Steam now keeps freezing and dropping downloads

[Sneed's Feed and Seed]

Not sure what the problem is here. Everything was working fine yesterday. I really want to emphasize that point - I have had 0 issues prior to today and I hadn't changed anything on my computer before having this issue.
Today I launch Steam, and it starts freezing. I try to run a game, it freezes and the game won't run. Assume it's a problem with the game, so I uninstall and try to reinstall it. Steam freezes. Download starts, then quickly drops to 0. Starts again, drops to 0. Rinse and repeat. Pause the download, Steam freezes.
Cleared download cache, problem persists. Completely uninstall/reinstalled Steam, it keeps happening. Did the 'usual stuff' like throttling the download, disabling DiagTrack, clearing temp files, updating drivers etc and no luck there either.
Ran a check on speedtest.net and came back with a consistent 360Mbps download speed. Double checked it by downloading a file through my browser and it DL'd almost instantly. At this point I'm out of ideas and almost certain it's not an issue with my PC or internet. Is there any possible fix for this?
Screenshot so you can see what it looks like on my end [i.imgur.com]

[crunchyfrog]

COuld easily be an update to your antivirus or some software on your system blocking things. It's very common.

Try this - start Windows in Safe Mode with networking. Run Steam ONLY. If things work fine then you can guarantee it IS some software on your system causing this and it's down to you to find out what it is.


Typiaclly first port of call is antivirus (which you should uninstall and replace with a better one - disabling it likely dones't do anything) or firewall, or any other crapware like manufacturer utilties.

If it still persists get back to us.

[Sneed's Feed and Seed]

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

COuld easily be an update to your antivirus or some software on your system blocking things. It's very common.

Try this - start Windows in Safe Mode with networking. Run Steam ONLY. If things work fine then you can guarantee it IS some software on your system causing this and it's down to you to find out what it is.


Typiaclly first port of call is antivirus (which you should uninstall and replace with a better one - disabling it likely dones't do anything) or firewall, or any other crapware like manufacturer utilties.

If it still persists get back to us.

Did what you instructed and yet the problem persists...turned off my antivirus and firewall and same thing. Also tried changing the download server. No luck there either. Nothing running but Steam.
The only thing to have been updated today was AMD's graphics driver though I can't see how in the world that would affect Steam's ability to download things or run without freezing. Still, I even tried uninstalling new driver and yeah, you guessed it, same problem.

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by ✰kuripi✰:

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

COuld easily be an update to your antivirus or some software on your system blocking things. It's very common.

Try this - start Windows in Safe Mode with networking. Run Steam ONLY. If things work fine then you can guarantee it IS some software on your system causing this and it's down to you to find out what it is.


Typiaclly first port of call is antivirus (which you should uninstall and replace with a better one - disabling it likely dones't do anything) or firewall, or any other crapware like manufacturer utilties.

If it still persists get back to us.

Did what you instructed and yet the problem persists...turned off my antivirus and firewall and same thing. Also tried changing the download server. No luck there either. Nothing running but Steam.
The only thing to have been updated today was AMD's graphics driver though I can't see how in the world that would affect Steam's ability to download things or run without freezing. Still, I even tried uninstalling new driver and yeah, you guessed it, same problem.

Well, bottom line is if you started windows in safe mode with networking and only ran Steam and the problem still persisted, then it's reasonable to assume that it ain't going to be any software added to your system causing this (as they wouldn't have been running).

Of course you do need to REMOVE your antivirus to be sure, but make sure you replace it with something else before going online. Disabling often doesn't fix anything. Just to be sure of course.

If it still persists after that it could be looking at something more hardware related.

[Sneed's Feed and Seed]

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

Originally posted by ✰kuripi✰:

Did what you instructed and yet the problem persists...turned off my antivirus and firewall and same thing. Also tried changing the download server. No luck there either. Nothing running but Steam.
The only thing to have been updated today was AMD's graphics driver though I can't see how in the world that would affect Steam's ability to download things or run without freezing. Still, I even tried uninstalling new driver and yeah, you guessed it, same problem.

Well, bottom line is if you started windows in safe mode with networking and only ran Steam and the problem still persisted, then it's reasonable to assume that it ain't going to be any software added to your system causing this (as they wouldn't have been running).

Of course you do need to REMOVE your antivirus to be sure, but make sure you replace it with something else before going online. Disabling often doesn't fix anything. Just to be sure of course.

If it still persists after that it could be looking at something more hardware related.

Running a chkdsk on the drive I install games on, it'll be a long while before it's done but so far it has actually found some bad sectors all linking to the steamapps folder. Not sure why Steam in particular seems to be affected all of a sudden, but I speculate that Steam could be trying to write new install data to those corrupt sections.
If this is the case, chkdsk should prevent that from happening further and it should be in working order again, fingers crossed.

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by ✰kuripi✰:

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

Well, bottom line is if you started windows in safe mode with networking and only ran Steam and the problem still persisted, then it's reasonable to assume that it ain't going to be any software added to your system causing this (as they wouldn't have been running).

Of course you do need to REMOVE your antivirus to be sure, but make sure you replace it with something else before going online. Disabling often doesn't fix anything. Just to be sure of course.

If it still persists after that it could be looking at something more hardware related.

Running a chkdsk on the drive I install games on, it'll be a long while before it's done but so far it has actually found some bad sectors all linking to the steamapps folder. Not sure why Steam in particular seems to be affected all of a sudden, but I speculate that Steam could be trying to write new install data to those corrupt sections.
If this is the case, chkdsk should prevent that from happening further and it should be in working order again, fingers crossed.

Just a heads up, but chkdsk is fine if it brings up those errors, but bear in mind if you want to get to the root of the problem something like CrystalMark is FAR better.

Anywho, it's probably just coincidence that the errors are there. That bit of disc may just get the most use so has failed.

What I would recommend is to let it do it's thing as you say, but get any data offf that drive that you deem important ASAP just in case.

[Sneed's Feed and Seed]

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

Originally posted by ✰kuripi✰:

Running a chkdsk on the drive I install games on, it'll be a long while before it's done but so far it has actually found some bad sectors all linking to the steamapps folder. Not sure why Steam in particular seems to be affected all of a sudden, but I speculate that Steam could be trying to write new install data to those corrupt sections.
If this is the case, chkdsk should prevent that from happening further and it should be in working order again, fingers crossed.

Just a heads up, but chkdsk is fine if it brings up those errors, but bear in mind if you want to get to the root of the problem something like CrystalMark is FAR better.

Anywho, it's probably just coincidence that the errors are there. That bit of disc may just get the most use so has failed.

What I would recommend is to let it do it's thing as you say, but get any data offf that drive that you deem important ASAP just in case.

Yeah definitely an issue with the drive, tried installing the same game on a different drive and it finished in 5 minutes. Just really bizarre my drive decided to give me hell so suddenly, but I guess that's what you get with standard HDDs. Been through enough of them so even if the whole thing craps out, all I've got on there is games anyways so not a big loss, just have to reinstall.
I'll update this after chkdsk is done to see if the performance is any better there, but I know other people have had this problem with no solution before so in case anyone sees this - it might be a sign of an unhealthy hard drive.
Thanks for the responses crunchyfrog

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by ✰kuripi✰:

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

Just a heads up, but chkdsk is fine if it brings up those errors, but bear in mind if you want to get to the root of the problem something like CrystalMark is FAR better.

Anywho, it's probably just coincidence that the errors are there. That bit of disc may just get the most use so has failed.

What I would recommend is to let it do it's thing as you say, but get any data offf that drive that you deem important ASAP just in case.

Yeah definitely an issue with the drive, tried installing the same game on a different drive and it finished in 5 minutes. Just really bizarre my drive decided to give me hell so suddenly, but I guess that's what you get with standard HDDs. Been through enough of them so even if the whole thing craps out, all I've got on there is games anyways so not a big loss, just have to reinstall.
I'll update this after chkdsk is done to see if the performance is any better there, but I know other people have had this problem with no solution before so in case anyone sees this - it might be a sign of an unhealthy hard drive.
Thanks for the responses crunchyfrog

Well, that's the thing with any digital media. It ain't like analogue stuff, where you're aware of things getting worse. With digital it's all or nothing.

You simply won't be aware of any problems starting to grow until one day it causes some sort of failure. Same with CD audio too.

All you can do is be prepared for it. I try to make sure I always have some sort of backups available to use at any time. Even if I don't have spare hard drives, I at least have rewritable DVDs or something to dump stuff on.