As a gift.

On Steam, paid a friend to buy it and he sent it to me, is that the issue?

"Linking failed. Neither your Factorio account nor your Steam account have access to the game. Please buy the game either via our website or on Steam"
Is the error I'm getting when I try to link my account to Steam.
Yes, I do have the game, I can play singleplayer, however I cannot access the mod ...