
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is GamesSteam.

Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure ...
  492288 file records processed.
File verification completed.
 Phase duration (File record verification): 2.58 seconds.
  28 large file records processed.
 Phase duration (Orphan file record recovery): 0.00 milliseconds.
  0 bad file records processed.
 Phase duration (Bad file record checking): 0.21 milliseconds.

Stage 2: Examining file name linkage ...
  83 reparse records processed.
  543788 index entries processed.
Index verification completed.
 Phase duration (Index verification): 9.19 seconds.
  0 unindexed files scanned.
 Phase duration (Orphan reconnection): 112.46 milliseconds.
  0 unindexed files recovered to lost and found.
 Phase duration (Orphan recovery to lost and found): 3.27 milliseconds.
  83 reparse records processed.
 Phase duration (Reparse point and Object ID verification): 1.77 milliseconds.

Stage 3: Examining security descriptors ...
Security descriptor verification completed.
 Phase duration (Security descriptor verification): 1.46 milliseconds.
  25750 data files processed.
 Phase duration (Data attribute verification): 0.19 milliseconds.

Stage 4: Looking for bad clusters in user file data ...
  492272 files processed.
File data verification completed.
 Phase duration (User file recovery): 38.17 minutes.

Stage 5: Looking for bad, free clusters ...
  244568631 free clusters processed.
Free space verification is complete.
 Phase duration (Free space recovery): 0.00 milliseconds.

Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems.
No further action is required.

1953497087 KB total disk space.
 974461664 KB in 463785 files.
    142964 KB in 25752 indexes.
         0 KB in bad sectors.
    617931 KB in use by the system.
     65536 KB occupied by the log file.
 978274528 KB available on disk.

      4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
 488374271 total allocation units on disk.
 244568632 allocation units available on disk.
Total duration: 38.37 minutes (2302596 ms).

Today I noticed that there is a Firmware update for my Steam Games Drive (drive D), which is a Samsung SSD 870 QVO 2TB, as said before. Updated firmware from SVQ01B6Q to SVQ02B6Q.

I also started chkdsk again after the firmware upgrade, this time only with /R (and without /F and /X), here is the result:

C:\>chkdsk d: /R
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is GamesSteam.

Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure ...
  542976 file records processed.
File verification completed.
 Phase duration (File record verification): 4.16 seconds.
  28 large file records processed.
 Phase duration (Orphan file record recovery): 0.00 milliseconds.
  0 bad file records processed.
 Phase duration (Bad file record checking): 0.27 milliseconds.

Stage 2: Examining file name linkage ...
  75 reparse records processed.
  600774 index entries processed.
Index verification completed.
 Phase duration (Index verification): 11.20 seconds.
  0 unindexed files scanned.
 Phase duration (Orphan reconnection): 131.08 milliseconds.
  0 unindexed files recovered to lost and found.
 Phase duration (Orphan recovery to lost and found): 3.46 milliseconds.
  75 reparse records processed.
 Phase duration (Reparse point and Object ID verification): 2.60 milliseconds.

Stage 3: Examining security descriptors ...
Security descriptor verification completed.
 Phase duration (Security descriptor verification): 2.53 milliseconds.
  28899 data files processed.
 Phase duration (Data attribute verification): 0.27 milliseconds.

Stage 4: Looking for bad clusters in user file data ...
  542960 files processed.
File data verification completed.
 Phase duration (User file recovery): 49.02 minutes.

Stage 5: Looking for bad, free clusters ...
  191410285 free clusters processed.
Free space verification is complete.
 Phase duration (Free space recovery): 0.00 milliseconds.

Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems.
No further action is required.

1953497087 KB total disk space.
1187042924 KB in 478211 files.
    144392 KB in 28901 indexes.
         0 KB in bad sectors.
    668627 KB in use by the system.
     65536 KB occupied by the log file.
 765641144 KB available on disk.

      4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
 488374271 total allocation units on disk.
 191410286 allocation units available on disk.
Total duration: 49.27 minutes (2956754 ms).

In both cases, Stage 5 took for sure more than 0ms (about 20 minutes), but for some reason that time doesn't count.

Anyway, both checks show "0 KB in bad sectors".

The Problem (at the moment I can't update ARK because of this issue) still exists, even if I was able to install and/or update other games normally.

Crazy Tiger:

Thanks for the hint - I will try this out next week and report back ;-)

[Crashed]

The other thing to check would be repairing your Steam Library folder - go to Steam->Settings, Downloads section, and click the "STEAM LIBRARY FOLDERS" button. Right click on the folder where your game is stored and select Repair Library Folder. Accept the UAC prompt and wait for the console window to close.

[Hurt]

I have done this already (several times). Doesn't help as well

[Hurt]

Had time to test again. It's not getting any better.

First I saw that there was an update pending for War Thunder - updated it and at the very end (when all 69.9/69.9MB have been downloaded), I got a disk write error again on drive D:\
See: https://photos.app.goo.gl/wxAffTZGfpVRRgPK9
It says:

DISK WRITE ERROR: D:/Steam/steamapps/common/WarThunder/content.hq/hq_te???.x?.????U]?ps\ussr_destroyer_pr30_ognevoy.dxp.bin

As it's already the "common" folder instead of the "repair" folder, it seems that there are troubles with moving the files from "downloading" to "common".
Tried to repair library, tried to move it to a different steam library (which wasn't possible, because an update was pending), so I decided to uninstall it completely and re-install it on the same drive D:\ - which completed successfully.

Then the game ARK again.
Tried to install it on drive D:\ - disk write error
Tried to install it on drive G:\ - disk write error
see: https://photos.app.goo.gl/zyeYu3t4HL2pAQhS9
it says:

DISK WRITE ERROR:
G:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\downloading\346110\ShooterGame\Contont\R?flec?ionC?ptures\Genesis\...

My drive G:\ is another SSD (from a different manufacturer) ... Both, Drive D:\ and G:\ are brand new, so I doubt that both of them have an issue or a problem with cables.

I also did chkdsk for drive G:\ - no bad sectors found:

C:\>chkdsk g: /r
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is GamesOther.

Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure ...
  159744 file records processed.
File verification completed.
 Phase duration (File record verification): 971.02 milliseconds.
  15 large file records processed.
 Phase duration (Orphan file record recovery): 0.00 milliseconds.
  0 bad file records processed.
 Phase duration (Bad file record checking): 0.26 milliseconds.

Stage 2: Examining file name linkage ...
  11 reparse records processed.
  165154 index entries processed.
Index verification completed.
 Phase duration (Index verification): 1.25 seconds.
  0 unindexed files scanned.
 Phase duration (Orphan reconnection): 8.32 milliseconds.
  0 unindexed files recovered to lost and found.
 Phase duration (Orphan recovery to lost and found): 0.95 milliseconds.
  11 reparse records processed.
 Phase duration (Reparse point and Object ID verification): 1.09 milliseconds.

Stage 3: Examining security descriptors ...
Security descriptor verification completed.
 Phase duration (Security descriptor verification): 2.30 milliseconds.
  2705 data files processed.
 Phase duration (Data attribute verification): 0.28 milliseconds.

Stage 4: Looking for bad clusters in user file data ...
  159728 files processed.
File data verification completed.
 Phase duration (User file recovery): 28.65 minutes.

Stage 5: Looking for bad, free clusters ...
  313185365 free clusters processed.
Free space verification is complete.
 Phase duration (Free space recovery): 0.00 milliseconds.

Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems.
No further action is required.

1953497087 KB total disk space.
 700460764 KB in 35200 files.
      9528 KB in 2707 indexes.
         0 KB in bad sectors.
    285331 KB in use by the system.
     65536 KB occupied by the log file.
1252741464 KB available on disk.

      4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
 488374271 total allocation units on disk.
 313185366 allocation units available on disk.
Total duration: 28.69 minutes (1721717 ms).

Then I installed ARK on another drive (E:\) - this time a HDD instead of a SSD, which worked fine.

I also did every point from Part 3 of this guide:
https://recoverit.wondershare.com/harddrive-errors/fix-steam-disk-write-ssd-error-for-windows.html

I'm out of ideas.

[Iceira]

Also look like the Antivirus qurrantine folder , that will be a "Disk Write Error" if content is blocked.

[Hurt]

AntiVir/Firewall was disabled during tests

[Iceira]

After the clear download cache, did you verify game intergrity of files. ?

[Iceira]

does it work on spare or test laptop pc. ?
im thinking ruleout a steam server issue or game devs, and this is your pc only, or not.

and a friends laptop is better , so you dont have done same mistake on 2 diffrent pc. or even have same security app.

[Hurt]

No, I didn't verify game integrity after clearing the download cache.

I got this brand new PC some weeks ago.
On my old PC from 2012, I don't have this issue (and never had it).

[Iceira]

Hurt původně napsal:

No, I didn't verify game integrity after clearing the download cache.

I got this brand new PC some weeks ago.
On my old PC from 2012, I don't have this issue (and never had it).

thats why i ask about it, not the first time i have seen work on other then its my own pc and not a steam issue, or look like it.

ps.
do have all VC++ 32I64 bit installed , we seen plenty of odd game bug from them even with corrupted files.

[Crashed]

|<- Iceira ->| původně napsal:

Hurt původně napsal:

No, I didn't verify game integrity after clearing the download cache.

I got this brand new PC some weeks ago.
On my old PC from 2012, I don't have this issue (and never had it).

thats why i ask about it, not the first time i have seen work on other then its my own pc and not a steam issue, or look like it.

ps.
do have all VC++ 32I64 bit installed , we seen plenty of odd game bug from them even with corrupted files.

Does the core of the Steam Client use any MSVC libraries as DLL?