The friends feature in Pokemon GO has been long-awaited, but unfortunately, it hasn't had such a strong start in the popular mobile game. One major issue players have experienced is the friends feature not being probably synced, and keeping players from enjoying the bonuses associated with leveling friendships. However, it appears as though this issue is starting to get fixed.

From our own testing, we can confirm that friends who were not synced are now. It appears as though even when Pokemon GO is not properly tracking when people are completing activities with friends, that this progress is still stored in the background, as our game has given us full credit for all previous days.

For players who are still having difficulty getting friends to sync properly in Pokemon GO, it seems that we triggered the fix by alternating who opened the gift first. For example, if we receive a gift from a friend one day and open it before sending them anything, the next day we would need to send the gift first to make sure the game syncs properly. It's not clear if this will help everyone who is experiencing this issue, but it is one possible fix to keep in mind.

pokemon-go-trading

Besides this fix, Niantic itself has offered another suggestion that may address any lingering friends feature issues Pokemon GO players are experiencing. Niantic suggests that people just keep completing activities together, like trading, giving gifts, battling in gyms, etc., until they are given credit. In our own experience, this workaround never actually worked, but others may have different results.

The friends feature being properly synced in Pokemon GO is so important because the feature is directly tied to Pokemon trading. Pokemon trading is a key element to the Pokemon franchise, and Pokemon GO fans have been waiting for the opportunity to trade with friends since the game's launch back in the summer of 2016. With Pokemon trading now in the game, it's possible for people to better complete their Pokedex without spoofing or spending thousands of dollars to travel to other continents.

At the time of this writing, we can't say for certain if this friends feature fix is widespread or not. If not, hopefully Niantic is still working on fixing the problem for Pokemon GO enthusiasts who are still having issues.

Pokemon GO is out now for iOS and Android mobile devices.