I press intsall and nothing happens

[gibbywalter]

idk what to do

[{ИЯm} Keith]

Install of steam? Or install of a game? (is it one specific game or all games?)

If steam installs but you can't install games, I'd reinstall steam.

[talktomike]

I am having a similar issue right now. I go do install any game and when I click "Install" nothing happens and the steam client locks up. I eventually have to kill Steam and restart. I have fully updated my PC including video drivers. I have checked my hard drives and ram. Reinstalled the Steam Client and still no go.

I have read elsewhere online this might be related to me being on Windows 11 but not sure if that is true or if that is your situation as well. I am nearly ready to nuke my PC and start over. If anyone has an less drastic suggestions please let me know.

[NoTo]

Maybe you have downloads blocked from windows defender or antivirus

[zaphodikus]

Most of the time, starting a download causes "The application is not responding" and 20 seconds later, its as if everything is fine in the world of steam. so not a complete hang, but it freezes for a while and then resumes. Not just on starting a download, when opening chat it will simetimes jsut freeze for a moment or two, sometimes... it started doing this around a week or two ago. Not started to look into causes, since it's rather random, only occurring once or twice per day.

[{ИЯm} Keith]

Originally posted by talktomike:

I am having a similar issue right now. I go do install any game and when I click "Install" nothing happens and the steam client locks up. I eventually have to kill Steam and restart. I have fully updated my PC including video drivers. I have checked my hard drives and ram. Reinstalled the Steam Client and still no go.

I have read elsewhere online this might be related to me being on Windows 11 but not sure if that is true or if that is your situation as well. I am nearly ready to nuke my PC and start over. If anyone has an less drastic suggestions please let me know.

Nope I have a win 11 device in the home and it can install steam games.

[{ИЯm} Keith]

Originally posted by zaphodikus:

Most of the time, starting a download causes "The application is not responding" and 20 seconds later, its as if everything is fine in the world of steam. so not a complete hang, but it freezes for a while and then resumes. Not just on starting a download, when opening chat it will simetimes jsut freeze for a moment or two, sometimes... it started doing this around a week or two ago. Not started to look into causes, since it's rather random, only occurring once or twice per day.

I can't speak to the others but your comment contained enough info to possibly be troubleshootable. I've two suggestions for you to look at and one question.

Suggestion what AV are you using and can you add an exception for steam? (I've had hangs like this because a virus scanner was prechecking the install file)

Suggestion 2, something is hinky with your hard drive. Is it an SSD or Rotary? Full greater then 80% or no?

Question for you: does any of this happen after your device sleeps? I get a weird glitch like that once in a while on my laptop if I leave steam open but the device sleeps. (it displays steam fine, but when I click things the lag is terrible, or it doesn't work) I've found closing and reopening helps.

[zaphodikus]

The sleep mode might be a clue.

I installed windows 10 twice this year. I have a 1tb SSD and about 8TB of rotating rust that doubles as storage, but by default, games install to the 8TB of spinning stuff... that might be a clue. Too many files and drivers sleeping. I'll have to devise an experiment to check the theory, so that is a clue @Keith .

[{ИЯm} Keith]

Originally posted by zaphodikus:

The sleep mode might be a clue.

I installed windows 10 twice this year. I have a 1tb SSD and about 8TB of rotating rust that doubles as storage, but by default, games install to the 8TB of spinning stuff... that might be a clue. Too many files and drivers sleeping. I'll have to devise an experiment to check the theory, so that is a clue @Keith .

If your library is on the rotary. (and don't worry that is fine to do, I have a 14TB rotary drive with my complete library) There are a few things to check:
Make 100% sure the drive isn't set as removable/portable/ejectable.
Do a double check of power settings, and in your power plan, set hard drive sleep to never (zero minutes)
Double check which hard model of drive you bought, I'm only saying this one because I once purchased Western Digital Green drives (they're ECO friendly) but the park time, and time to spool up the drive was sooooo slow!

Also as a random side note, if you move 1 valve specific game (like half life) it's best to move them all. (there's a weird thing there)

[zaphodikus]

I'm kind of hopeing as I often do focus on positives not negatives, that people get tips out of these threads. I've found too many web forums where someone asks for help, and nobody bothers to respond with even slightly helpful things to try that otherwise seem trivial, but do often help someone new to the problem space. So you sometimes see me sharing the obvious clues, and that is good for someone who is struggling, or just wants to not have to troubleshoot. As a software engineer, I totally get that, computers should just work.

OK, so I worked out, my default game install is to c: which is on the SSD, I used to do this the other way around, but changed my mind when I re-installed windows10 in January. Fastest is the default, I can afford a new SSD if it dies.

So this hang is just affecting the "Download" dialog, I'm not sure how elektron or whatever F/W steam uses deals with this, but the Steam parent window is fully responsive, but only stops responding the moment I interact with the downloads dialog while it's busy contacting CDN's and doing disc space checks etc.

• I have started cold-booting since the last suggestion about sleep mode, you wont believe how evil sleep mode is, and since this system is pretty nippy, I really should not be using sleep mode anyway. And I can conclude, it doe not make a difference.
  
• I have a load of games with cloud sync errors, I'm forcing them to update now, I'm suspecting that might be a factor, since anything unusual is going to be an untested area or untested code path

Will update if fixing cloud sync errors helps, I should have made a new thread?

[{ИЯm} Keith]

Originally posted by zaphodikus:

I'm kind of hopeing as I often do focus on positives not negatives, that people get tips out of these threads. I've found too many web forums where someone asks for help, and nobody bothers to respond with even slightly helpful things to try that otherwise seem trivial, but do often help someone new to the problem space. So you sometimes see me sharing the obvious clues, and that is good for someone who is struggling, or just wants to not have to troubleshoot. As a software engineer, I totally get that, computers should just work.

OK, so I worked out, my default game install is to c: which is on the SSD, I used to do this the other way around, but changed my mind when I re-installed windows10 in January. Fastest is the default, I can afford a new SSD if it dies.

So this hang is just affecting the "Download" dialog, I'm not sure how elektron or whatever F/W steam uses deals with this, but the Steam parent window is fully responsive, but only stops responding the moment I interact with the downloads dialog while it's busy contacting CDN's and doing disc space checks etc.

• I have started cold-booting since the last suggestion about sleep mode, you wont believe how evil sleep mode is, and since this system is pretty nippy, I really should not be using sleep mode anyway. And I can conclude, it doe not make a difference.
  
• I have a load of games with cloud sync errors, I'm forcing them to update now, I'm suspecting that might be a factor, since anything unusual is going to be an untested area or untested code path

Will update if fixing cloud sync errors helps, I should have made a new thread?

I do not have the issue you have, I do have cloud sync errors. The cloud sync thing is a relatively new issue, caused by a recent steam update. (I think they were trying to 1. Be more transparent about cloud storage. and 2. do a better job managing it, as this will be needed for the steam deck)

A few more things to check: You're telling me Steam runs fine with the exception of <> Downloads and <> Install ?
Have you tried changing which server you download from (I believe steam sorts by city)?
Do you use a router or firewall? Any chance that's miss configured? (port blocked) {much of the content on steam is just web content port 80} However there seems to be a few others.
https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/2EA8-4D75-DA21-31EB

[{ИЯm} Keith]

As a side note, when you reinstalled your windows. Did you wipe your second hard drive?
If no, are you 100% sure you have the correct user permissions on you steamapps folder and steam downloads folder? and your temp folder?
(I've seen a lot of issues with this)

[zaphodikus]

Aha, I recall having changed my CDN server off of the default London one , I forgot to do that after the re-install. I somehow had huge slowness issues on the London server last year, let's see if choosing another server sorts that. I'll so laugh if it does.

I'm pretty sure I did completely wipe the steam folder on the second disc, worth checking the permissions for any old SIDs

[zaphodikus]

Actually i'm seeing the problem, its the client app GUI that is bugged.

When I click "Install" it does not register that I clicked the button, and if I click again, then things go into "hang briefly" mode.
I have this same problem in other screens in Steam where I have to click 2 or 3 times for the UI to actually realise that I have clicked, so it's looking to me like an issue in the UI event handling logic. So it's unable for obvious reasons to download the same thing twice, and the first download initialisation is blocking the second one when I click the second time. I'm assuming this will be resolved in an update. at least I know how to work around it now.

[{ИЯm} Keith]

Originally posted by zaphodikus:

Actually i'm seeing the problem, its the client app GUI that is bugged.

When I click "Install" it does not register that I clicked the button, and if I click again, then things go into "hang briefly" mode.
I have this same problem in other screens in Steam where I have to click 2 or 3 times for the UI to actually realise that I have clicked, so it's looking to me like an issue in the UI event handling logic. So it's unable for obvious reasons to download the same thing twice, and the first download initialisation is blocking the second one when I click the second time. I'm assuming this will be resolved in an update. at least I know how to work around it now.

Sounds like something is wrong with the client itself which is weird. That or something is blocking it from functioning.

I think you can install steam games with GOG Galaxy so that's a potential work around.
You can also install games manually ->
Press your windows key + R to open the run menu
then add this and press enter: steam://install/412940/

You can change the number to what ever game it is you want. I think that should just work? Give it a try, and let me know if I'm wrong.

[zaphodikus]

I actually saw this Universal URL thing with the steam: protocol. Woudl be great if they actually put that in documentation the rest of us can easily find, that is a cool tip.

Install button does work, the second time i click I just have to wait, because the app seems to lock and time out after about 30 seconds and then starts downloading, so it's not a real pain. I need to log back into GOG again, I have not used them for ages.