Friend in friendlist appears offline although he's online, and can't see him ingame

Do you have any add-ons in your Community folder? If yes, please remove and retest before posting.
Not me, but my friend. He deleted them, issue persists.

Are you using Developer Mode or made changes in it?
No.

Brief description of the issue:
Hello,
I’m having a problem with MSFS 2020 Multiplayer. I want to invite a friend to my group, so we can fly together. But the problem is, that he always appears offline to me, and I appear offline to him, although we’re both online. This is a huge problem for us. Also, if we meet up at the same airport ingame, we don’t see each other. We have the same server (Europe west) selected, same weather options, same multiplayer options, everything the same, but we can’t see each other. The strange thing is, that we can see every other player, but not us each other. As an example: Player 1 is me, player 2 is my friend, player 3 is a foreign player. We’re at Hamburg, player 1 can see player 3, player 2 can see player 3, but player 1 can’t see player 2 and vice versa. We’re very frustrated, because we were very hyped playing together, and now this…
I hope you can help us. We are looking forward to an answer. Thank you.

Provide Screenshot(s)/video(s) of the issue encountered:
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Detail steps to reproduce the issue encountered:
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PC specs for those who want to assist (if not entered in your profile)
Windows 10 Pro
AMD Ryzen 5 3600 (no oc)
AsRock B450M Steel Legend Mainboard
Asus Radeon RX 570 (no oc)
G.Skill 2x8GB 3200Mhz (no oc)
Thermaltake 600W PSU
Crucial MX500 1TB
Samsung 850 Evo 250GB

Build Version # when you first started experiencing this issue:
Windows 10 Pro: 20H2; 19042.985
MSFS 2020: 1.15.10.0

Are you on the Steam or Microsoft Store version?
I’m using the Microsoft Store version (Gamepass) and my friend the Steam version.

Did you submit this to Zendesk? If so, what is your ticket #?
Yes, ticket #106119.

there is a setting deep in the xbox privacy and online security settings where you can disable showing online altogether. Where you also set if you can be contacted and so on.

Not talking about about the offline/online togle one you see below your profile picture.

dig deep.

Xbox Support

2 Likes

Im having the same issue as the OP above. Just like CraftingDuck202, I am unable to see many people online in the simulator and many friends will not appear as online even when they are. Certain friends simply wont be visible in sim regardless of settings, region servers or plane types. As I also stream, many have reported their inability to see me during group flights.
So far, my testing on this issue has not shown any workaround on the sim settings. I have reviewed my xbox privacy settings and will monitor to see if the issue persists, yet the settings to showing online were enabled. I’ve set more settings to be ‘open’ and ‘public’ to see if it has an impact.
One interesting factor that I have found is that each person that claims their inability to see me in game have the Steam version of the game.

Windows 10 Pro
Version 20H2
Build 19042.985

AMD Ryzen 3600
Gigabyte B450M
GTX 1080ti
G.Skill Ageis 4x8GB @ 3000Mhz
Samsung 970 500GB NVME

I have been using the MS store version, the issues have been occurring since probably January 2021. Currently on 1.15.10.0

1 Like

Thank you very much! Our issue was solved by this.

1 Like

Almost all of those settings were set to everyone for me. The few that werent, i set to everyone. I will be suprised if the ones i didnt have, work. Especially since its 1 or 2 people out of hundreds i cant see

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The problem seems to have been fixed by whatever magic between me and flying cookie

Myself and a buddy are both on the Steam version of the game. I can see him online but he can not see me. I can send an invite to him but it times out after 20 seconds and he never sees it.

I’ve tried port forwarding and running in DMZ, next I’m going to try to sacrifice a live goat.

1 Like

I am having this same issue and just posted a topic with pics. Have steam version and friend has game pass version.

Same issue yesterday with a friend.
Both of us are on Steam version in Windows 10, both online, both on the same server (we tried West Europe, then North Europe)
I could see him online, but he kept seeing me offline. Also he was not receiving my invitations to join a group.

Our XBox application was running, the “X” icon was visible next to the clock in the task bar.
I checked my connection to XBox network from the control panel in Windows, and as usual, first test was negative, then second one became all good, connected etc…

Following the advice at the beginning of this topic, I went to inspect my XBox profile privacy/online settings and everything seemed fine, no blocking setting, all were set to visible to everybody or friends.

1 Like

Have a similar problem my frd is playing on x box I have pc - he has sent me an invite which I could see and accept - he has sent me an invite to his group /join his flight but I didn’t see it - strangely he can see me as online and playing msfs but I see him usually as disconnected - even though his is online and playing…interestingly on my PC at the top right the radar and 2 player icon seem to cycle from white to greyed out (not sure if this suggests a connection problem on my side?)
…any help appreciated ?

Quick update:
For those who are still struggling with this issue, a possible workaround may exist:
Before launching the sim, go to your time/date settings by right-cliking the clock in your Windows taskbar, and selecting “adjust date and time”.
In the window that appears, there is a button to trigger a synchronisation of your clock with a time server. All players need to click this.
Now launch the sim and check if everybody is visible to everybody.

In my case, this is what has solved the problem. There was one of us who had incorrect time. Once he performed this synchronisation, he became visible as “online” and he could see us, and receive our group invitations.

Looks like that’s indeed the problem. Mine works now.