How to Repair `Error Adding Friend` on Steam

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The Steam online portal allows you to buy games, play with friends, share screenshots and user-generated game assets, and share games. These features are available when you sign up for a service and buy a game. To participate in a cooperative game or collaboration, you need to add your friend to Steam.

Adding a friend is not difficult, but you may encounter some problems. Sometimes Steam cannot add friends and displays an error message “Add Friend Error. The connection between you and this user has been blocked” or “Add Friend Error. Please try again.”

What causes ‘Error adding Friend’ in Steam?

This error message is due to many different modules and rules set by Steam. Here are some reasons why this problem may occur when adding a friend:

Problem with the friend system: the friend system in Steam has been criticized in the past for sometimes being very glitchy. This still happens today, and an update to basic Steam functionality may solve the problem.

Limited account: Steam recently introduced a “limited account” in which you cannot add friends. A restricted account is an account that has not acquired any game engine content.

Blocked User: If the user you want to add is blocked on your account, you cannot add them as a friend.

Friend Limit: Steam also has a mechanism that limits the maximum number of friends (added and requested) you can have on your account. If your number is exceeded, you won’t be able to add more people.

How to resolve the error when adding friends in Steam?



Use the command steam://flushconfig

According to users, you can easily fix this problem with the steam://flushconfig command.

To do this, perform the following steps:

1. Press Windows + R to open the Run dialog box.
2. In the Run dialog box, type steam://flushconfig and press OK or Enter.
3. Steam will now reset its settings and you can add friends again.

Check if the user is blocked

If you have blocked a particular user on Steam, you cannot add them as a friend until you unblock them. To unlock a specific user, follow these steps:

1. Open your Steam profile.
2. Click the Manage Friends link on the right side of the page.
3. Click the Blocked Users tab.
4. Find a blocked user and click on it.
5. Click More and select Unblock all communications.
6. Finally, click Yes, Unlock to unlock the user.

Disable family sharing

This feature can also cause problems when adding friends. Therefore, it is best to disable it permanently. Follow the steps below to disable family sharing:

1. Start Steam.
2. Go to the Settings screen and open the Family tab.
3. Select the Manage other PCs button and disable all PCs.

You can also do this from your Steam profile by following these steps:

1. Open your Steam profile.
2. In the upper right corner, click on the little arrow next to your Steam username and select Account Details.
3. Scroll down to the “Family Settings” section and click on the “Manage Family Library Sharing” option.
4. A list of all authorized computers will be displayed. Click on the “Unauthorize” link.
5. Make sure to remove all computers from the family share list.
6. After that, restart Steam and try adding friends again.

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