TSA claims public profile is private

This seems to be a frequent occurance, so maybe a megathread is in order?

Anyway, TSA claims that my account is untrackable and that it is private. On steam, however, my game details (except playtime) is set to public and my profile itself is also set to public.

TSA has successfully fetched my Steam icon, but -none- of my achievements or games.

You registered last night and your initial scan failed due to privacy settings. However, I just queued you for a scan, which is also flagged as 'initial scan' and it seems stats are flowing in now

Remco1986 said:While I appreciate you queueing me, this was not the point. My account is public - the initial scan shouldn't have failed "due to privacy settings" to begin with. The bug is TSA claiming the account being private which just isn't the case.

Even today, more than a month later, it still claims my account is private. I've seen other users making posts on the forum with the same going on for close to or more than a year, making the point of the site unusable.

So either there's a bug, the endpoints for fetching privacy settings are out of date, or the documentation for what TSA considers "private" is erroneous.

Hecko X said:Your played time and games list still appear private when I look at your Steam profile. Those also need to be set to public.

I'm leaning towards a bug here, because same as on July 3rd, a Full Scan scans fine and removed the 'Private' flag.

A normal scan puts it back on Private.

Before I escalate to the devs, can you confirm your Privacy Settings on Steam are exactly like the image here: https://truesteamachievements.com/privacy-settings including the unchecked box for 'Always keep my total play time private'?

Flippol said:The games list is fully public, including their respective achievements: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198161322643/games/...
Tested this by opening an incognito browser and viewing the account without logging in.

Remco1986 said:It is not. My box for total play time is checked off, since the documentation doesn't specify that it needs to be empty. It's obviously not actually needed to fetch achievements (based on Steams documentation and the TSA full scan results), so why is the normal scan bugging out on this?

Hecko X said:Yes, it does. Take a look at this picture again: https://truesteamachievements.com/customimages/l/001918.jpg

The Always keep my total playtime private checkbox needs to be unchecked. As stated before, it is required. No idea where you are getting this notion that it is not required for TSA to keep updating your profile. We explained how to fix the issue.

Flippol said:You documentation does not state that total playtime may not be hidden. In fact, your document does not even state that Game details need to be public. You documentation also doesn't state the the image - which contains several superfluous fields - needs to be followed exactly.

All your documentation states that one's "privacy state" (no indication of which) should be public, so going by the technical documentation alone, setting My Profile as public would be enough (which obviously isn't the case). This is how poorly worded it is. Failing to see this is, with all due respect, either arrogance or ignorance on your part.

If you want a proper message that actually conveys your intent and reason, try something along the lines of:
Select the Privacy Settings option and set the privacy state for Game details to public. Please also ensure that the box Always keep my total playtime private is unchecked.

Alternatively, go with the wording of one of your other staff managers in the linked blog post:
Navigate to the Privacy Settings page on Steam and change the “Game details” option to “Public”. By default, this will have been set to “Friends Only”. Make sure the tickbox for “Always keep my total playtime private even if users can see my game details” remains unchecked.

That is how you properly convey intent; doubly so when you also display an image containing redundant fields. I look forward to this being updated in the near future.

Valve's Changes to Privacy Policy Affect Our Ability To Scan Your Games

P.S. If Always keep my total playtime private REEEEALLY needed to be unchecked, the full scans would have failed as well, which they didn't. Obvious inconsistency that shouldn't exist.

🤷‍♂️

Hi, Instead of starting a new thread I thought I should post here. I am having the same issue with my new Steam account. I have followed the instructions and I have the privacy settings as needed to sync. No idea why it did not return anything. Can you have a look please?

This post was archived by Belindo152