[FIXED] Cant join friend but can join others

[Johnny]

As many of you, I too was having the issue where I could join a random team and they could join me but I could not join a steam friend.

I tried all the different tricks of turning off cross play, choosing public match making and so on. For me making an outgoing exception in the windows defender firewall fixed the issue. One of my friends had to do it too, one did not. So if you apply this fix and you still can't join your friend they may need to do the fix as well. Make sure you restart the game after. I'm on a windows 11 rig. Hope this helps you all.

-Open Windows Defender Firewall:
Go to the Control Panel.
Click on "System and Security."
Then click on "Windows Defender Firewall."

-Advanced Settings:
On the left panel, click on "Advanced settings." This will open the Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security window.

-Create a New Outbound Rule:
In the left panel, click on "Outbound Rules."
In the right panel, click on "New Rule..." This will open the New Outbound Rule Wizard.

-Select Rule Type:
Select "Program" and click "Next."

Specify Program Path:
Select "This program path:" and click "Browse...".
Navigate to the folder you want to whitelist and select it. (Drive>Program Files (x86)>Steam>steamapps>common>Helldivers 2>Bin>Helldivers2.exe
Click "Next."

-Action:
Select "Allow the connection" and click "Next."

-Profile:
Choose when this rule applies (you can select all three: Domain, Private, and Public).
Click "Next."

-Name and Description:
Give your rule a name and description (optional).
Click "Finish."

Info found on Reddit. Tried to post the link but steam doesn't like it