Steam download stops and doesn't start again FIXED

[Den]

When i try to download PAYDAY 2 it downloads normally for the first 2 minutes and afterwards steam displays the download speed as 0 bytes/s and the download status is stuck on stopping. As i'm downloading this on to an external hard drive i think it may be the hard drive. Any ideas?

[Otit Ishi]

retry downloading?

[The Giving One]

Originally posted by Cybermaniac:

As i'm downloading this on to an external hard drive i think it may be the hard drive. Any ideas?

Not sure how you have your Steam installed there, but installing to an external hard drive is not recommended. Some do it and it does "work" for them, but it is still not recommended. The support page only mentions "Steam" but this can go for Steam games as well.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7418-YUBN-8129

Important:

(snip)

It is not recommended that you install Steam to an external hard drive, due to potential performance issues.

[Den]

Originally posted by The Giving One:

Not sure how you have your Steam installed there

I have steam installed on my PC but the game is being downloaded onto an external hard drive

[The Giving One]

Originally posted by Cybermaniac:

I have steam installed on my PC but the game is being downloaded onto an external hard drive

I meant more where you have it installed on your PC. And I thought I mentioned the relevant information and posted the source about external hard drives above already.

So can you not try to install the game into your Steam directory on the drive that is internal and in your PC ? Is is that you don't have enough space there ?

If so, you should never almost or totally fill a hard drive up. That can cause other issues with the hard drive.

But this issue you have may not be drive related, actually. See this support page and be SURE you check everything linked in blue also.

Download Stalls At a Certain Percentage

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=6966-IADH-1503&l=english

Also there, is this page, on using ethernet only to troubleshoot this.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1456-EUDN-2493

Also, you can try changing download regions in your Steam settings to many different places and ones far away from you, to see if the region where you are trying to get the data from is maybe saturated or overloaded.

Steam in the top left of the client, then settings, then downloads. Change the region. Try to download again. Rinse and repeat.

Finally, try booting your computer into safe mode WITH networking. It MUST be with networking enabled in the boot options menu. See if you can download there in that safe boot after logging into your Steam account.

If you can, there is probably a program or process conflicting with Steam in normal Windows. See this....

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9828-SFLZ-9289

[Beardface31]

Try clearing your download cache:

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3134-TIAL-4638

Hopefully this helps. But the external HDD may be the issue.

[Den]

Originally posted by Beardface:

Try clearing your download cache:

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3134-TIAL-4638

Hopefully this helps. But the external HDD may be the issue.

Yeah this helped and Payday is downloading fine now thanks