Steam Downloads completely broken

[Shea]

For the past couple months my D drive (I have two drives, C is primary and D is where I have my steam library 2) completely corrupts and refuses to download any games over around 500mb, it started with ARK which always corrupts around 30gb and then the entire folder refuses to work, I've gotten pretty much every single error prompt including: Disk Write Error, Corrupt Disk, Corrupt Update Files and a lot more (can't remember them off of the top of my head).

I've tried pretty much everything to fix it including fully deleting and redownloading Steam and completely wiping my D drive and resetting it up yet the issue still persists, if anyone has any ideas on how to fix it please do help as I have absolutely no idea what to do lol.

[Yujah]

You most likely have memory issues; the data is being corrupted in memory before write and/or after read. Run a memory tester:

https://www.memtest86.com/download.htm
https://www.memtest86.com/tech_creating-window.html

The other option for "many different and constant problems" tends to be unstable PSU but memory is most likely; especially if you have an XMP/EXPO profile selected.

[Satoru]

Genrally this is your anti-virus killing the patch process

add whitelisting to your anti-virus for steam directories

[Shea]

Satoru님이 먼저 게시:

Genrally this is your anti-virus killing the patch process

add whitelisting to your anti-virus for steam directories

I tried this and it didn't work sadly, although it now only says Disk Write Error instead of changing the error code

[Shea]

Yujah님이 먼저 게시:

You most likely have memory issues; the data is being corrupted in memory before write and/or after read. Run a memory tester:

https://www.memtest86.com/download.htm
https://www.memtest86.com/tech_creating-window.html

The other option for "many different and constant problems" tends to be unstable PSU but memory is most likely; especially if you have an XMP/EXPO profile selected.

Would there be any simpler terms for this? I'm not that good with computers so when I downloaded the memtest86 I honestly had no idea who to do lol.

[nullable]

I'm sure there's a YouTube video demoing how to use it.

[Yujah]

Shea님이 먼저 게시:

Would there be any simpler terms for this? I'm not that good with computers so when I downloaded the memtest86 I honestly had no idea who to do lol.

I'm not sure I can add much to that already linked video describing the process: the idea is that you through the (in the download supplied) imaging tool write a bootable image to an empty USB-stick and then reboot your computer from that USB-stick.

If it's an issue, if f.e. you don't have a usable USB-stick lying about; memtest86 is more or less the gold standard but seems Windows (10, 11) also has a bult-in memory tester available. For that you'd use WinKey+R, type "mdsched", <enter>, and choose to "Now reboot and search for problems". It'll probably be fine for the purpose given that your issues are seemingly not subtle.

A word of warning however is that likeliness of my reply/suspicion is fairly much dependent on your hardware (specifically if you have a new-ish AMD-based system and have in your BIOS enabled XMP/EXPO chances start being pretty good).

As such, if you after the above still have an issue running a memtest -- or if simply going into your BIOS and disabling XMP/EXPO isn't working -- you'd need to tell us some basic hardware specs. For that in the Steam client: Help -> System Information, Ctrl+A to select it all, Ctrl+C to copy it, Ctrl+V to paste it into a reply here.

But first do that "mdsched" thing I guess...

[Elucidator]

Shea님이 먼저 게시:

I'm not that good with computers

This only started a few months ago, if I read correctly and it is specific to the storage device associated with the D:\ volume?

Then it is not memory corruption. The thing with memory is that it would also apply to your C:\ or any other volume, because memory is shared. You can skip out on testing memory.

Yes, I know, it sounds odd when I use the term 'volume'. Its the name Microsoft uses to describe "storage medium" "partition" with a "Windows supported" "File System", "ready for use" by the operating system. The operating system being Windows 11, and "ready for use" meaning "Windows or whatever program that is running can read files from or write files to this place". Volumes normally automatically get assigned a "Drive Letter", and once that happens are "mounted" to the operating system. Drive Letters being (H: L: M: O:, etc.)

A storage medium is called by Windows a Disk, and often has a number. (Disk 1, Disk 2). These disks represent the hardware, the actual storage medium.
A partition is a section of a Disk that is made available for storing files and can be formatted to certain file system. The file system you could format a partition to are only limited by whichever filesystem the operating system supports, and this number can be increased by installing Non-Microsoft file systems. (btrfs for example can be installed)
Anyway, this means indeed, multiple Volumes could refer to the same Disk, each having a separate drive letter.

Now you should understand at least what a volume is.
(here's an image to help explain)
https://www.easeus.com/images/en/screenshot/partition-manager/computer-management-disk-management-2.png

Anyway, when people use Drives, we basically indirectly understand a Volume with a matching drive letter.
"Primary" partitions are partitions where Windows Boot will look for any installed Operating System. (Usually people have just 1 OS, but in case you have multiple Windows versions installed, Windows Boot will allow you to select any so long they are found in one of the Primary Partitions.)
Each Disk has its own Primary.
The "Active" partition is the initialization partition; where Windows Boot is located. If Windows Boot isn't in the active partition, Windows will not load.


Now then...
With this knowledge, "Disk Write Error", what does this mean? Why does this happen? Well, you could look in the Steam\logs folder and read, but--

To make a guess, considering Corrupted Disk also happened, for whatever reason the file was written, but not verified afterward properly. This could mean that there is something wrong with the disk.
What I am guessing may have happened is that the file was overwriting itself. Its one of the possibilities.

I recommend running "chkdsk" on the volume.
I also recommend downloading and installing Crystal Disk Info, which can reveal how healthy your Disks are.

Lastly, currently I fear that the Disk in question may not be working as expected and-- this could be because of some kind of screw up at the factory, or maybe a scam if the storage disk was very cheap.
but anyway...

I assume you have plenty of space left to install these games on. You should try to keep at least 2x the space needed free on the volume, because Steam needs to assemble the parts after decrypting them. The game often also needs to extract files, meaning it takes more space temporarily to install games than what they end up consuming after being done.

[Yujah]

Elucidator님이 먼저 게시:

This only started a few months ago, if I read correctly and it is specific to the storage device associated with the D:\ volume? Then it is not memory corruption.

The thing is that only massive data-verifications, such as for the average user here done only through Steam downloads, may show the issue. In the Linux context we always see this reported in the context of seemingly "corrupt distribution ISOs" since it's the only time someone verifies enough data to have a chance-based memory-corruption be more or less guaranteed.

As such therefore; please first just a memtest and only if that shows all fine, look further,

[Elucidator]

Yujah님이 먼저 게시:

Elucidator님이 먼저 게시:

This only started a few months ago, if I read correctly and it is specific to the storage device associated with the D:\ volume? Then it is not memory corruption.

The thing is that only massive data-verifications, such as for the average user here done only through Steam downloads, may show the issue. In the Linux context we always see this reported in the context of seemingly "corrupt distribution ISOs" since it's the only time someone verifies enough data to have a chance memory-corruption be more or less guaranteed.

As such therefore; please first just a memtesta and only if that shows all fine, look further,

That is why I am asking. It is to confirm whether they tested it out on the C:\ volume as well.

The thing is, you have probably heard of them, some companies are being cheapskates and instead of selling an SSD with the advertised specifications, they are selling a circuitboard with a modified controller and sometimes even a soldered on microSD card.
The controller pretends the disk is larger than what it actually is and overwrites a section or the full disk once the actual data storage size is full, causing data corruption.

If that is not by design, on purpose, perhaps the company has a firmware update that could fix the issue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQZxr1ke0do
(and yes, I recognize scams like this happen in china a lot more, but unfortunately, some of these fake spec storage devices look so much like the real deal to the point even normal shops in your local country can be fooled.)

[Iceira]

Just like Elucidator point out withg free space issue, im not so sure its not more of it,

we are tired of explan this on boot disk so anything lesser then ½TB free space on any disk
is seen as user own mistake , take note , most did not have this issue then disk was new and empty, and we cant see free space left here.


feeel free to repaire every steam lib at storage manager ( same as make sure its all there )

[Shea]

Elucidator님이 먼저 게시:

Shea님이 먼저 게시:

I'm not that good with computers

This only started a few months ago, if I read correctly and it is specific to the storage device associated with the D:\ volume?

Then it is not memory corruption. The thing with memory is that it would also apply to your C:\ or any other volume, because memory is shared. You can skip out on testing memory.

Yes, I know, it sounds odd when I use the term 'volume'. Its the name Microsoft uses to describe "storage medium" "partition" with a "Windows supported" "File System", "ready for use" by the operating system. The operating system being Windows 11, and "ready for use" meaning "Windows or whatever program that is running can read files from or write files to this place". Volumes normally automatically get assigned a "Drive Letter", and once that happens are "mounted" to the operating system. Drive Letters being (H: L: M: O:, etc.)

A storage medium is called by Windows a Disk, and often has a number. (Disk 1, Disk 2). These disks represent the hardware, the actual storage medium.
A partition is a section of a Disk that is made available for storing files and can be formatted to certain file system. The file system you could format a partition to are only limited by whichever filesystem the operating system supports, and this number can be increased by installing Non-Microsoft file systems. (btrfs for example can be installed)
Anyway, this means indeed, multiple Volumes could refer to the same Disk, each having a separate drive letter.

Now you should understand at least what a volume is.
(here's an image to help explain)
https://www.easeus.com/images/en/screenshot/partition-manager/computer-management-disk-management-2.png

Anyway, when people use Drives, we basically indirectly understand a Volume with a matching drive letter.
"Primary" partitions are partitions where Windows Boot will look for any installed Operating System. (Usually people have just 1 OS, but in case you have multiple Windows versions installed, Windows Boot will allow you to select any so long they are found in one of the Primary Partitions.)
Each Disk has its own Primary.
The "Active" partition is the initialization partition; where Windows Boot is located. If Windows Boot isn't in the active partition, Windows will not load.


Now then...
With this knowledge, "Disk Write Error", what does this mean? Why does this happen? Well, you could look in the Steam\logs folder and read, but--

To make a guess, considering Corrupted Disk also happened, for whatever reason the file was written, but not verified afterward properly. This could mean that there is something wrong with the disk.
What I am guessing may have happened is that the file was overwriting itself. Its one of the possibilities.

I recommend running "chkdsk" on the volume.
I also recommend downloading and installing Crystal Disk Info, which can reveal how healthy your Disks are.

Lastly, currently I fear that the Disk in question may not be working as expected and-- this could be because of some kind of screw up at the factory, or maybe a scam if the storage disk was very cheap.
but anyway...

I assume you have plenty of space left to install these games on. You should try to keep at least 2x the space needed free on the volume, because Steam needs to assemble the parts after decrypting them. The game often also needs to extract files, meaning it takes more space temporarily to install games than what they end up consuming after being done.

I stopped responding because I used CrystalDiskInfo and it said my Drive was Caution, after I did something in the app it seemingly fixed and I was able to download games again, but for some reason specifically ARK will not download (this is the main problem and I'm 90% sure the game that the problem started with).