Question How to get online status for account?

[__mactep__]

If I recall it correctly, node-steamcommunity and other web clients of Steam used the old chat system to get the online status to a account. To achieve this with the new chat we would have to implement a whole layer just to handle the connections with CM servers (I guess).

I noticed that whenever I open the Steam app, my account get an online status, although I don't know if it also connects to CM servers or something as I haven't success trying to use debugging proxies and stuff.

Anyone knows what would be the "cheapest" way to get online status on a account? Also, what's your setup to analyze the calls that Android apps make? I tried to use fiddler and mitmproxy, but my Android had some issues with CA certificates.

 

Thanks in advance

[Dr. McKay]

Why not just use steam-user to go online?

 

To analyze the calls an Android app makes, you need a rooted phone. Android 7 (I think) made it to where apps need to explicitly opt-in to allowing user-entered roots for secure connections, which few apps do.

[__mactep__]

Thank you for your response.

 

Why not just use steam-user to go online?

I have nothing against it, I just wanted to know if there was other ways of doing it. Since I'm writing a bot to run on a very weak hardware, I really wanted to keep things as simple as possible and didn't want to use other library just to get the online status. Do you know if Steam provides other ways of getting online?

 

 

 

To analyze the calls an Android app makes, you need a rooted phone. Android 7 (I think) made it to where apps need to explicitly opt-in to allowing user-entered roots for secure connections, which few apps do.

That's my case. I have a rooted phone with Android 7. I spent hours trying to get it to work and only then I found out about this app specific thing. Besides that, what would you do to analyze the calls? What software would you use?

[Dr. McKay]

I have nothing against it, I just wanted to know if there was other ways of doing it. Since I'm writing a bot to run on a very weak hardware, I really wanted to keep things as simple as possible and didn't want to use other library just to get the online status. Do you know if Steam provides other ways of getting online?

 

As far as I'm aware, the old webchat endpoints do still work, and I never removed the code from steamcommunity. You could try using it. That said, using steam-user just to go online and do nothing else is pretty lightweight. It's just a single connection getting held open, and sending heartbeat packets every 9 seconds or so.

 

 

That's my case. I have a rooted phone with Android 7. I spent hours trying to get it to work and only then I found out about this app specific thing. Besides that, what would you do to analyze the calls? What software would you use?

 

I use Charles Proxy to intercept app requests. If your phone is rooted, research how to add a root certificate to the system store. Then you can MITM whatever you want, as long as the app doesn't implement cert pinning (Steam doesn't, last I checked).

[__mactep__]

 

As far as I'm aware, the old webchat endpoints do still work, and I never removed the code from steamcommunity.

Looks like I did something wrong then, sorry for bothering you.

 

 

I use Charles Proxy to intercept app requests. If your phone is rooted, research how to add a root certificate to the system store. Then you can MITM whatever you want, as long as the app doesn't implement cert pinning (Steam doesn't, last I checked).

Thanks for the clarification.

[Dr. McKay]

Looks like I did something wrong then, sorry for bothering you.

 

No problem at all. It's definitely possible that they disabled the old webchat endpoints (I haven't checked to see if they work in a long while). If they have, I would seriously recommend just using steam-user. As mentioned earlier, it's rather lightweight if all you're doing is logging on and setting yourself to online.