Fix: Steam Download Corrupt

Many users may experience a problem when installing or downloading a game where the Steam client prompts them that the download is corrupt. This is a common problem which many people using Steam experience over time. Although there is always the solution to re-install Steam, it is advised to try out the basic troubleshooting methods listed below before resorting to more tedious ones.

Solution 1: Changing the download region

One of the basic fixes includes changing the download region.

The Steam content system is divided into different regions. The client automatically detects your region through your network and sets it as default. Sometimes, servers in a specific region may be overloaded or maybe going through hardware failure. Therefore changing the download region may solve the problem in question.

1. Open Steam and click ‘Settings’ on the drop-down menu in the upper left corner of the window.
2. Select ‘Downloads’ and navigate to the ‘Download Region’.
3. Select other regions other than your own and restart Steam.

Solution 2: Clearing your Download Cache

Clearing your Steam download cache can fix problems if some downloaded file is corrupted. This process won’t affect your current games. You would only have to re-login. Don’t use this solution if you don’t have your correct login credentials at hand.

1. Open your Steam client and navigate to Settings. This is located on the top left menu.
2. Locate Downloads in the Settings panel.
3. Click Clear Download Cache. Click OK to confirm your choice and after a while, Steam will ask for your login credentials.
4. After logging in again, Steam will start as expected.

Solution 3: Matching time zone and time

Mismatching time zone and time may also cause Steam to pop up the problem. The fix for this is pretty easy. Follow the steps mentioned below:

1. Click the Windows button and type “Control Panel”. From the search results, open the Control Panel.
2. From the list of categories, choose “Date and time”.
3. From the three tabs, choose “Internet Time” and click on “Change Settings”.
4. Check the dialogue box which says “Synchronize with Internet time server”. Click on Update now. Click on OK after the time is updated successfully and restart Steam.

Solution 4: Uncheck Read-only

It is obvious if Steam is locked into a Read-only mode, it won’t be able to write files in the directory when it is downloading games/updates. To change this option, follow the steps below.

1. The default location for your steam folder should be “C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam”. Press ⊞ Win + R button. This should pop-up the Run application. In the dialogue box write “C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam”. Or if you installed Steam in another directory, you can browse to that directory and you can proceed with steps mentioned below.
2. Locate the Steam client i.e. Steam.exe
3. Uncheck “Read-only” if it is checked. Click apply and save changes. Relaunch Steam after the changes are applied.

Solution 5: Stopping unwanted processes running in the background

Another issue that users may face is that a lot of background processes may be active; resulting in not enough memory on RAM for Steam to function properly. What you can do is open the task manager and end all the unnecessary processes and restart Steam.

1. Launch your Task Manager by pressing ⊞ Win + R button. This should pop-up the Run application.In the dialogue box write “taskmgr”. This should open up the task manager.
2. End all unwanted processes such as Skype, web browser, updaters etc. Restart Steam using Steam.exe and hopefully, it will work as expected.

Solution 6: Disabling the anti-virus

In many situations, your antivirus may be causing the problem. It is not unusual for it to mark Steam files as potential viruses and quarantine them.  Below are listed different ways to disable the antivirus until you can update your game.

McAfee Antivirus:

McAfee has no way to exclude certain files from its real-time scanning. The only way is to disable the antivirus entirely until the game is updated. To do this, open McAfree and select “Virus and Spyware Protection”. Here you find the option of “Real-Time Scanning”. Click that option and turn it off.

Then follow the following instruction to verify the integrity of game files.

1. Restart your computer and relaunch Steam.
2. Head over to the library section and right-click on the game which is giving you problems.
3. Click on its properties and select the local files tab.
4. Click the verify integrity of the game files button and Steam will verify that game in a few minutes.

Hopefully, after performing the above steps, your Steam won’t give any issue.

ESET NOD32

NOD32 has the tendency to mark some application files as malicious and will most probably quarantine it. This often results in the error while updating a game. Browse to your current Steam directory and copy the address.

1. The default location for your steam folder should be “C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam”. Press ⊞ Win + R button. This should pop-up the Run application. In the dialogue box write “C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam”. Or if you installed Steam in another directory, you can browse to that directory and you can proceed with steps mentioned below. After copying the address open ESET NOD32 and paste the location in “exclude from real-time scanning”. Follow the ‘verify integrity of game files’ method listed above and you will be all good.

Kaspersky AV

Kaspersky may sometimes flag Steam as an intruder and disable it from making any changes to the hard drive. To fix this, head over to ‘threats and exlusions’. Navigate to ‘trusted zone’ and add Steam.exe as a trusted application. Remember to change the settings to Do not restrict application activity as well as Do not scan opened files.

Follow the ‘verify integrity of game files’ method listed above and restart your computer.

Solution 7: Reinstalling Steam

If all the other methods fail, we can reinstall Steam and hope that when the process is complete, it will run as expected.

Please note that any interruption during the copy process will corrupt the files and you will have to re-download the entire content over again. Only proceed with this solution if you are sure that your computer won’t be interrupted.

1. Navigate to your Steam directory. The default location for your directory is C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam.

2. Locate the following files and folders:

• SteamApps                                  (folder)
• Userdata                                      (folder)
• Steam.exe                                    (Application)
• Ssfn                                               (Number sequence)

3. Delete all other files/folder and restart your computer.
4. Re-launch Steam and hopefully, it will start updating itself. After the update is complete, it will run as expected.