protonscr

Game update fails on patching with "Disk write error", produces no logs.

steamclosed Distro Family: Arch
ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux#12150 · opened 2025-06-30 by tcp-kitty · updated 2025-07-08 · 6 comments · github
Ttcp-kitty 2025-06-30 github

Your system information

  • Steam client version (build number or date): 1747701111
  • Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Arch
  • Opted into Steam client beta?: No
  • Have you checked for system updates?: Yes
  • Steam Logs: steam-logs.tar.gz
  • GPU: Nvidia

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

Expected behavior: game patches normally and update succeeds

current behavior: after clicking update, game begins to update, ad when it gets to the patching step, it hangs there for 2 seconds, then craps out with "disk write error", running steam via the commandline shows an absolute lack of any related logs. Likely related to filesystem/library location? (btrfs, library is on separate drive)

Steps for reproducing this issue:

  1. Install game on btrfs formated disk separate from the disk containing steam
  2. When game needs to update, observe as steam completes the download flawlessly, then at some point during patching, throws a "disk write error"

Extra info:

Bug seems to only affect game updates with patching step, installing, uninstalling, moving, updating for games that don't have the patching step, and playing all work perfectly fine.

Kkisak-valve maintainer 2025-06-30 github

Hello @plytkachodnikowa, there's a lot of Failed to write app state file "/drives/hdd/Gayms/SteamLibrary/steamapps/appmanifest_* lines in your content_log.txt. Can you check if the filesystem the secondary Steam library folder is using is healthy and that your regular user has read/write permissions?

Ttcp-kitty 2025-06-30 github

That's an unrelated drive. The drive causing problems here is mounted as /drives/hdd3.

Kkisak-valve maintainer 2025-06-30 github

No, it isn't an unrelated drive because Steam is trying to use it for staging the game updates with lines like [2025-06-29 20:47:54] AppID 553850 update canceled : Staging folder not writable (Disk write failure) "/drives/hdd/Gayms/SteamLibrary/steamapps/downloading/228980" in your content_log.txt.

Ttcp-kitty 2025-06-30 github

That's weird. My understanding was that steam stages the game updates on the drive where the game is located. Anyways, filesystem is healthy and permissions appear correct. This however changes the circumstances as it would mean the issue may be related to NTFS

FFell 2025-07-02 github

In my experience, Steam doesn't work well with btrfs, unfortunately. Something weird is going on. I had issues like https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/10606 that fully disappeared after converting my /home partition from btrfs to ext4.

I know it's easier said than done, but maybe try converting to ext4 and see if the problem persists. I'm sure it would help Valve find the root cause.

Ttcp-kitty 2025-07-08 github

Issue magically disappeared after removing the library on /drives/hdd from the steam client.