Steam returns no session if desktop client is running or if game is not on Lan

Development Platform & Builds
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1

Onlinesubsystem steam retrevies 0 servers if the steam desktop client for windows is running.

if I exist the desktop client and run two instances of the game on the same machines then it works perfectly.

Moreover if I run two instances on separate machines then the server sessions won’t show up no matter if the desktop client is running or not.

however it is still possible to connect using “open ip address” console command so I guess its not about port forwarding.

Any Idea what’s going on? Steam only works for me when desktop client is not running and both host and client are on the same machine.

2

Right so this was expected as follows.

If Steam is running: no sessions will show up on same pc coz Steam wont tolerate two copies of a game on same pc

If Steam is running and the games are hosted on two different pc then it will work as expected given that both systems have Steam running.

If Steam is not running then session will show up on the same pc but not on two separate pc unless it’s set to be lan mode

Sessions would not show up on editor because editor hosts it’s own sessions for multiplayer testing, so you need to launch a standalone play during testing

If Steam is running and you enable Steam presence then only the sessions from your Steam region will show up and people outside your region will not be able to see it

If you are testing with appid 480 sometimes the sessions might not show up coz there’s a large no of servers using same appid to test. But this happens very rarely.

That’s all what happened in my experience with Steam sessions so far

3

So if you are ALONE developing a Multiplayer game with Steam Subsystem how can you test it?

4

You can run virtual machines (virtual box, VMPlayer) and use a different steam id in the virtual machine os and another one in host os. Ubuntu is a good choice since it’s a lighter os and so virtual machines should not have performance issues.
As far as i know there is no way to run two steam users in the same os, or have the game run twice with same steam id (except maybe dedicated servers)

I personally use a old laptop with windows 7 and a separate stream id to test steam connections

5

So the reason I can host sessions but not see them is because I’m using the same steam account, correct?