Friends have "View Game Info" and other options, but I don't

[Gooch]

I am missing some options when right-clicking a friends name in my Friends list but friends of mine are not. This is very strange. We are using the exact same build of steam. From Help->About we both have the build from Jul 24, 2018, at 11:30:21 with SteamAPI v018. Same Steam packager version as well: 1532458786.

When I right-click a friends name in my friends list, I only get the following options now:

[Send Message]
[View Profile]
[Trading]
[Manage]
Rust (which is the game a mutual friend is playing)
Show on Steam <-- friends are missing this but have better options, see below
Watch Game
Store page
Community Hub

But my friends have the missing options available as well:

[Send Message]
[View Profile]
[Trading]
[Manage]
Rust (which is the game a mutual friend is playing)
[Join Game] <-- I'm missing this!!!
Launch Game <-- I'm missing this!!!
Watch Game
View Game Info <-- I'm missing this!!!
Store page
Community Hub

Doing internet searches shows people complaining about it going missing in the "beta" and mention of it being back. There were a few workarounds about getting the View Game Info elsewhere (go to game in library, see icons of friends playing, then get the old syle menu that still has these options). But my friends still have this option in the friends list, which is a much better user experience than going through my library to find the specific game, then friends that are playing that game.

I also tried booting up an older machine which my daughter uses, it still had the old steam, and it worked as expected. I upgraded steam on that machine and now it has the same issue.

I also tried adding the -nochatui -nofriendsui switches to the steam shortcut and restart steam. That allows me to use the old Friends UI again, which works, but I like the new Friends stuff better, aside from this issue.

There must be something causing it not to show up for some people yet work for others. I was hoping it was a configuration setting somewhere in steam that had this side-effect as a bug. I'm hoping someone has narrowed down the cause and fix.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance, :)
Gooch

P.S. I'm using Windows 7 Service Pack 1, x64.

[Psymon²]

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/0/1743342647550158914/

me too

just tested with a friend, here's a comparison.
https://imgur.com/a/K0RQdmO

[Gooch]

Thanks for the screenshot, Psymon. A picture is worth a thousand words. :)

Which OS are you using? I read in another thread that someone was using Window 8, so it doesn't seem OS-specific.

Here's a screenshot of mine: http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b314/rodent2/steam/bugs/SteamFreindsChat_MissingOptionsForSome.png

[Psymon²]

Originally posted by Gooch:

Which OS are you using? I read in another thread that someone was using Window 8, so it doesn't seem OS-specific.

I'm on win 10.
That poor soul, win 8?? rip

[Gooch]

Haha, yeah... Win8, ouch :)

I was thinking more about this issue this morning and realized that we have an option that the others don't: "Show on Steam".

I wonder if this meams that Steam thinks were on the web interface and not the Steam interface, so it's hiding the options we want as they are not available for the web-based friends app.

I opened the web user interface for friends in my web browser (https://steamcommunity.com/chat/) and it has the same limited options. Now if we can confirm that our friends also have the same limited options on the web, then I'd say steam thinks we're using the web interface instead of the steam interface.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b314/rodent2/steam/bugs/steam_friends_web_looks_identical.png


Its just a thought. If the developers ever read these threads I'd like to hear from them :)

[Psymon²]

Originally posted by Gooch:

I wonder if this meams that Steam thinks were on the web interface and not the Steam interface, so it's hiding the options we want as they are not available for the web-based friends app.

You gave me the idea to run:
Delete Web Browser Cache
Delete All Browser Cookies

But sadly didn't change anything.

[Gooch]

I have a temporary workaround to quickly get to the Library view of your game, so you can right-click on a player there and get the old (working!) list of options:

1) create a new shortcut on your desktop
2) for the location that the shortcut points to, put in the following:

steam://nav/games/details/252490

But where the number is 252490 for me (that's Rust), put in the game ID you care about.

You can get the game ID by going to the store page for your game and looking at the URL, for example this is the store page for the game "Portal":

https://store.steampowered.com/app/400/

Ahh, steamcommunity converts the link to the buy button. hahaha... Here's the link without the beginning "https://store" part:

.steampowered.com/app/400/

so you would make your shortcut point to:
steam://nav/games/details/400

Then whenever you launch your shortcut it opens the Library in Steam and selects that game, so then you can just right-click on any of the current players on that game page in the Library to get the full menu we used to have. I keep my shortcut down in my taskbar so it's a single click to open up.

It's not a fix, but lessens the hassle of scrolling through many games to find the one you care about every time you want to see who's playing on which server or join them, etc.

[Gooch]

Another update: I installed steam on a new machine and logged in with my usual account and it works! I have the full menu on the Friends app. So, for those of us that ran into this, something must have been left behind on the machine during the upgrade from old friends app to the new one that's causing this issue.

I haven't narrowed down exactly what, though.

[Gooch]

Ok, this is my final update:

On my machine where it still has this issue, I just uninstalled steam and re-installed it and it works. Note that some of your games might be uninstalled during this process. I had to re-install Rust, and re-Accept the EULA for a few other games, but all of my other games stayed.

Since this works, I don't see the steam developers ever fixing it in the upgrade scenario (updating old steam that was still installed to the new one).

[Psymon²]

Originally posted by Gooch:

On my machine where it still has this issue, I just uninstalled steam and re-installed it and it works.

Good find, thanks for that!

Originally posted by Gooch:

Note that some of your games might be uninstalled during this process.

Which is why I haven't tried this myself 😅

[[GWJ] Keithustus]

From another post:
Open main Steam window > “View” > “Servers” > “Friends” tab > right click on server

[Gooch]

This was from 2 years ago, are people still running into it?

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by Gooch:

This was from 2 years ago, are people still running into it?

Probably not. You get a lot of posts and necros from people still thinking if they post something inane on here it counts towards a badge (which hasn't been the case for ages now).

[Psymon²]

necro aside, I still have this problem.
No option to join a game.

[Gooch]

Psymon, you still didn't want to do the uninstall/reinstall of steam in the last 2 years?

[Psymon²]

Better than that.
I bought a whole new computer, freshly installed windows 10 and steam.

still don't have the options.