Unable to Activate Multiplayer "Live Players" in Free Flight

Same issue here, it’s been a problem for me since day 1, all multiplayer elements work fine like weather, AI, and the challenge leaderboards - it’s just the multiplayer options in free flight are greyed out and nothing changes that

Steam user
500mb internet
No MSFS2020 addons
Windows 11

Things that I’ve tried:

Reinstalling the game deleting all residual folders,

Clearing the cloud save and starting over,

Signing in and out of Xbox app on windows,

Loading into a actual flight and trying to change settings,

Trying a workaround in another thread (to move the live time slider),

Making sure I’m online and not hidden or invisible in both Xbox app and steam friends,

Trying different in-game servers (east/west/eu),

In-game I can see my Xbox friends on the top right corner so it’s clearly connected, it’s just that no matter what I do the multiplayer options stay grayed out, hope for a fix

(Picture is taken with a camera so it might not show clearly its grayed out like in OPs post)