Watch Friend from Client Sucks - How to watch from Web login?

[Devias]

I've been trying to Watch friends broadcasts from the Steam client for a couple of weeks and it's been basically broken with "unable to start broadcast". I also can't upload any images to their chat channel - always fails with Unable to Upload. Tells me that this Watch Game from within the Steam client is just broken.

Used to work great 6 months ago. So as an alternative, I logged into Steam via Chrome and was able to watch the broadcast from there.

Now, today, I can Watch a friend from the Steam Client, but it sucks. Cuts out constantly, pauses over and over again, basically garbage. We're a few blocks away both on high speed 200mbit down/20mbit up connections so it's not our broadcasting or receiving capabilities.

However I can't find the option to Watch them from the Steam/Chrome website anymore. I'd like to do that because the Client version doesn't work very well.

I'm just watching a friend play a turn based game so it's not like I'm trying to keep up with him playing a FPS at 100fps. It just cuts out constantly with that glowing purple Steam icon, and as I said months ago it worked fine and when it broke a few weeks ago, it worked fine from the website.

What happened to that option? I can't find it anywhere when I'm logged into the website.

[аdvicebanana]

https://steamcommunity.com/broadcast/watch/x

where x is the profile number starting with 7656 of the person you want to watch. For me it'd be https://steamcommunity.com/broadcast/watch/76561197983311223 for example

[golimarrrr]

Do they need to activate streaming beforehand? If I use that URL it says "That streamer is offline"

[ElvisDeadly]

Originally posted by golimarrrr:

Do they need to activate streaming beforehand? If I use that URL it says "That streamer is offline"

Well, yes... of course they do. You can't watch a stream that doesn't exist, the user has to be currently streaming.

It isn't just a link to view whatevers on that users screen right now whether they like it or not

[golimarrrr]

Well, no. I just tried and they get a popup asking if to allow it or not. So the player does not have to activate streaming beforehand. I guess both options are available.