So due to steam requiring the mobile authenticator for trades I got it about a month ago. It's a pain but I don't trade often, just use it when I log in the steam. Recently I tried to use a Jackpot site and it said I hadn't used my authenticator for 7 days and the trade would be held for 72 hours. Which obviously doesn't work in a jackpot. However, I traded completely fine without a wait or anything a couple days ago, but the trade was through steam. Now all my trades are still held for 72 hours, in steam or out of steam. This has been frustrating me for the longest time! If anyone knows how to fix this I would love you!
Steam Mobile Authenticator not working
steam
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I know of only one way that this can happen in windows, and has nothing to do with Steam other than their not-so-great decision to install all content into Program Files.
If you are on Windows 7 or Windows Vista, and you have UAC set to ON, then change it later to OFF, this can happen.
UAC does thing evil thing where if a program tries to write to a "protected" area like Program Files, EVEN IF YOU ARE ADMINISTRATOR, when you get a UAC prompt and give permission, it actually writes any files that would normally go into that directory into a "virtualized" directory somewhere else.
If you turn off UAC, that will no longer happen, and as an awesome bonus, it will no longer know about the files that it virtualized.
So in your case, if you had UAC on, installed a ton of games, then later got sick of UAC and turned it off, this would happen as you described.
See the second paragraph in "Features" in the article on User Account Control.
If you have done this and turn on UAC again, your content will come back, but be a TOTAL mess because if you've downloaded more stuff with UAC off, then that will be invisible when you turn UAC on, and vice versa.
this drove me a little crazy once before I realized what was happening.
i'm curious to know if this is your issue.
You can go to Account Preferences and find the "Platform Preferences" part at the bottom of the page.
Pick the platforms you want to see games for (in your case, Windows and macOS) and click save.
Steam Store should show games that are available for both operating systems now.
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Best Answer
There is no way to get around this limitation. After you wait 7 days, you will no longer have trade holds.
The most likely cause of the sudden trade hold is because of a disable and re-enable of the mobile authenticator or multiple failed attempts at entering the authentication code.