solved (?) - see #2
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okay so i went to do a fresh install of tf2 and now for whatever reason it won't download all the way. it seems normal from start to finish as if you were downloading any steam game, but it is evident it didn't actually install fully given that hl2.exe isn't even there. upon further inspection, the downloading tab on steam says "x GB / 6.7 GB", and if I remember right it's more like 11-13 gb. that is the process that occurs each attempt despite the following:
steps i've tried so far for troubleshooting (on missing executable, no disk space, game won't install/update)
- verified integrity of game files
- deleted appcache
- flushed steam config
- ran as administrator
- changed download region
- reinstalled steam
- cleared registry of any valve/steam keys
- restarted computer
- changed download region
- disabled antivirus
- disabled firewall
- opting in/out of steam beta
- defragmenting
some stuff i was reading mentioned the appmanifest file, and my appmanifest_440.acf contains the entry "BytesToDownload" with the value 7235153328, which is equivalent to that 6.7 gb i mentioned earlier that shows up on the downloads tab. however, when clicking to install the game and it tells me the "required disk space" on the first dialog box, its in the 13 billion bytes. but somewhere between there and when it says "preparing files for download" / "calculating disk space", it determines i only deserve 7 billion of those bytes, which isn't the complete game.
anyone had this issue and or know how to fix it? also any leads on what else to try to troubleshoot it would be much appreciated
edit: added other stuff i tried