My friend is always displayed as "offline" and I can't see his actions

My friend is "offline" to me even when I know he is playing

My friend is always displayed as "offline", however in his friend list I am online. He can see the messages I send him, but I can't see his. In result, my friend list always shows up empty in game, and I cannot invite him to any games. He can apparently invite me to a game, but I receive no invite. 

I made sure Origin is activated in SWBF2 and opened a firewall connection specifically for Origin. Furthermore I also restarted origin and my pc several times, as did he.