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CS2 "FALSE VACNet Ban - 20 Hour Cooldown" Explained ("Глобальная блокировка на 20 часов?")

Analysis by Stephen Pierce · Published , 1:40 PM ET

Players are posting "FALSE VACNet Ban - 20 Hour Cooldown" and "Глобальная блокировка на 20 часов?" ("A 20-hour global ban?"). A VACNet cooldown isn't a permanent VAC ban. Here's what Valve's official Steam Support page says. MetaPatchAI didn't test anything. RU version: translate and keep the links.

Suggested path: /gaming/counter-strike-2/vacnet-cooldown/

Steps

  1. Wait it out. Valve says Counter-Strike cooldowns "are non-negotiable and cannot be removed or reduced by Steam Support". A support ticket won't shorten it.
  2. If it was a mistake, it's reversed automatically. "If an automated cooldown or ban is determined to have been issued incorrectly, it will automatically be rolled back by our servers."
  3. Check who you queue with. If someone in your party is disconnected for irregular gameplay, everyone in the party gets "the same minimum one day competitive cooldown".
  4. Play clean to lower your cooldown level. "A week of clean play will reduce an account's cooldown level by one." Valve gives this rule for the four non-VACNet competitive cooldown levels; it doesn't say clean play shortens VACNet cooldowns.

What Valve says (Steam Support, "CS2 - Competitive cooldowns and bans")

  • Players VAC flags for irregular gameplay "will be disconnected from the match and receive a minimum one day competitive cooldown regardless of their current cooldown level."
  • VACNet cooldowns "are always for a minimum of 20 hours and prevent access to all game modes for the duration of the cooldown."
  • Later VACNet cooldowns last "increasingly longer periods and may last up to six months (180 days)."
  • Players who get a VACNet cooldown "will have their CSR adjusted".

What Valve doesn't publish

  • Valve doesn't publish the VACNet escalation steps between the 20-hour minimum and the 180-day maximum. The same Steam Support page also lists 30-minute, 2-hour, 24-hour and 1-week steps, but those are the four levels of non-VACNet competitive cooldowns, not VACNet.
  • Wording note: the page says "minimum one day" in its irregular-gameplay section and "minimum of 20 hours" in its VACNet section. The 20-hour figure is the VACNet-specific one.

Confirmed / Not confirmed

Confirmed (Valve): the 20-hour minimum, all modes being blocked, the party rule, automatic rollback of mistakes, Support's inability to lift it, the 180-day maximum, and the CSR adjustment. Not confirmed: what triggers VACNet in a given case, the VACNet escalation steps (not published by Valve), and whether the requesters' cooldowns were false positives.

Sources

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