Deadlock “Replay Not Ready for Download”: What It Means and What to Do

If Deadlock shows “Replay Not Ready for Download” (or “Error replay not yet ready for download”), the safest first move is simple: don’t assume the replay is gone, and don’t reinstall the game yet.

The message can appear when a recent replay genuinely isn’t available yet. Sometimes, though, the game simply hasn’t refreshed its status: reopening the match, opening another match first, searching the Match ID from Watch, or restarting the game can make the download button appear.

The useful question is not just “what does the error say?” but does it affect one match or every replay, and how old is the match?

A freshly completed match may not be downloadable immediately. Valve does not publish a guaranteed replay-processing time, so there is no trustworthy “wait exactly X minutes” rule.

Give it a short while, then reopen the match details and check again. If the status still looks stuck, continue with the refresh steps below.

This is the most important case because the text can be misleading.

Try the simple refresh steps below first. If they don’t work, that still doesn’t prove the replay is gone—the wording alone is not enough to diagnose the cause.

In that situation, a broken local installation is less likely, while a match-specific availability problem becomes more plausible. You still cannot know from the message alone whether the replay was never made available, is temporarily inaccessible, or has already aged out.

Replay availability is not permanent.

In our experience, Deadlock server copies are usually downloadable for roughly 10 days after the match. Treat that as a practical rule of thumb, not an official Valve retention policy. Valve does not publish a fixed ten-day guarantee, and some replay may disappear earlier or remain available longer.

This is about the server copy being available for download. It is not a timer that deletes a .dem file you have already saved locally.

So if a match matters, download the replay sooner rather than later.

Back out of the match page, open it again, and retry the download.

Sometimes this is enough to make the game refresh the replay status. It is the simplest and safest first check.

This sounds odd, but it can work: open the details for another match, back out, then reopen the target match.

It appears to force the replay availability state to refresh in some cases. Treat it as a user workaround, not a guaranteed fix.

If the match is recent and the status refuses to change, restart the game and check again.

Restarting can make the client request and display the current replay status again.

If the replay fails from Match History, copy the Match ID and look it up through the Watch interface.

Sometimes Match History says the replay is not ready while the same Match ID can be downloaded through Watch.

Again, this is a workaround for a UI/state problem. It cannot restore a replay that the server no longer has.

This is the quickest way to separate “this match” from “my whole client.”

If every replay is failing, restart the game and try again later before doing anything invasive.

Steam has a built-in Verify integrity of game files option in the installed game’s properties.

But verification checks your local installation. It cannot make a missing server-side replay appear, so it is not the best first fix when only one Match ID says “Replay Not Ready for Download.”

It makes more sense if replay problems affect many matches or the client is also showing other local errors.

“Replay Not Ready for Download” is not the same problem as #citadel_replay_manager_error_partial_decompression_failure.

The decompression error happens after the client has actually started handling replay data. It may involve replay folders, language-specific paths, mods, or .dem.partial files. Those troubleshooting steps belong to that error, not automatically to a replay that never becomes downloadable.

With partial_decompression_failure, the client is already handling downloaded data, so steps involving .dem and .dem.partial files may be relevant. That is a different failure stage.

So for the exact “not ready” message, do not start by deleting your entire replay folder. If the download never starts, there may be no useful local replay file to repair in the first place.

There are three strong warning signs:

At that point, reinstalling Deadlock over and over is unlikely to tell you anything useful.

Game updates can also make old replays incompatible or glitchy. That is a separate compatibility question: a replay is simulation data, not a video file. Redownloading the same replay does not convert it into a new-format recording.

Sometimes, yes.

If the problem is a stale availability state or a temporary server-side issue, one of the refresh methods above may make the download appear later. If the server copy has expired or was never made available, local troubleshooting cannot recreate it.