Can't uninstall games with "Delete local content"

Question

I'm trying to uninstall Portal 2 from my local copy of Steam, using the right click->Delete Local Content menu option. Upon selecting this, a dialog is presented confirming the delete, followed by an "Uninstalling Portal 2" dialog that disappears after a few seconds. No error messages are presented in the GUI, but the game remains.

I took a look at the system log (tail -f /var/log/system.log), and noticed the following messages that occur every time I try to uninstall:

Sep 19 12:04:10 gladys [0x0-0x7d37d3].com.valvesoftware.steam[25900]: Failed to create Service pipe
Sep 19 12:04:10 gladys [0x0-0x7d37d3].com.valvesoftware.steam[25900]: Failed to connect to Steam Service
Sep 19 12:04:10 gladys [0x0-0x7d37d3].com.valvesoftware.steam[25900]: Failed to load Steam Service
Sep 19 12:04:10 gladys [0x0-0x7d37d3].com.valvesoftware.steam[25900]: ServiceStart: failed to start

The game has been in, and remains in, "Download paused" state. It had been completely downloaded at one point, and played.

Can anyone assist me in successfully uninstalling the game?

Answer 1

Try redownloading Steam. If that does not work, there is a directory where most of the Portal 2 game files are located. Navigate to:

~/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/portal 2/

Then, delete the "portal 2" inside /common/, the whole folder, not "portal2" in the "portal 2" folder.

One warning here, OS X 10.7 and above hide the Library folder in your Home (user) folder. This is different from Libraries and different from Library in the top level of your drive. To permanently show the Library folder, use Terminal:

chflags nohidden ~/Library/

Alternatively, one may hold option while in the Go menu and click on Library, or use the Go To... command in Go and type ~/Library/. This is only temporary.