Whether you never left or are a brand new player, you’re gonna have a hard time playing Team Fortress 2 if you consistently hit a queue canceling error. Though errors like this have existed in TF2 for as long as it’s been around, new errors that break the game arise now and again. Here’s how to fix the Team Fortress 2 queue that keeps canceling error.
Related: If you want to know whether the TF2 servers are shutting down on October 10, 2023, you need to read the article I wrote on Attack of the Fanboy.
All fixes to queue canceling in Team Fortress 2
If you’re stuck on a queue loading screen with no progress being made, then you’re experiencing this nameless Team Fortress 2 queue bug that we’ll address in this guide. There are three simple solutions that might fix your queue loading error in TF2 and one final fix that you can try if nothing else works. Either way, by the time you’re done reading this, you’ll have fixed your queue canceling error and be able to play TF2 again.
Restart TF2
The first fix is an easy one: close out of TF2 and boot it up again. If you’re stuck on a TF2 queue loading screen that won’t continue, press the windows button, right-click TF2, and close it.
Sometimes, a quick refresh like this is enough to fix little bugs. If this works for you, great! If not, there are more potential fixes to try.
Power cycle your PC
Next, you need to try power cycling your PC. This sounds a lot more dangerous than it actually is. To power cycle your PC, all you need to do is shut it down completely, wait a few seconds, unplug the power cable, wait a few seconds, and then plug the power back in and turn your PC on.
As silly as it sounds, turning off and on your PC usually fixes minor errors like this. However, if you’re still experiencing a failed queue time, continue reading.
Join competitive matchmaking or your friend’s hosted game and leave
Lots of players on Steam community discussion threads have reported that if you join a friend’s hosted game, go through the queue loading screen, and then leave, the glitched queue error can be fixed.
The same thing has reportedly worked when you join a competitive matchmaking game and then leave. For some reason, doing this can reset your party and allow you to get past a broken queue screen.
Verify and delete your TF2 cache
If none of the potential fixes above worked for you, the last fix you can try is verifying and deleting your TF2 cache. To do this, follow the following steps:
- Select Team Fortress 2 in your Steam library
- Select the Settings icon on the left side of the screen
- Select “Installed Files”
- Select “Verify integrity of game files”
Doing this can fix your TF2 error, but if it doesn’t, you can take things one step further by browsing your installed files by selecting that button. In the new folder, select the Team Fortress 2 cache file and delete “downloadcache.db” and “system32.”
Many TF2 players who have encountered this problem have reported that this was the only fix they could find for the buggy queue cancel error. Don’t worry, if you delete something you shouldn’t have, you can always delete the game and redownload it and all your progress will still be saved.
Wait for Valve to fix the issue
If none of these fixes work, then sadly, you need to wait for Valve to implement a patch that fixes this issue. While that could take a long time, Valve is seemingly back to regular updates with Team Fortress 2, so the wait might not be that long.
Now that you know how to fix your queue loading error in Team Fortress 2, you can look forward to playing all the new maps released in the Summer 2023 update.
