CURSE YOU STEEEEAAAAAAM!

[Grickles]

I was hoping you guys could help me because I'm fresh out of ideas. I recently bought Spec Ops: The Line (because you know I've been feeling so happy recently and we can't be having that). I returned home triumphant from my quest and quickly began to install it onto my steam account, so far so good. The install reaches 99%, the excitement is too much to bare, almost...almost WHEN SUDDENLY my computer turns off. You see it seems in my excitement about playing the game I had failed to notice that I had run out of battery. Quickly I plugged my computer back in and turned it on. "Oh thank god the install suspended at 99%, I'll just unsuspend and..." [error, could not install] "what, no no no NO" but unfortunately no matter how many times I tried the game just would not install. annoyed I uninstall the game planning to re-install, annoying I admit but I was willing to wait. So I clicked install WHEN SUDDENLY what do you know up pops on my screen but "[could not Install: more disk space required]", "ummm no Steam" I think to my self "you're wrong, I have 270 GB free". but Steam being the stubborn program it is would not listen to my words, and continually I was blocked by "[could not Install: more disk space required]". "Fine" I say in an exasperated tone, I uninstall some of the bigger games that I am no longer playing but STILL Steam would not allow me to pass GO.

TL;DR Steam's an asshole that doesn't like me

Does anyone a solution they could post before I curb stomp my computer? (I'm using Windows 7 for any who were wondering)


I know that was allot to read so here's a picture of a kitten as an apology

[AdmiralMemo]

Can you delete local content on Spec Ops and then try installing again?

[Kapol]

I'd suggest right-clicking the game and using the properties to try getting rid of any local content. If not, check your programs and see if it shows up there. At that point, if it's not working, I think it'd be best to contact Steam Support about the issue.

[Grickles]

I checked properties; Local Files and there is nothing there

[Grickles]

Can you delete local content on Spec Ops and then try installing again?

just tried it, didn't work unfortunately

[Jimor]

Sounds like the shutdown during an operation might have gotten something out of synch for how your computer reports memory. Might have to do a disc scan and/or defrag to clear things up.

[AdmiralMemo]

Try shutting down Steam, deleting the folder manually, and booting it up again.

[empath]

Jimor's got a point - you might wanna take an hour or two aside (preferably while you don't need the computer for anything) and run Error-checking on that hard drive.

[Grickles]

ok I'll try scanning my C Drive. Defragging didn't do anything as far as i can see

[Grickles]

Sounds like the shutdown during an operation might have gotten something out of synch for how your computer reports memory. Might have to do a disc scan and/or defrag to clear things up.

Jimor's got a point - you might wanna take an hour or two aside (preferably while you don't need the computer for anything) and run Error-checking on that hard drive.

Thanks for the ideas guys but it didn't work, the game is about 7Gb by the way. Again thanks for everyone's help

[Kapol]

Again, I recommend emailing Steam tech support if you haven't already. The only other thing I can think of is to uninstall Steam and reinstall the program.

though I feel it's worth asking, can you download and install other games? I

[Myrph]

As Steam likes to regularly corrupt itself at the drop of a hat, there's a remarkably simple way of smacking it upside the head and telling it to get its act together.

Please note, as drastic as the following advice may seem, it does work and is recommended by Steam support as a solution for some more troublesome issue.

Open 'My Computer' and on the hard drive you have Steam installed, find the Steam directory (something like C:\Program Files\Steam). Among other things, it should contain the main Steam.exe executable and a folder called SteamApps. These two items are important as they are where all your games are saved and the programme you need to run to play them.
Now here comes the fun step. In the Steam directory, select absolutely everything EXCEPT Steam.exe and the SteamApps folder and delete it. At the end all that should remain is one folder, one exe file. Assuming you have a few games installed, if you try to accidentally delete the SteamApps folder it will probably throw up a warning that a file is too large for the Recycle Bin, but be careful all the same, you don't want to have to redownload your entire library.
Now run Steam either through the exe file or through your regular shortcut. When it tries to load, it will notice everything is missing and perform a complete clean reinstall of the client that ought to solve all your problems, without removing all your games at the same time or retaining any old corrupt files.

If at the end things are still screwy, you've got a major problem and you should seek professional help!

[empath]

Yeah, I was going to mention this once it had been ascertained that the issue wasn't hardware (thank you scandisk.exe).

Another variant is "copy your \SteamApps folder to another location on your hard drive, then delete everything under \Steam and reinstall Steam itself"; one I did several times while I had issues with DXHR & Steam (and it later turned out my ISP *growl* )


If we're lucky, the interrupted install resulted in creating a bad sector on the hard drive, that Steam kept trying to access (even after deleting the game, it would try to reinstall to the same location on your h/d). the Error-Checking would automatically resolve any bad sectors (try to copy any data to another location and adjust your FAT accordingly, whilst also marking the problem sector in said FAT as "unavailable; just skip it", so THEN, if you wipe Steam and reinstall, it should set itself up around that 'hole in your hard drive' and everything will be hunky-dory. *hope*

[Grickles]

As Steam likes to regularly corrupt itself at the drop of a hat, there's a remarkably simple way of smacking it upside the head and telling it to get its act together.

Please note, as drastic as the following advice may seem, it does work and is recommended by Steam support as a solution for some more troublesome issue.

Open 'My Computer' and on the hard drive you have Steam installed, find the Steam directory (something like C:\Program Files\Steam). Among other things, it should contain the main Steam.exe executable and a folder called SteamApps. These two items are important as they are where all your games are saved and the programme you need to run to play them.
Now here comes the fun step. In the Steam directory, select absolutely everything EXCEPT Steam.exe and the SteamApps folder and delete it. At the end all that should remain is one folder, one exe file. Assuming you have a few games installed, if you try to accidentally delete the SteamApps folder it will probably throw up a warning that a file is too large for the Recycle Bin, but be careful all the same, you don't want to have to redownload your entire library.
Now run Steam either through the exe file or through your regular shortcut. When it tries to load, it will notice everything is missing and perform a complete clean reinstall of the client that ought to solve all your problems, without removing all your games at the same time or retaining any old corrupt files.

If at the end things are still screwy, you've got a major problem and you should seek professional help!

well I've found both but the .exe file is called steam.exe.old is that a problem?

[Darkobra]

Another variant is "copy your \SteamApps folder to another location on your hard drive, then delete everything under \Steam and reinstall Steam itself"; one I did several times while I had issues with DXHR & Steam (and it later turned out my ISP *growl* )

You'll be glad to know my internet has increased exponentially in speed since then.

[Drecon]

Ugh, just bought Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014 and guess what, the game crashes on startup... I hope there's gonna be a fix for that soon... I really wanna just play the game.

[empath]

...so has mine.

And Grickles - there's no "Steam.exe"? This could well be the crux of the issue. You might just have to reinstall Steam from the website (which Myrph's method skips the time-consuming step 1 of downloading the core executable and starts with step 2 ).

You *might* want to move that \SteamApps\ folder to a different location - maybe make a directory C:\holding\ (or similar) and drag it to there...depending on how many games you've got installed moving (or copying) it might take a while. But keeping the installed game files somewhere else a) will save time when it comes to reinstalling things, b) possibly resolve any 'bad sector' issues of game files being physically located near hard drive glitches (that can occur when the power is interrupted while it's trying to write to itself).

Oh, and before you go ahead and wipe Steam, if there's any games within Steam that you're pretty sure you don't play anymore, you MIGHT wanna consider a preparatory step of "delete local content" on them before you do all this - more free hard drive space is ALWAYS good, Steam will spend less time & bandwidth because it won't be patching/updating games that you're no longer interested in, and it'll make moving \SteamApps\ faster.

Again, hope this irons out the kinks! *crosses fingers*

[tamaness]

Ugh, just bought Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014 and guess what, the game crashes on startup... I hope there's gonna be a fix for that soon... I really wanna just play the game.

Neither of my computers can start the game, as it requires hardware rendering support that VirtualBox can't emulate, and my Windows system will never have (Intel 945GM graphics from 2006). I've got to find a Windows computer to borrow so I can get my promo code. Fortunately, the game works just peachy on my 360.

[Grickles]

As Steam likes to regularly corrupt itself at the drop of a hat, there's a remarkably simple way of smacking it upside the head and telling it to get its act together.

Please note, as drastic as the following advice may seem, it does work and is recommended by Steam support as a solution for some more troublesome issue.

Open 'My Computer' and on the hard drive you have Steam installed, find the Steam directory (something like C:\Program Files\Steam). Among other things, it should contain the main Steam.exe executable and a folder called SteamApps. These two items are important as they are where all your games are saved and the programme you need to run to play them.
Now here comes the fun step. In the Steam directory, select absolutely everything EXCEPT Steam.exe and the SteamApps folder and delete it. At the end all that should remain is one folder, one exe file. Assuming you have a few games installed, if you try to accidentally delete the SteamApps folder it will probably throw up a warning that a file is too large for the Recycle Bin, but be careful all the same, you don't want to have to redownload your entire library.
Now run Steam either through the exe file or through your regular shortcut. When it tries to load, it will notice everything is missing and perform a complete clean reinstall of the client that ought to solve all your problems, without removing all your games at the same time or retaining any old corrupt files.

If at the end things are still screwy, you've got a major problem and you should seek professional help!

Yeah, I was going to mention this once it had been ascertained that the issue wasn't hardware (thank you scandisk.exe).

Another variant is "copy your \SteamApps folder to another location on your hard drive, then delete everything under \Steam and reinstall Steam itself"; one I did several times while I had issues with DXHR & Steam (and it later turned out my ISP *growl* )


If we're lucky, the interrupted install resulted in creating a bad sector on the hard drive, that Steam kept trying to access (even after deleting the game, it would try to reinstall to the same location on your h/d). the Error-Checking would automatically resolve any bad sectors (try to copy any data to another location and adjust your FAT accordingly, whilst also marking the problem sector in said FAT as "unavailable; just skip it", so THEN, if you wipe Steam and reinstall, it should set itself up around that 'hole in your hard drive' and everything will be hunky-dory. *hope*

IT WORKED, IT WORKED! Thank you so much, I don't know what I would have done with out you.

[Grickles]

Thanks to everyone for helping out, You're all awarded the medal of being FUCKING AMAZING

[empath]

Heh, only because we'd suffered through these problems ourselves previously!

Heck, look back through the venting threads back when Deux Ex Human Revolution was released, and I'm sure you'll discover MY 'adventure through Steam's dark side'.

But I'm both happy and relieved that you're up and running again! Just remember to pay it forward by helping someone else out in the future.

[Geoff_B]

And now you have a piece of hard disk you can't use