Large downloads lead to crashing

[AeseratheDreamer]

Ive had this recurring issue of large downloads of games and updates leading to crashing, and then being unable to restart steam, ultimately being forced to physically power off my computer to get get steam to work again, and quickly go to downloads to prevent steam from reloading the same area of the download so it wont crash again. Sometimes i do error check on the drive, it repairs it, but then when i try to start the download again it still crashes at the same part, forcing me to uninstall the game and start from the beginning all over again, where it sometimes has the issue again but at some other part of the download.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

1. Are you using HDD?

- If yes defrag your HDD, afterwards get Crystal disk info, run it as admin, and should check your HDD health if there anything wrong with it.

- If no get Crystal disk info, run it as admin, and should check your SSD health if there anything wrong with it, if nothing wrong then move onto question 2.

2. Did you do all your updates on your OS, and ensure you install all drivers needed for game to run correctly?

- If no please do so.

- If yes move on.

3. Are you running anything in background, or 3rd party anti virus, not talking about Windows defender.

- If yes ensure those are not causing problems to system performance, or causing crashes. Some 3rd antivirus cause problems by deleting things it shouldn't have.

- If no move on.

4. You said you did check error, and repairs, like did you do sfc /scannow or did you use windows disk management error check, or you used a 3rd party app?


Anyways open CMD as administrator then Type: DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

After it done, restart, then open CMD again, and type: sfc /scannow

After it finished, restart, and try to launch steam, and see if issue resolved. What DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth does is that it compare your OS image to online to see if there any fault to it.

[AeseratheDreamer]

1. downloaded crystal disk info, it says my drives are healthy.

2.everything up to date, i only checked the drivers related to my storage and network

3 just windows defender

4 i did as you said,I was using the windows disk management error check (thats the one where you right click and go to tools right?) but i followed your device, and the download went further than did it further, but the issue is happening again, instead of 42 gb being the stopping point, its 52 gb

I have two drives, my main one is HDD, but I have an external drive that I think is SSD, i cant seem to find where it would say what kind it is, and it inst appearing in the disks area of device manager, if it is SSD could that be the issue? I've been downloading steam games onto it since its way bigger.

Автор сообщения: Dr.Shadowds 🐉

1. Are you using HDD?

- If yes defrag your HDD, afterwards get Crystal disk info, run it as admin, and should check your HDD health if there anything wrong with it.

- If no get Crystal disk info, run it as admin, and should check your SSD health if there anything wrong with it, if nothing wrong then move onto question 2.

2. Did you do all your updates on your OS, and ensure you install all drivers needed for game to run correctly?

- If no please do so.

- If yes move on.

3. Are you running anything in background, or 3rd party anti virus, not talking about Windows defender.

- If yes ensure those are not causing problems to system performance, or causing crashes. Some 3rd antivirus cause problems by deleting things it shouldn't have.

- If no move on.

4. You said you did check error, and repairs, like did you do sfc /scannow or did you use windows disk management error check, or you used a 3rd party app?


Anyways open CMD as administrator then Type: DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

After it done, restart, then open CMD again, and type: sfc /scannow

After it finished, restart, and try to launch steam, and see if issue resolved. What DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth does is that it compare your OS image to online to see if there any fault to it.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Just to confirm you did run CMD as admin, "DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth" , and then "sfc /scannow" already?

This just a long shot here, if you download onto to HDD does issue happen? Does issue also happen when your external storage not plug in as well?

Does your external storage requires any extra software install, or you install software for your external storage?

You can find out what the external storage is by looking for what model it is, crystal disk info should be able to tell you what model it is.

[AeseratheDreamer]

Yes I did the cmd DISM /online line, and In the past I did have this issue with my main drive as well, and the software when I look it up gives number of disks, so it must be HDD storage.

How would I know that the external storage requires anymore software to install?

Also thanks for responding

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Normally external storage shouldn't require anything to using them, but was asking just incase.

Now have you check your windows error log right afterwards when crash happens? Do you get blue screen with error code on it? Stuff like that can help greatly point what the problem could be.

[AeseratheDreamer]

how would I check for my windows error log? I go into the event viewer and cant seem to find anything related to it.

I have noticed that im unable to open the external storage when I go into file explorer. Could that be a clue?

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Yes open Event viewer, click on Widnows Logs > System, and you be looking for red systems, click on it to view what they tell you what they're about.

For external storage, try replugging it maybe it just in sleep mode, or not plug in correctly, that my guess for now.

[AeseratheDreamer]

the only red systems i have are from when I am forced to shutdown by powering off because my system wont let me restart or shutdown via the system, so I have to shut it off physically.

the only errors which were warnings at the time of said download crash are 153, and 129, and when I looked them up it didnt seem related at all to my situation.

the disk drive is working fine before the point where it crashes from the steam download , able access it and everything, able to restart computer, but at that point it causes steam to crash, and im unable to access the external storage anymore, and cant open steam, but I am able to run task manager and see that steam is still running in the background I force end the steam task, but it still wont let me relaunch it, so i instead have to shut it down physically/

[Satoru]

It sounds like either

1) your RAM is failing
2) your hard drive is failing

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Event 153 is one of the indicators of a faulty storage system, and 129 can be related in same sense as well.

Anyways I don't know exactly the issue you face, but seem to be leading to storage problem which I'm starting to wonder if that might be the case.

Do you have another PC? Try connecting the external storage to another PC if you do, and see if you have access to it, if you do then means something just wrong with your system at that point, or something wrong with HDD that in your system, or something just up with your OS, or something causing problem with OS, and other things, that what come to mind so far.

[RPG Gamer Man]

If your using external hard drive or external SSD, only use internal ones. External ones are not recommended by steam support. This maybe what is leading to your issue.

For more info on your issue, look here please:

https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/4578-18A7-C819-8620

"Preventing this issue
External Hard Drives
External hard drives are not recommended for use with Steam or Steam's games. Aside from many potential performance issues, external hard drives may connect or disconnect from the computer at inopportune times as part of their normal operations. If you encounter this issue with an external drive, install Steam and your games to an internal drive instead."

[AeseratheDreamer]

Well it seems the last comment was right, I couldve sworn ive had this issue with my main drive, but maybe i was mixing up my library selection then. Thanks for the help. I'll still be using my external drive for the bulk of stuff, since most of my games arent that big.