They seem to have been broken since probably that "SteamPipe" conversion.
I tried the update to "
v3B22b" on my Linux server.
I updated the
binaries only (
podbot_mm_i386.so,
podbot_mm_amd64.so and of course
metamod.so) since I don't want to over-write any of my other configuration stuff.
They join the game, and stay in "spectator".
Basically, they never actually join a team.