Father Unable to Family Share

[PoisonIvy]

Hi All,

I recently set up family sharing for my father, but he isn't able to view / download / play any of my games.

I also set up family sharing with my boyfriend several months ago, and that's always been working fine, so I don't think the issue is with my account.

Any ideas about what might be wrong?


He signed in on my computer and I checked his name under family sharing. I signed in on his computer and he checked my name under family sharing. So I don't think that should be the issue.

I'm under the 10 device maximum, so I don't think that should be the issue.

His account is brand new, but he's verified and everything and he just purchased a game (over $5.00), so could that be the issue? I don't see an account age requirement mentioned anywhere on the Steam Family Sharing page.

Really at a loss here. Any help is appreciated.

[[NL]Ben]

Okay, a couple of questions:
1) Do you live at the same house/are you behind the same router/network firewall? Steam itself says that the former might give hiccups they can't help with (because it isn't intended). In case of the latter I mean that if your father works from behind a different network/router Steam might fail to recognize the same location and throw the same possible error as if you weren't living at the same house.

Why I start with this is because you indicate you set up sharing with your BF months ago and 'always worked fine' so I wondered if you already moved out from your parent's house

2) I assume your father has Steam Guard active? If not, he should set that up as soon as possible and then it should work

3) Re your question of account age - while in the past during the first months of Steam Guard (when it was still optional) account age could be a barrier, those days it's no longer (also because all new accounts standard get a Guard prompt once you meet the login threshold)

[Ogami]

Originally posted by NLBen:

Why I start with this is because you indicate you set up sharing with your BF months ago and 'always worked fine' so I wondered if you already moved out from your parent's house

Family Share works completely fine with people living in other places.
I share with multiple friends/ family members who all live in different places and even other countries by now. Still works fine.

Originally posted by Poison Ivy:

Hi All,
I'm under the 10 device maximum, so I don't think that should be the issue.

The 10 device limit is for receiving Family Share. Sharing your library with others is limited to 5 other PC. If there are more you have to delete some of the older authorizations.

Take a look here if you are at 5:
https://store.steampowered.com/account/managedevices/

[PoisonIvy]

Originally posted by Ogami:

Originally posted by Poison Ivy:

Hi All,
I'm under the 10 device maximum, so I don't think that should be the issue.

The 10 device limit is for receiving Family Share. Sharing your library with others is limited to 5 other PC. If there are more you have to delete some of the older authorizations.

Take a look here if you are at 5:
https://store.steampowered.com/account/managedevices/

Oh this sounds promising. I'm not seeing the device limit of 5 anywhere, but we'll give that a try.

I am seeing this on the Family Sharing FAQ though:

up to 10 devices in a 90 day period. This includes accounts/devices that were previously shared to and have since been cancelled. In order to add a new authorization to Family Sharing after having reached the limit, users will have to cancel an existing link and then wait out the 90 day cooldown period.

Guess I'll need to wait 90 days after removing some of my BF's old devices?