Steam friends Status are incorrect...

[Kilo]

For the last few years, Steam friends statuses are often showing incorrectly in the "friends" overlay.

For example I might have a friend "Online" on my friends list, but if I view his profile he's not actually online and could have in fact been Offline for a few hours.

I have another friend "Online" but again if I view his profile he's actually "In-game Hunt: Showdown".

I have have friends showing as "Offline" but when I check their profile they are "Online"

Basically the friends tab is not updating their status, and this happens quite a lot...

Here is an example I just took a screenshot of right now: https://ibb.co/bFzmBCy

A friend showing as "online" on my friends tab, who has actually been offline for a few hours.

It's pretty annoying, as you could be talking to someone, and not realise they are not even online, because their status is incorrect.

[crunchyfrog]

Doubtful this'll get fixed anytime soon because this is likely just down to sheer size and how metworks operate.

The problem with large online networks that operate around the world is that you're depending on the servers that connect.

The more there are, the greater the chances of errors and hiccups.

It's why whenever there's a sale on, you will find that the friends list might drop out, or the inventory list doesn't show up at all. It's why on maintenance day, you'll get sundry weirdness depedning on what they're adressing.

I mean, I too wish it would fix, but it's quite a big old problem that all online platforms have to deal with.

[Iceira]

+ firewalls, + routing, + ipv6 issue + congested area might drop traffic, and you still need to be online and so does your friend.

and pro tip, notice the light blue box around me and CF, atm now we are online and you are not.
so steam actual do see things on our profile, we just forget the little detail, so forum do show status atm.

[kedawa]

I've had this issue for years. it's the kind of bug that Valve just doesn't seem to care about. there has never been any solution that I'm aware of.

the only workaround for me is to sign out of steam friends and then sign back in again, which refreshes all of the status indicators to their proper state.

[Norma]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.