steamcmd: app_update 222840 validate but no game files appear

[devfalafel]

FYI: I am very new to this so apologies if I couldn'tt provide the information on the original post.

Your system information

• Steam client version (build number or date): 0~20180105-4
• Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Ubuntu 22.04-LTS x64 Linux VPS
• Opted into Steam client beta?: No
• Have you checked for system updates?: Not sure which system this is referring to?
• Steam Logs: [generate by running this command in a terminal tar -zcvf ~/Desktop/steam-logs.tar.gz ~/.steam/steam/logs]

$ steamcmd +quit
ln: failed to create symbolic link '/home/steam/.steam/root': No such file or directory
ln: failed to create symbolic link '/home/steam/.steam/steam': No such file or directory
tid(3271) burning pthread_key_t == 0 so we never use it
Redirecting stderr to '/home/steam/Steam/logs/stderr.txt'
Logging directory: '/home/steam/Steam/logs'
[  0%] Checking for available updates...
[----] Verifying installation...
Steam Console Client (c) Valve Corporation - version 1705108307
-- type 'quit' to exit --
Loading Steam API...dlmopen steamservice.so failed: steamservice.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
OK

• GPU: VPS - Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E31270 @ 3.40GHz

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

I have a Left 4 Dead game server host on my VPS but I would like to re-download all the game files. I tried to download game files using steamcmd and this issue occurred before. However, I fixed it by just trying to repeat the steps below again and again until eventually I finally got the game files (Nov 2023). Today I tried to download the game files again and the same issue occurred. The issue is when running app_update 222840 validate, it installed nothing in my designated directory. Can someone help me verify what I did wrong?

Steps for reproducing this issue:

1. cd ~/home/steam/ && mkdir ./l4d
2. ./steamcmd
3. force_install_dir ./l4d
4. login anonymous
5. app_update 222840 validate -> shows success!
6. quit
7. ls ./l4d -> The dir is empty

Notes that I noticed that there is an error regarding steamservice.so but this also happened before in Nov 2023.

Please let me know if I need to provide more info. Thank you for your help!

[devfalafel]

found the issue. I had to find the abs path of my steamcmd and run this

/usr/games/steamcmd +login anonymous +force_install_dir /home/steam/l4d +app_update 222840 validate +quit

had to ignore the warning about how I should force install dir before login but it's just warning so this above should work