Validating files...over..and over...and over again

[JonWood007]

Ok, so for the last week or so, steam has been acting really screwy. I can't access half my game library because when I do, Steam wants to validate the files. But when the files are done validating, the game never starts. So I hit play again, and I it tries to validate the files again. I can never start the games it affects.

Here is a list of games this problem is affecting to my knowledge:

Team Fortress 2
Day fo Defeat Source
Counter Strike Source
Half Life 2 Deathmatch
Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead 2
All HL2 mods installed (Goldeneye Source and Black Mesa Source)
Call of Duty Black Ops
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3

It does not affect my other valve games (HL2 and its episodes, Portal, Portal 2, or CSGO). It also does not affect MW2. Likewise, the other games I've tried like Rage, Borderlands 2, Skyrim, and Fallout 3 New Vegas all seem to work fine. So at the moment, it seems limited to certain source games and certain COD games.

The problem began when TF2 randomly decided to redownload like 3 GB of the game. Seeing how it updated fine on my laptop, I decided to uninstall TF2 and reinstall via a backup. I had issues with the TF2 backup using DVDs, so I ended up manually transferring the TF2 files to my computer. I hit reinstall TF2 and it recognized the files fine. However, when I tried to boot up the game, Steam tried to validate the files. And then after I let it do it's thing, the problem above happened.

I then tried the various solutions:

Reinstalling TF2 via an actual backup
Manually validating the games
Defragging the games
Deleting Clientregistry.blob
Deleting everything except my steamapps folder and the steam executable in order to "refresh steam"
Backing up the steamapps folder and doing a fresh install of steam
Testing my hard drive to determine if something was wrong with it, seems good

After I did this, I noticed some of my games needed to download patches, and Red Orchestra seemed to need to redownload. Since some of my games did not seem to come back right away, I tested some of them. Some worked, but Black Ops and MW3 then began to experience the bug. And yesterday, I tested more games, and came up with the list above.

I don't know what to do. I've reinstalled MW3 and Black Ops from scratch, it did not help. I tried to refresh steam again, but that did not help, and I don't know how to fix the problem. I dont want to have to redownload half my library since i only got a 1 mbps connection and that would take weeks, with no guarantee it would solve my problems. Heck, given that reinstalling TF2, Black Ops, and MW3 didn't fix it, I doubr that doing that would fix it either. I'm clueless. I'm stumped. I don't know what to do, and what the problem is. It's been driving me nuts all week. Help?

[JonWood007]

Hmm, I think my problem is a bit different than that. After preparing to launch, it tries validating game files, and then when it's done, never opens the game. I try to boot the game again, and it keeps validating files.

I went through your list of stuff

1) I repaired my .NET framework, and installed to a new version. I suspected installing Borderlands 2 last week may have done something to it, because it tried to reinstall it but failed for some reason. However, upon repairing and updating, no change.

2) Driver problems could be related. Right before it began happening, I did upgrade from a HD 5850 to a GTX 580. However, my drivers are up to date, I ran dxdiag, no problems. I did find some remnants of catalyst on my system, which i tend removed entirely. No change. I'm all up to date on this front. Heck, my crap is more up to date than what's on that steam page. It is possible the reason said games don't work is because they're still looking for a 5850, but idk how to fix this. I already installed TF2, Black Ops, and MW3 entirely, no change.

3) I tried validating game cache files before, it does nothing. I also used Day of Defeat Source as a testbed here for it. I tried the suggestion of renaming my game folder, and it made another one. And then it tried to validate again. I did notice, looking at my Black Ops and MW3 folders, the executable keeps being reupdated every time I validate. It literally deletes iw5mp.exe and redownloads it every time I try to run MW3 and does something similar for Black Ops. I don't know what the problem is. I also tried installing from scratch yesterday, installed from the dvd and then downloaded the updayes. But um...yeah, manually validating and defragging does nothing.

4) Disabled the background stuff, restarted with selective startup, no change.

5) I got a Phenom II X4 965. I know I'm good to go as far as SSE goes.

6) As I said, as far as I know, everything is up to date.

[Kiya]

Check that your anti virus is not quarantining/blocking/deleting the files that are required.

[coolbiker]

Is there any kind of tweaking able with the driver software. Maybe special settings you can do with those games? Half life could just be programed better and be more flexible to hardware changes.

If the graphics card was the major change I'd think to email the card and see if they've had problems[with the games in question]. I was thinking its an Nvidia vs ATI and you may need to redownload the games to support the cards.

You might want to if it wasn't specified just make sure if theres a file built around it in saves that you remove it so it has to scan the pc again. Just make sure to backup your saves if you deside to try moving them out when you clean install the game programs.

[JonWood007]

Avast would've given me warning I think if it were blocking anything. I also tried disabling the AV temporarily and testing MW3...same crap.

The thing about the GPU tho is that it's a second hand used GPU. My friend recently upgraded to SLI 680s and he gave me his old 580. So it's not like I bought the card. I'll do more research into the potential effects of switching from ATI to Nvidia. I did reinstall MW3 and BO though....although I think some files may have been left behind. I'll need to figure out what those files are and delete them.

Oh, one more think I keep forgetting to mention, the single player for BO and MW3 run fine, it's just the multiplayer that's been acting up.

[SirJohnHawkwood]

Age of Empires NFG

[JonWood007]

I think you're in the wrong topic.

[JonWood007]

No, downloads are totally impractical because I have a 1 mbps connection. It takes like 3 hours just to download 1 GB. To do what you're suggesting would literally take weeks of nonstop downloading. I am making backups on my laptop right now. I'm gonna totally remove steam, totally remove all my games, and then reinstall everything from scratch.

Considering how I did a fresh install of Black Ops and MW3 from the retail disk and then let steam apply the patches, and how that did not fix the problem, I don't think that redownloading a whole game would be helpful, and it would be painfully time consuming. So I'm gonna go with backups from the PC that works, and then flat out wiping everything on the one that doesn't.

[JonWood007]

Yeah, I was gonna do something like that. Thanks.

[HOLD W WIN GAME]

BUMP!

[JonWood007]

Um...yeah. You're gonna have to delete your entire steam folder and reinstall everything. It sucks, but this is what fixed it for me.

[Zynobyte]

this happen to me too but not tf2 but csgo when i shut down my computer once and open it again it validates and its ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥ so thats why i got a 7day competitive cooldown because of that validating

[adeviouskorean]

are downloading these games on a D: drive?

[JonWood007]

This is an 8 year old thread. I haven't had this issue in years and I've been using a different windows install more recently.

[JB?]

Originally posted by JonWood007:

Ok, so for the last week or so, steam has been acting really screwy. I can't access half my game library because when I do, Steam wants to validate the files. But when the files are done validating, the game never starts. So I hit play again, and I it tries to validate the files again. I can never start the games it affects.

Here is a list of games this problem is affecting to my knowledge:

Team Fortress 2
Day fo Defeat Source
Counter Strike Source
Half Life 2 Deathmatch
Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead 2
All HL2 mods installed (Goldeneye Source and Black Mesa Source)
Call of Duty Black Ops
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3

It does not affect my other valve games (HL2 and its episodes, Portal, Portal 2, or CSGO). It also does not affect MW2. Likewise, the other games I've tried like Rage, Borderlands 2, Skyrim, and Fallout 3 New Vegas all seem to work fine. So at the moment, it seems limited to certain source games and certain COD games.

The problem began when TF2 randomly decided to redownload like 3 GB of the game. Seeing how it updated fine on my laptop, I decided to uninstall TF2 and reinstall via a backup. I had issues with the TF2 backup using DVDs, so I ended up manually transferring the TF2 files to my computer. I hit reinstall TF2 and it recognized the files fine. However, when I tried to boot up the game, Steam tried to validate the files. And then after I let it do it's thing, the problem above happened.

I then tried the various solutions:

Reinstalling TF2 via an actual backup
Manually validating the games
Defragging the games
Deleting Clientregistry.blob
Deleting everything except my steamapps folder and the steam executable in order to "refresh steam"
Backing up the steamapps folder and doing a fresh install of steam
Testing my hard drive to determine if something was wrong with it, seems good

After I did this, I noticed some of my games needed to download patches, and Red Orchestra seemed to need to redownload. Since some of my games did not seem to come back right away, I tested some of them. Some worked, but Black Ops and MW3 then began to experience the bug. And yesterday, I tested more games, and came up with the list above.

I don't know what to do. I've reinstalled MW3 and Black Ops from scratch, it did not help. I tried to refresh steam again, but that did not help, and I don't know how to fix the problem. I dont want to have to redownload half my library since i only got a 1 mbps connection and that would take weeks, with no guarantee it would solve my problems. Heck, given that reinstalling TF2, Black Ops, and MW3 didn't fix it, I doubr that doing that would fix it either. I'm clueless. I'm stumped. I don't know what to do, and what the problem is. It's been driving me nuts all week. Help?

-So i fixed my issue with MW I dont feel like typing a 3 page essay, so I wont go in to detail in text, If you still need help I can talk with yall ♥♥♥♥♥♥ in discord. But i Port forwarded my DNS as a port in windows firewall, then i selected my external docking station in device manager (under disk drives, and yes i use an external docking station) and changed the settings under properties > Policies > Better performance and turn-off windows cache buffer... It fixed my checking for updates issue on MW (2019) and my validationg files on bo3.

[76561199181522831]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.