Regression: Co-op randomly kicks to menu with "no steam logon" error

[vrad-exe]

Since around November 2023, co-op players will frequently be kicked with the error "No Steam logon" (which will consequently cause their partner to also disconnect and the game to end, losing any progress in the level). This most commonly occurs in splitscreen mode, but can apparently happen in online co-op as well, as supported by results from both me and others in the replies. In both cases, this is despite being fully signed into steam, connected to the internet, and signed into friends and chat (although for splitscreen/local servers this should not happen in offline mode either as that worked fine before).

To reproduce the issue, simply start a local splitscreen game by using either the button that appears in the co-op dialog when a controller is connected or the ss_map command, then wait. The time it takes before disconnecting varies, but will usually happen after a few minutes. I personally feel like it happens more quickly when another map was previously loaded during the same session, but that might just be my imagination.

Interestingly, this doesn't seem to be tied to any specific game build. The earliest mentions of this issue that I could find date to around November 2023, but the last Portal 2 update at that point was over six months earlier in April. Furthermore, this issue occurs in the demo_viewer build that is available through the Steam betas tab, which is even older, dating to around 2020 - it would be strange for it to take over 3 years for anyone to notice, and personally I can confidently say that I never had this issue occur until around the same time others started reporting it (I frequently play splitscreen).

This seems to point to the issue being caused by a change in Steam, rather than the game itself, though as far as I can tell only Portal 2 seems to have been affected by this - I did find some L4D2 players complaining about a similar problem, but it seems to date much farther back, so I'm not sure if it's related. As usual, I don't expect anyone who actually works on the game to look at this issue tracker anytime soon, but I figured it's a good idea to formally report it. I will likely also try contacting steam support about this at some point, especially since the problem doesn't even seem to be caused by Portal 2 itself.

Enabling sv_lan 1 before starting a splitscreen co-op game seems to stop this from happening (or I've just gotten really lucky)...although this can crash the game.

I can confirm that this happens on Windows (10) and Linux (Steam Deck, native build).

[Mase3206]

Same issue here, though neither -sv_steamauth_enforce 0 as suggested here nor -sv_lan 1 fix it for me.

[vrad-exe]

Same issue here, though neither -sv_steamauth_enforce 0 as suggested here nor -sv_lan 1 fix it for me.

Assuming you're passing these on the command line, they need to be prefixed with + instead of -. I've never heard of/tried that first command though so idk if it works either way.

[Mase3206]

I was passing these on the command line, so I’ll give that a shot.

Edit: Using + seems to have fixed it. The game was still running in a local coop session in the hub level after 5-ish minutes. I haven’t tried it with real gameplay yet.

[DBMandrake]

Just to add a voice to this - Valve please fix this...

Playing Community test chamber coop with my son between two PC's on the same LAN, there is about a 50% chance the connection will drop at a random time in the first 5 minutes with "no steam logon". Both are properly logged into Steam. Extremely frustrating.

+sv_lan 1 seems to prevent the connection between the two computers completing in the first place even though they're on the same LAN, so that doesn't work. +sv_steamauth_enforce doesn't work because it doesn't exist (try sv_steamauth_enforce in the console and you'll see its not valid) the referenced link suggesting this is referring to Counterstrike 2 not Portal 2.

So, no solution other than keep restarting the game...

[vrad-exe]

In my case where community co-op disconnected, it was over the internet, so it seems like that is just entirely broken then

[DBMandrake]

In my case where community co-op disconnected, it was over the internet, so it seems like that is just entirely broken then

It's unclear how much of the gameplay occurs directly over the LAN, if any - it seems the game discovery and setup still requires an internet connection and logged in Steam accounts even though both PC's are on the same LAN, so I don't know whether game state updates during the game go directly between the PC's or round trip via valve servers without doing some Wireshark tracing on one of the PC's or running tcpdump on my firewall...

One thing I've noticed though is that I don't recall any dropped connections playing the regular coop - it's only since we started playing coop community test chambers that we are seeing this, and it happens very frequently - maybe in half the games we play. Sometimes restarting the exact same map will work fine a second or third time.

[vrad-exe]

Was pointed out to me that this may be game coordinator related, that would explain why it retroactively effects old builds of Portal 2 but not any other Source games

[DBMandrake]

One more comment from me - I have now seen it happen a couple of times on standard coop play (built in maps) so it's not just community coop maps, although it does seem to happen more often on community maps.

[royaltongue]

Online co-op kept giving the same error for me and a friend. It happened maybe 4 times before we gave up. I'm on Windows 10 and she's on Windows 11

[purplebar0]

It looks like this is a problem with regional Steam servers responsible for authentication, as my co-op partner from a different region kept disconnecting whereas I had no such issues, regardless of using the Linux or Windows (thru Proton) build. It always happened about 3 minutes in.

Since split-screen isn't an option, sv_lan 1 is of no help (it blocks WAN connections), so please fix whatever is happening or remove the Steam logon requirement altogether. It is completely unnecessary in this game, especially considering that the game only offers connecting to other Steam players through game coordinator.

Edit: It looks like his regional Steam Connection Manager (CM) is having issues.