Steam has a long history of issues, and you are not alone if you are experiencing the “ Steam Download Stopping and Rebooting ” error in your system.
The download process halts randomly, where one or more games in the steam download get stuck resulting in the “ Download Queued ” status. Plenty of users have reported the issue over many years.
However, don’t worry! We are here with some great solutions to fix the Steam download not working error.
Before we get to the solutions, below-listed are a few reasons why the Steam download stopping error occurs.
What are the causes of Steam Randomly Stops Downloading?
Various issues cause this error; here are a few of them:
- Mainly this issue is caused by external applications which affect the Steam Download by interfering in the download process
- This external application includes Skype, Java, and CCleaner
- Issues with the Hardware or Software specifications
- Clashes between the Windows Defender and Steam Download process
- Issues with the Internet connection
So, these were the few common reasons. Now, let’s try out some solutions to fix your Steam download not working issue.
FULL FIX: Steam Randomly Stops Downloading Error
There are many solutions and ways to fix this standard error; however, we have shortlisted the most effective for you
1. Disable the Windows 10
According to many users, the issue fixes by Disabling the Windows Defender. To do so, follow the steps below:
- Press and Hold Windows + R key to open the dialog box
- Type “gpedit.msc ” in the dialogue box and a Local Group Policy Editor appears
- Click on the Computer Configuration tab and choose Administrative templates
- You can now see a Windows components folder . Click on it and select Windows Defender
- Various options appear on the screen. Search and select “ Turn off Windows Defender.”
- Click on “ Enabled” to turn Windows Defender off and hit on OK
Once the above process finishes, your Windows Defender is turned off. Reboot your PC and launch Steam using Steam.exe. We also suggest you launch it with administrative privileges
2. Verify and Enable your .NET
.NET is frameworks that function primarily for smooth running of games. However, in some of the systems, this function is not enabled by default. So let’s end all the steam processes and enable .NET correctly by following the below steps:
- Press and hold the Windows Screen and type “Control Panel .”
- Click on the Programs and features option
- After clicking on it, various options appear on the screen. On the left-hand side of the screen, search and click on “ Turn Windows Feature on and off” option
- A little window with various checkboxes appears on the screen. You can see ‘.NET Framework .’ Although the checkbox is ticked, you can see two more folders as you expand it
- Ensure to tick these two folders
- Now , Save the changes you made and Exit the control panel
- Launch Steam by administrative privileges
Now you can effectively use the steam client games to run smoothly by enabling .NET correctly
3. Sync the Time and Time-zone
The Steam system collects real-time data from your PC, along with a timestamp. There might be an irregularity in the Steam client if there are differences between the time of your PC and the Set-time zone. So, do the following method to match your time and time zone:
- Go to the Windows menu and type “Control Panel.”
- Now, open the Control Panel from the search results
- Select Date and time from the list of categories
- Out of the three tabs, select Internet Time
- Click on the Change Settings option
- Now search for the dialog box which has the “Synchronize with Internet time server” checkbox
- Click on the Update now option and hit on OK , once the time is updated correctly
- Now Restart Steam
After matching the time and time zone, there are no differences in the time of PC and Set time resulting in no issues with Steam collecting real-time data.
4. Limiting Your Network Bandwidth
At times, you may experience many fluctuations in your internet connection while the downloading process which might be due to the disk write-speed which can’t keep up with the downloading speed.
You can adjust and limit your bandwidth from Steam which is not too low or not too high. Let’s do this –
- Open your Steam Client and select the Run as administrator option
- On the left corner of the screen, Click on Steam and choose Settings
- Navigate to the Downloads tab , and you can see an option “Limit Bandwidth to”
- After you click on it, you can a see a drop-down window with many available speed limits
- Now, choose suitably according to the speed provided by your ISP
- Close and Re-launch Steam
After the above process is successful, you may see that the fluctuation issue fixes
5. Reinstall Steam
If all the above solutions don’t work well for you, It indicates that there a significant issue with your steam client. To fix this issue, you need to reinstall the Steam Client. To do so, exit all Steam Apps before processing this method.
Note: Don’t try this solution if you don’t have the correct Steam credentials. Also, this solution won’t delete any of your gaming data.
- Press and hold Windows + R key to open your Run application
- Type “taskmgr” in the dialogue box, to open Task Manager
- Starting from the Steam ClientBootStrapper , end all Steam related processes
- Now, Once again press and hold the Windows + R key and type “C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam”
- You can browse to any other directory where you have your Steam
- Locate the following files and folders
- Steamapps Folder (All your games are available in this folder)
- Skins Folder (Your steam skins are present in this folder)
- exe Application (It launches Steam)
- UserdataFolder (Progress of your games are stored in this folder)
- Ssfn files (It can be more than one and each one may have a number tag to it(You can keep it, so that you don’t have to wait 7 days for trade cooldown)
- Now , Delete all the files except the ones which are mentioned above and launch Steam from the Launcher
- Steam automatically downloads and updates some files
- After the installation process is complete, Enter your credentials and log in
Ensure that you launch the steam using administrator privileges. Now, the Steam downloads work as usual.
That’s it! The above solutions are effectively useful to fix the “Steam Download Stopping” error.
You may also try closing all the unwanted applications, updating your network drivers, clearing the HTML cache and also some common solutions like reconnecting your Steam Client to the Internet and temporarily disabling your antivirus.
Let us know which solution works the best for you in the comments section below.
Read Next: