Can't sign into friends with 'old' steam.

[🇰🇵Burner🇰🇵]

I am launching steam with the -vgui argument which removes all the design and style regressions that have recently appeared.

This works for the most part, with the exception that I can no longer sign into the steam friends network.

"
FRIENDS NETWORK UNREACHABLE
This failure may indicate that your local network is offline or that the Steam Friends servers are currently offline.
"

Of course, if I start steam without the -vgui argument, the steam friends network signs in, but then I am subjected to the various bugs and style changes that I dislike.

Does anyone know how to resolve this?

[RetroRichter]

I have the same problem, did you find any solution?

[🇰🇵Burner🇰🇵]

No, I just haven't been able to sign into the friends system

[Crazy Tiger]

You might want to consider that this is intentional, as Valve likely will slowly phase out that workaround towards the old UI.

[AmsterdamHeavy]

Lets draw conclusions from this...such as "-vgui wont be working for very long".

[Knightspace]

Valve wants to force you to use their godawful, horrible new UI.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

This is intentional behavior, yes.

[🇰🇵Burner🇰🇵]

Well, at least the new UI has created a surge of activity in the open source replacement clients.

I hope that -vgui support will last long enough for me to jump ship to one when they are more feature complete.

[Watermelon {JESUS IS LORD}]

ya i use old steam on my win7 vm and cant sign into friends there either

[T@F]

Instead of signing in,have you tried clicking friends at the top of steam and just click online?
Then click view friends.
See if that works.

[🇰🇵Burner🇰🇵]

Nice idea, however the same problem persists

[PonyKisser:3]

Bumping because it was working last night and not today

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by Nitro Blitzen:

Bumping because it was working last night and not today

Old UI can no longer use Friends & Chat.

Feel free to use a regular browser or mobile chat app to use the chat.

[PonyKisser:3]

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Originally posted by Nitro Blitzen:

Bumping because it was working last night and not today

Old UI can no longer use Friends & Chat.

Feel free to use a regular browser or mobile chat app to use the chat.

:summercat2023:

The chat isnt the problem, its using the steam friends to invite and join games and such i need

[🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊]

Most likely this will not be fixed and can not be fixed. Anyone using an older version of the steam client should become comfortable with the reality that they will most likely never have access to Friends again.

The actual "Fix" for this is to update to the latest version of the steam client where Friends still works.

[Mountain Months]

Originally posted by Burner:

Well, at least the new UI has created a surge of activity in the open source replacement clients.

I hope that -vgui support will last long enough for me to jump ship to one when they are more feature complete.

wait what? open source client? where?