The Steam family sharing system allows other computers to access your libraries, but comes with one major problem. If someone is using their library, the library owner can’t use any of their games, even if they’re free to play, without forcing the other user off the game they’re playing after five minutes.
Fixing this will involve the other user launching the game first, then to cutting off their internet connection.
Hiding the other user’s activity
- Family share your games with another account.
- Have them launch the game first. They’ll need to be connected to the internet to run the game if it’s not on their library.
- Have them either put Steam into offline mode (‘Steam’ in the top left of the client -> ‘Go offline’), disconnect from their home Wi-Fi network or disconnect the Ethernet cable connected to their computer.
- They can now open the game and you can still play. Note that if the other user comes back online, they’ll be met with a 5-minute counter before they’ll be forced to stop playing.
Whilst this is a frustrating work-around, it’s the only way for multiple people to use the games of the same library.