How do I disable Queued Downloads?

[Dahn]

It's really irritating that my computer will not be using the internet connection, but Steam refuses to automatically download updates, instead putting them into a queue for no reason.
But you can be sure as soon as I want to actually use my connection to watch vids or streams, that's when it will try to download.

Since Steam brought in the pointless queue system, it's been nothing but a hassle. One of the positives of Steam has been the automatic update system that would always keep your games up to date, but more and more often I find that patches sit in the download queue for no reason.
I really want to find a way to turn off that "function".

Anyone know how to do so?

[Scar]

I dont really know but the only thing you can do is stop the download or pause it. Steam must update the games. Sorry

[Bad 💀 Motha]

What is the point of running Steam Client if you are not Downloading, Installing, Updating, Verifying, Organizing your Games or configuring the Steam Client?

The queue items usually occurs when the server you tell Steam to use for your system (defined in Steam Settings > Downloads) is undergoing heavy-traffic. That can change at a moments notice and that may trigger a queued item to then start. It's a good thing, not bad.

You have full control over all of it, so what is really your issue here?
If something starts downloading and you do not want it to, go to Library > Downloads and click Pause All.

If you are playing a game and don't want those to interfere, make sure "Allow downloads during gameplay" option is un-ticked.

If not using Steam Client, exit it.

You can be on Steam and do basically everything in Steam Store and Community via Web Browser or Steam Mobile. I really see no reason to confine any web browsing to within the Steam Client itself. In fact, you should never use it for that purpose really.

[Hanomaly]

in Steam> Settings> Downloads
did you maybe activate Download Restrictions?

[Oberon's Top Guy]

Originally posted by Dahn:

It's really irritating that my computer will not be using the internet connection, but Steam refuses to automatically download updates, instead putting them into a queue for no reason.
But you can be sure as soon as I want to actually use my connection to watch vids or streams, that's when it will try to download.

Since Steam brought in the pointless queue system, it's been nothing but a hassle. One of the positives of Steam has been the automatic update system that would always keep your games up to date, but more and more often I find that patches sit in the download queue for no reason.
I really want to find a way to turn off that "function".

Anyone know how to do so?

restrict the download speed to the lowest level and you wont lag.

[Dahn]

Originally posted by Bad-Motha:

What is the point of running Steam Client if you are not Downloading, Installing, Updating, Verifying, Organizing your Games or configuring the Steam Client?
Snip

My issue is when downloading a large game, say overnight (My connection isn't the fastest), Steam will decide to pause the download and leave it paused.
The only time my client is set to disallow downloads is when playing games that require a connection (IE multiplayer), the rest of the time it's set to allow.
It's irritating when you have a bunch of downloads queued for no reason.
I've set downloads going overnight and come back in the morning to see that the original download was paused by Steam and never re-started!
Also, if the issue is heavy traffic, why when I manually start the download, is it full speed?
If it was heavy traffic it would most likely show in the download speed being lower than usual.

I would personally prefer a slower rate than indefinite pauses in my downloads, at least with a slower speed something is getting done and when bandwidth opens up, the speed increases.
When it gets queued and left there, nothing is getting done at all.

How annoying is it to start a download, say a patch for the game you are playing, and return to the client later to find that the damn thing has queued it and not done anything?
I refuse to sit and watch the download page on the off-chance that Steam is going to play silly buggers with my download!

Originally posted by Gintoki:

restrict the download speed to the lowest level and you wont lag.

I have updates go into queues even when the download speed is restricted to 16kbps as well.
There seems to be no actual reason for it.
There is no consistent time frame that it occurs in, updates get queued seemingly at whim, day or night.

[ACOTZ-L]

Congratulations valve you lost me. I won't play any games in this annoying autoupdating platform because I have a limited bandwith.

[σnєtαplíghtsσut]

Settings ~ Downloads ~ Download Restrictions Only update games between 5am to 6am You can view the games and downloads speed in Library ~ Manage Downloads.

[Nomster]

Are you all mental? The OP was asking about the complete opposite of what you are saying here. He WANTS THE DOWNLOADS TO START. Not stop them.

I leave my PC on pretty much all day and when I decide to play a game I want to start right away, not start downloading an update, when steam was running for 8 hours idle and could have downloaded it already.

Stupid design decision and definitely a reason to complain.

We people with a working, stable, unlimited internet connection want our downloads as fast as possible, especially when the connection is idle.

Please Valve give us the option to specify, whether downloads should be queued to a specific time, started as soon as we leave a game or just started as soon as available. Thank you, your paying customers.

[Dahn]

Thank you Overload for being the one person who actually READ what the post actually said instead of what they thought it would say!

As far as the issue goes, it has only gotten WORSE since I posted this question, downloads pausing from Steam's end repeatedly at all times day and night.

It's really bloody annoying!

[barfarina]

Yes it is - I just looked at my library for the first time in a week and there are 4 queued downloads sitting there doing nothing; apparently waiting there for me to 'start the download' or some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. If you leave them in this magic queue they stay there forever. What the hell happened to 'automatic update downloads'? It doesn't seem to exist any more!

[ScienceDiscoverer]

I agree, something needs to be done with it, extremely annoying and inconvenient. I always need to update games by hand by going to downloads ---> and force-starting download...

What I tried is:

1. Disable download restriction during streaming (no idea, maybe it messes up with something)
2. Make all installed games in library (or at least ones that has most frequent updates) as high priority update (in game's properties).

Let us see if this works...

[Mr Happy Penguin]

I have the same issue. Steam queues games to update instead of automatically downloading them. Often, it sets them to download at a time my PC is off. The last set of game updates were queued for 3 AM. I usually shutdown my PC between 3 and 4 AM, so those games wouldn't get updated. I was AFK for an hour, it could have updated then, but instead decided to wait.

[uncheck] Only auto-update games between: (blank; blank; no limit)
[check] Allow downloads during gameplay.
[uncheck] Throttle downloads.
[uncheck] Display download rates.

[ScienceDiscoverer]

Can confirm, my method works perfectly. Only downside, need to remember to check high priority for all games that updates somewhat frequently.

[Dahn]

Thanks ScienceDiscoverer, I'll give it a try!

[Dahn]

I can confirm that changing the download priority in each game's properties does actually make the game download any patch for it when it comes up, rather than schedualling the download for whatever time Steam chooses.

Finally, my games are updating when updates arrive, rather than schedualing them for the middle of the night or whatever! As they did before Steam and Valve decided to change how downloads worked to the stupid method that presently occurs!
Many thanks to ScienceDiscoverer for sharing the work-around!