Error: Failed to send authorization request (Account Not Found)

[Stallion Free]

ISSUE
After having my friend log into his account on my PC and add my PC to his list of authorized devices I am able to see his whole library of games when I log back into my account and install and play them (as long as the library isn't in use).

Two days in a row now Steam seems to forget that my PC is authorized forcing me to request access again (and only showing the games installed, not his entire list). Once I send the request I am always given the error: "Error: Failed to send authorization request (Account Not Found)."

If I try to check the achievement page for a game I have played on my friends shared library it throws up a community page error as well: "There was a failure loading user game stats." This is despite the actual Steam application showing achievement progress on the Detail View.

The only way we have found to fix it is to have him re-login on my PC after getting rid of the previous authorization entry and re-add my PC to the authorized devices list.


OS
Windows 7 64-bit


STEPS
-Authorize PC
-Play game from friends library
-Attempt again the following day
-Forced authorization request pop-up
-Attempt request


RESULTS
-Error: Failed to send authorization request (Account Not Found)
-Broken Achievement Steam Community page: "There was a failure loading user game stats."


EXPECTED
My friend has yet to need to send a request to reauthorize from using my library on his PC so I suspect I shouldn't be seeing this request authorization pop-up and it shouldn't always fail the authorization request if I should be seeing it.


THANKS
Hopefully I included all the necessary details. If any further information is needed I'll try to supply it. When family sharing is working it has really blown me away (the pop-up "friend's library is available again" is a really great touch).

[Stallion Free]

FURTHER TESTING
-We have confirmed that this is caused 100% of the time by restarting PC.
-It also has nothing to do with password changes on the shared account.

[martino]

When you restart your PC, somehow the hardware configuration changes and we don't recognize it anymore. Do you run software for virtual network interfaces or harddisks ?

[Stallion Free]

No none that I am aware of. Steam is installed to my non-primary hard drive and I am just hardwired to my home network. For what it's worth we pinpointed the exact cause when my friend finally restarted his PC and encountered the exact same error when attempting to reaccess my shared library.

[Stallion Free]

UPDATE
My friend and I dug around and realized we both had Evolve installed (System Shock 2 co-op required ). Your hypothesis was right on the money about the virtual network interface that Evolve creates and exists whether or not you have the application running. Just to be safe we uninstalled it completely, rebooted, went through the long into other account/authorize pc steps, made sure the account sharing worked and then rebooted for the final test.

Everything worked perfect. Thanks a ton!

Hopefully the Evolve/virtual adapter issue will be able to be fixed in the future for the sake of older games.

[Snipufin]

I am having the same problem, and it started after we both used Hamachi to play Terraria. We still would like to play Terraria using Hamachi, so what would you suggest in this case?

[Avohkah Tamer]

I can confirm I have the same issue. Interestingly, the first time it asked me to re-authorize, it actually worked and I could use the whole library, but after restarting Steam it broke completely with the "Account Not Found" error as described above.

I do have Hamachi installed, but I have not used it for anything (or even launched the application, it does not launch on startup) since joining the Family Sharing beta.

The odd thing is, this friend also has Hamachi installed (with the same autostart off setting), but has not run into any problems with my library.

Both of us on Win7 x64, no physical hardware changes since authorizing our PCs.

EDIT 10/16: Since my friend logged back on my computer and manually re-authorized it on October 8th, I haven't had any more problems with it deauthorizing again despite multiple reboots. So far, so good...

EDIT 10/17: Restarted Steam for a client update, lost access, unable to re-request it myself. Dagnabbit.

[Miza]

My friend has the same problem on his machine.

We both have Hamachi too but it's deactivated (auto-start, service and the virtual interface) as we don't need this at this time (and I've no issue with his game library on my computer, so hamachi is probably not the cause).

We looked for other virtual devices installed on his computer, but we found nothing.

[MeNo]

Same problem just occurred to my friend, although the game worked for ~3 days, through multiple restarts. No hardware changes that we know of, or could identify.

[Walf]

heh, same problem also, trying to fix it right now with my freind, we will try to figure something out and hopefully its what you saud above

[Walf]

said*

[Tony Grunt]

Originally posted by tBRaiden:

said*

You know you can edit your posts, this is not chat.

[Nic | Antisuns]

I've been successfully activated by my elder son, who had family sharing first.

Everything worked fine. Now, when trying to play any of his games, it comes up with the "send him a request" including the "account not found"; clearly a bug even if it were somehow related to a hardware change (which I haven't made).

The only change I can think of is that now I can share my games too. I just tried it with my younger son, and everything works perfectly.

Now we're trying what happens when he de-authorizes my computer and re-authorizes it.

[Nic | Antisuns]

okay, de-authorization and re-authorization worked.

[luke]

I've just started having this issue. I'm guessing it's because I upgraded from Windows 8 to 8.1 last night. Re-authorization seems to be the fix either way.

[martino]

Are you guys in the Steam Client Beta ?