Portal 2 Sharing

[ArtGeekMagic]

Hi! My friend unmarked portal 2 as private so that I could play the game, but I have been unable to access the game for multiple hours since the game was unprivated. Please help.

[BraveCaperCat]

Hi, I'm the friend that ArtGeekMagic is talking about.
My friend here has tried multiple times restarting the client and even trying to use the console to download portal 2 manually. It's not shown in the "family" library, not even under one of the other categories for unshared games. Note that portal 2 is marked for family sharing and that it appears in my profile as a recently played game (since I've been playing it recently), meaning it's not private.

[temper]

Originally posted by BraveCaperCat:

Hi, I'm the friend that ArtGeekMagic is talking about.
My friend here has tried multiple times restarting the client and even trying to use the console to download portal 2 manually. It's not shown in the "family" library, not even under one of the other categories for unshared games. Note that portal 2 is marked for family sharing and that it appears in my profile as a recently played game (since I've been playing it recently), meaning it's not private.

Family sharing is meant for actual families living in the same household, not friends.

A shared game also can't be played by both people at once.

[HikariLight]

It's called FAMILY share, not friend share.

Steam has ways of telling and is within their rights to block it if you are trying to abuse the system.

[BraveCaperCat]

Originally posted by temper:

Family sharing is meant for actual families living in the same household, not friends.

Maybe that's what it's MEANT for, but that's not the only way it can be used.

Originally posted by temper:

A shared game also can't be played by both people at once.

Yeah, but my friend could download it in that situation, which they can't.

Originally posted by HikariLight:

It's called FAMILY share, not friend share.

Steam has ways of telling and is within their rights to block it if you are trying to abuse the system.

Yeah, and "Family" sharing used to be called Library Sharing. When can we change the name back?

[miamew3]

It may be the Steam servers are being a bit slow to update the game for your families library.
Did you both try restarting steam?

[temper]

Originally posted by BraveCaperCat:

Originally posted by temper:

Family sharing is meant for actual families living in the same household, not friends.

Maybe that's what it's MEANT for, but that's not the only way it can be used.

That's the only way it was expected to be used. Don't expect things to work right, or at least get support, when you use them for means other than their intended purpose.

Whether it's some system they have in place to limit people abusing the system or not, who knows. You'll have to figure it out yourself. It would probably be less of a hassle to gift your friend the game, which I'm guessing is pretty cheap.

[BraveCaperCat]

Originally posted by miamew3:

It may be the Steam servers are being a bit slow to update the game for your families library.
Did you both try restarting steam?

Only my friend. I'll try restarting my client soon.

Originally posted by temper:

Originally posted by BraveCaperCat:

Maybe that's what it's MEANT for, but that's not the only way it can be used.

That's the only way it was expected to be used. Don't expect things to work right, or at least get support, when you use them for means other than their intended purpose.

Whether it's some system they have in place to limit people abusing the system or not, who knows. You'll have to figure it out yourself. It would probably be less of a hassle to gift your friend the game, which I'm guessing is pretty cheap.

I don't think that it's a limitation designed for abusing the system, I think it's an issue with the steam client or steam's servers.

[BraveCaperCat]

Update: We found out the problem, I bought Portal 2 with Portal 1 and I still had Portal 1 marked as private so library sharing was acting as if they were both private (even though most other systems were acting as if Portal 2 wasn't private). It was also likely a combination of other factors such as the steam servers being slow to update that I had unmarked Portal 2 as private.

Internally, steam thinks that I don't own Portal 1 or Portal 2, but instead a package containing them both and library sharing can't share Portal 1 or Portal 2 because I don't own either. Instead, it shares the package containing them both - and that's only possible if BOTH games aren't marked as private.

[rawWwRrr]

Ehhh... the bundle is in fact Portal 1 and Portal 2 individually. Steam should see them as separate games.

But you do *also* own the bundle that they came from and it could be if you marked the bundle as private during the checkout that the bundle gets marked as private, which each individual game inherits.

I wonder if you now set Portal 1 back as private it should only work on Portal 1.

[BraveCaperCat]

Unfortunately, this hasn't fixed the issue. Unmarking Portal 1 as private has worked for Portal 1, but Portal 2 still remains excluded from being shared.

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

But you do *also* own the bundle that they came from and it could be if you marked the bundle as private during the checkout that the bundle gets marked as private, which each individual game inherits.

In this case, how do I unmark the bundle as private?

[IMRL ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥]

Not all games on steam support family sharing

[BraveCaperCat]

Originally posted by ////o|o\\\\:

Not all games on steam support family sharing

Portal 2 is supposed to.