Bug with friends list: Creating a new category in the friends list but not adding a player completely hides the category that you created.

[cocojack]

Just posting this here as I'm not sure where else to post this. The main problem is when you create a category such as "test" and confirm the category without adding any users, it no longer lets you create a new category with the name "test" or rename anything to "test" and instead gives an error. What I'm assuming is happening is that category actually exists since you created it, but since it has no users in it, you can't see the category anymore and delete it. One weird thing to note as I was doing this, when I had created "test3", it appeared on my list for a few seconds saying (0) like you would expect, but when I clicked on it, it disappeared, and I still can no longer rename any current category or create a new category named "test3".

Unless I'm mistaken and there is a way to remove invisible categories that I cannot see I would like to know how. Otherwise I think this is a little bit of an oversight as some may have messed up and wanted a specific name for a category and can no longer create a new one without that specific name. I believe the category is still technically there, but just invisible and I really want to delete it so I can recreate one with that name properly.

Image of error: https://i.imgur.com/iC4Qk0T.png
Image showing that I cannot see "test" in my friends list: https://i.imgur.com/7ox6Dxi.png

[cocojack]

Update: happens in the beta client as well so I went ahead and posted a thread in their steam group as well.

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta/discussions/0/1862741954440273010/

[Karsui]

Refreshing the topic, since problem still exists and there seems to be nowhere solution for it.

[IrishMerlin]

I confirm this bug still exist. This affects my game development. I created in-game friend list based off of Steamworks. I am able to see a category name showed up in my game dev project, but it's hidden in steam client. I cannot delete category from steam client. Please fix this.

[cocojack]

A little update for my situation: I remember this problem happening but it has been a while since I looked into it, and I can tell that the categories "test" and "test3" that I said I could not create in the thread, can now be created. So, I either managed to remove them somehow and I had forgotten how, or over time some update automatically noticed that they were empty and deleted those categories.

What's weird is, I almost think I managed to delete them myself but I forgot how I did it and I cannot really confirm my memory lol. But it does appear that this bug still happens. So maybe I did fix it and forgot to update this post or it did it over time on it's own.

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(Okay, I could just retype this message but I just want to say I just figured out and remembered how to fix it after messing with it a little bit lol. It's very possible that at the time it didn't work but this fix does work right now/worked later down the road.)

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The bug
When you right click an EMPTY space in your friends list, and use that button "create category", and do what I said in the thread, create a category named "test" but not add any users and confirm it, the category still does not appear in the friends list and if you use the same button from right clicking an empty space, it no longer lets you create the category named "test".

The fix
The fix is a lot more simple than I thought. Now, I mentioned you had to click an empty space in your friends list and use the button "create category" to reproduce this bug. Now the way to delete it gets more obvious, by going to a person in your friends list and right click them and go to "manage" -> "categorize...", it will show you the list of all the categories you created like it normally should in your friends list already, and for some reason you can see the empty categories in that list. So, just add the user to the empty category, and now the category should show up and you can now right click it and remove category. (or by re-opening the categorize menu and unchecking them from that category).

The REAL bug
The real bug here, is simply that empty categories do not get listed in the friends list, still to this day. But with the fix above, they at least show up in the "categorize" menu. Thankfully it shows up there or else there really would be no way to remove empty categories without them being displayed. I notice that it does delete them too from that other menu if you uncheck a user, so it does do some auto detection in that menu by itself, but not when you click an empty space and use create category.



Yeah that's it really, I actually remember now that's how I fixed it but I had forgotten I made this thread (or I just didn't think it gained any attention and didn't want to post an update). Surprised the same exact bug and problem still exists really, but hey whatever.

[IrishMerlin]

Thank you sooo much!!! The solution worked for me! The UI/UX definitely needs improvement though.

[cocojack]

Originally posted by IrishMerlin:

Thank you sooo much!!! The solution worked for me! The UI/UX definitely needs improvement though.

Glad I could help after like, a couple/few years of me forgetting about this issue lol. That's why I like getting notifications for comments sometimes even on super old posts I made, albeit it's usually just some random troll necro in the gmod forum... but ya.