SteamCMD

SteamCMD can sometimes output errors when something goes wrong. Sadly Valve has never released an official list of what the error messages mean. Because of this, a lot of guesswork has been needed to figure it out. This page will highlight what we already know and info on researching what the error might mean in the hope that you can contribute to understanding SteamCMD errors.

SteamCMD uses hexadecimal numbers to give its current "state". Every time SteamCMD does something it changes its state. When SteamCMD fails it will output its has hexadecimal state, for example 0x202.

Codes

Error 0x202

Not enough disk space.

Error! App '<appid_number>' state is 0x202 after update job.

Error 0x206

Error! App '<appid_number>' state is 0x206 after update job.

Error 0x212

Not enough disk space.

Error! App '<appid_number>' state is 0x212 after update job.

Error 0x402

Connection issue with steam, you will need to wait for the steam servers to recover.

Error! State is 0x402 after update job.

Error 0x602

Error! State is 0x602 after update job.

Error 0x606

SteamCMD is unable to write to the disk. Normally caused by permissions issues. This issue was discovered when a directory that was linked using symlink did not have the correct permissions to allow SteamCMD to write to it.

Error! App '<appid_number>' state is 0x606 after update job.

Error 0x2

Error! App '<appid_number>' state is is 0x2 after update job.

Error 0x6

No connection to content servers.

Error! App '<appid_number>' state is 0x6 after update job.

0x3

Update state (0x3) reconfiguring, progress: 0.00 (0 / 0)

0x5

Update state (0x5) validating, progress: 13.48 (1554089956 / 11530459441)

0x11

Update state (0x11) preallocating, progress: 8.53 (983870089 / 11530459441)

0x61

Update state (0x61) downloading, progress: 1.11 (127644881 / 11530459441)

0x101

 Update state (0x101) committing, progress: 3.43 (395043827 / 11530459441)

SteamCMD Logs

To get more info and output see the SteamCMD logs in ~/.local/share/Steam/logsor ~/.steam/logs. The most useful log is content_log.txt that will provide more information on errors.

SteamCMD Hex Codes

SteamCMD uses hex error codes such as 0x202 which can be converted into decimal 514. You can use a hex to decimal converter to do this. Using the table below you can work out that the status messages. By doing a calculation. Find the highest number below the state 512 which is the first error. Then take the number away from the total 514-512=2 which gives you the last error. This can be done for any error

514-512-2=0

512 StateUpdateRunning , 2 StateUpdateRequired

This table is from 2015 and is probably outdated now but it's the best we currently have.

ulimit SteamCMD startup error

./steamcmd.sh: line 17: ulimit: open files: cannot modify limit: Operation not permitted

Some users may get a ulimit error (no permission/cannot open file) while SteamCMD is starting up. This error caused by a low setting of the -n parameter (number of file descriptors) of ulimit. Some servers forbid increasing ulimit values after startup (or beyond a limit set by root). This can be fixed by changing the file descriptor number ulimit:

ulimit -n 2048

ERROR! Failed to install app '<appid_number>' (No subscription)

The Steam account being used does not have a license for the required game.

ERROR! Password check for AppId <appid_number> returned error Failure.

The password for the branch is incorrect.

[S_API FAIL] SteamAPI_Init() failed; SteamAPI_IsSteamRunning() failed.

Ignore the error, do not do anything to attempt to fix it. It is a known error that has appeared ever since SteamPipe was introduced. It does not cause any issue and can be ignored.

Loading Steam API...Failed to init SDL priority manager: SDL not found

Ignore the error, do not do anything to attempt to fix it. It does not cause any issue and can be ignored.

CWorkThreadPool::~CWorkThreadPool: work processing queue not empty: 2 items discarded.

Ignore the error, do not do anything to attempt to fix it. It does not cause any issue and can be ignored.

Failed to set thread priority: per-thread setup failed

Ignore the error, do not do anything to attempt to fix it. It does not cause any issue and can be ignored.