Friends not showing up as online

[blookey]

I've only recently gotten this problem but a couple searches show it's been around since 2014 and still no one's done anything about it
Essentially when I go onto my friends list some of my friends will show up as offline even if they're online and messaging me at the moment. The time it says they were last online is usually just when I opened steam/ turned on my computer (eg, I turned on my laptop 30 secs ag and it says they were last online then)
Wasn't something that I thought would matter but it means i cant add them to games and such since steam thinks theyre offline.
I've tried all the usual stuff of restarting my computer and uninstalling and reinstalling steam but nothing's changing it. It seems to have gotten worse actually since another of my friends ended up like that when they hadn't before.
There's apparently a temporary solution of blocking and unblocking friends but thats doing nothing too.
Would really appreciate any ideas for what to do because it's honestly ridiculous that I still can't find a solution four years after it was initially brought up.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Profile privacy settings changed and your friend needs to change the "Games Details" section to friend's only or public.

Are you in the Chat beta?

[wuddih]

https://steamcommunity.com/updates/chatupdate

Note: During the beta, chatting with Steam users who are NOT in the beta will be a little weird. Mainly for them. People in the non-beta Steam Client won't be able to join your group chats.

[blookey]

thank u for ur knowledge random strangers it finally works