Steam is a digital platform for video game developers and players created by valve corporation. It is basically a gaming community where gamers can buy and sell video games. Steam platform keeps on updating their tools, interface and features in order to provide best of services and assistance to their users in order to improve their gaming experience. However, users have faced errors while playing or updating a steam game, and one such common error that pops up is “content file locked” while updating a steam game. But what it does means, it means that steam is unable to write down update files on the hard disk, which further doesn’t allow users to play the updated or latest versions of any game.
How to Fix Steam Content File Locked Error
Steam content file locked is a very common error that is considered as a complex issue by users. But, with correct approaching measures you can fix this error without much effort. such correct solutions to fix this stem content file locked error are given below.
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Solution 1: Check Antivirus
Antivirus protects your device from malicious attacks but sometimes,it has been observed that antivirus can cause real obstruction and end up causing errors like these. To resolve, Follow steps listed below the respective antivirus protection.
McAfee antivirus
First antivirus needs to be disabled, so for disabling follow these steps –
Step 1. On search bar type control panel
Step 2. Click on view by category on upper right hand side then press on programs section
Step 3. Click on uninstall a program
Step 4. Scroll down and find your third party software (McAfee)
Step 5. Right click it to select uninstall or disable it
Or go through these steps –
Step 1. Open McAfee navigate to virus and spyware protection section
Step 2. Scroll and find option: real-time scanning
Step 3. Select that option and click to turn it off.
Once the disabling is done, follow these steps –
Step 1. Restart your PC and launch steam again
Step 2. Navigate to the library category and scroll and find the name of the game which is causing the error.
Step 3. Select that game by right-clicking it, and navigate to the properties option and select it.
Step 4. Click on the local files tab
Step 5. Select the verify integrity of game files option and further steam will verify it.
Once this verification is done, launch that game again and check if the issue is resolved or not.
Eset Nod32
ESET NOD32 mostly marks application files as spiteful and those files are then secluded by it, which further causes this error and prohibits updating of the game. For this follow these steps –
Step 1. Open steam game installation directory, the default location of steam directory is C:\Program File\Steam\SteamApps\common.
Step 2. And then copy the address.
Step 3. Open ESET NOD32.
Step 4. Paste the copied location in “exclude from real time scanning”.
Step 5. Then Restart your PC and launch steam again.
Step 6. Navigate to the library category and scroll and find the name of the game which is causing the error.
Step 7. Select that game by right-clicking it, and navigate to properties option and select it.
Step 8. Click on the local files tab.
Step 9. Select the verify integrity of game files option and further steam will verify it.
Once this verification is done, launch that game again and check if the issue is resolved or not.
Kaspersky AV
Sometimes Kaspersky Flags steam game as an invader and doesn’t allow it to make any sort of interchanges on the hard drive.
To resolve this, follow these steps –
Step 1. Open this app and then find the threads and exclusions option
Step 2. Find trusted zone section and under that add steam.exe as a “trusted application”
Step 3. Then change settings to “do not restrict application activity” and also “Do not scan opened files”.
Step 4. Once this is done, then Restart your PC and launch steam again
Step 5. Navigate to the library category and scroll and find the name of the game which is causing the error.
Step 6. Select that game by right-clicking it, and navigate to properties option and select it.
Step 7. Click on the local files tab
Step 8. Select the verify integrity of game files option and further steam will verify it.
Once this verification is done, launch that game again and check if the issue is resolved or not.
Solution 2: Reset Winsock
“Winsock is a specification that defines how Windows network software should access network services”. Resetting winsock can also be a method of fixing content file locked steam error, so for this follow –
Step 1. Click and hold Windows + R keys to open the run prompt.
Step 2. Run it as an administrator, and then type – netsh winsock reset in the run window.
Step 3. Press enter and click on ok.
Step 4. Once done, Restart your device.
Check if the error still persists or not.
Solution 3: Repair Corrupt Files
Sometimes files get corrupted and because of this steam games can’t access those files, which in turn causes “Steam Content File Locked Issue” to occur. So for this users can re download the missing files or repair the corrupt files to fix the error.
Follow these steps –
Step 1. Get out of the steam game or exit it, and then go to steam directory (default location is C:\Program Files\Steam)
Step 2. Then navigate to folder logs and then open “txt”.
Step 3. When the text file opens, scroll down to the bottom of it and then search for any errors that are logging or logged into your device or the recent ones.
Step 4. search for folder named as “root”
Step 5. Reboot steam and then navigate to the downloading folder.
Step 6. In order to repair those corrupt files and remove flaws, click on the update option. Which will further update all the necessary files.
Check if the error still persists or not.
Solution 4: Relocate Steam Installation and Game Files
If the above mentioned methods weren’t of any help then you should go for this method which is relocating or changing the locations of steam installation and game files, to fix the steam error.
Follow these steps –
Step 1. Find the steam client option and then click on settings.
Step 2. Navigate to “downloads” and select “steam library folders”
Step 3. From the bottom left select “add library folder”
Step 4. then select the new location for steam.
Step 5. Now exit the steam client and navigate to steam directory ( note that the default location is C:\Program Files\Steam)
Step 6. Remove the exe and delete all the files excluding folders like : user data and steamapp
Step 7. Move these excluded folders or files to the new location you selected or specified in step 4.
Step 8. Re launch steam and log in into it and check whether error still persists or not.
If error still exists or any error is caused while moving folders and files to the new specified location, then to solve this follow –
Step 1. Exit steam and find the location where you’ve relocated the steam
Step 2. Then relocate steamapp folder from the directory and place it on your desktop
Step 3. Uninstall steam application and this is executed in order to remove old steam settings from your device.
Step 4. Re- Install steam to the location you selected earlier.
Step 5. Place the steamapps folder to the new steam directory. Which will copy all the game content you had, earlier saved games and settings as well.
Step 6. Open steam again and details it requires.
Step 7. Verify the integrity of steam game files and then you can see that error doesn’t occur anymore.
Solution 5: Check Disk Scan
Sometimes the hard drive that consists of the installed game gets corrupted and ends up getting slowed and can’t be accessed fully. Which can cause this steam error to occur. However running a “disc check scan ” can be helpful in this situation. To run disc check scan, follow these steps –
Step 1. Press and hold Windows + R keys and run prompt appears.
Step 2. Type cmd in that and right click the command prompt result and further click on ” run as administrator”
Step 3. Then type – chkdsk c: /f and press the Enter key.
Step 4. Click and hold the Y key which further confirms the scheduling of a disk check scanning process.
Once the scanning is done, check if the error still persists or not.
Solution 6: Run as Administrator
At times Steam requires few permissions to be granted so that it can access folders and files. If those permissions are not given, it can get blocked by windows and can’t access folders or files and end up causing the steam error to pop up. So to solve this, running as an administrator can help !
Therefore, follow these steps –
Step 1. Right click on the steam application and then navigate to properties option
Step 2. Go to the compatibility tab and find run as administrator option, and then click on that option.
Step 3. Once done, select apply button and click ok
Step 4. Launch steam application.
Check if the error is resolved or not.
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Conclusion
Steam applications keep updating their tools and features so that their application can be user friendly and can have an easy to interact interface. But users face errors while updating or playing their games and the message – “content file locked” then pops up. Users may find it a complicated error to solve but it is actually pretty simple with very easy to execute error fixing methods. Hope these above mentioned methods of fixing “steam Content File Locked error” can be of great help to you.
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