Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2017 August 1

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August 1[edit]

Write a visitor post to a Facebook page[edit]

I know this is Wikipedia and not Facebook, but I'll try asking anyway, on the off chance someone here also uses Facebook and knows about this.

Lately I've found I'm unable to write visitor posts to any Facebook page (as opposed to profile). There is a "Posts" section on the menu on the left-hand side of the page, and in that section, there is a link "Visitor posts" to view visitor posts written to the page. But there is no link "Write post" and no text field to write a post to. I can comment on the page's own posts and on other people's visitor posts but I cannot start my own post.

The weird thing is, this happens only on the desktop version. I've tried it on Firefox on both Windows and Linux, same result. No link anywhere to write a new visitor post. But on the mobile version, at least on my iPhone, I can click on "Visitor posts" and there is a link "Write post". What's even weirder, I seem to remember being able to write new visitor posts on the desktop version just last week. But now this functionality has disappeared.

Does someone know what is going on here and how I can write new visitor posts? JIP | Talk 15:22, 1 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried to report this problem to Facebook? Ruslik_Zero 20:30, 1 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, of course. That's the first thing I did. It's been almost a day and they haven't replied anything other than their automatic reply message. JIP | Talk 20:47, 1 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
When I have a technical problem with facebook, my first suspicion is a malfunctioning, or over-zealous ad-blocker or privacy blocker. ApLundell (talk) 21:16, 1 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It's happening both with Linux at home and with Windows at work, and the computers aren't connected in any way other than using the same Facebook account. I'm not using any ad blocker on either. And the mobile version on my iPhone allows me to write visitor posts as normal. Just last week it worked perfectly with Linux and Windows, and I didn't change anything on either computer. Everyone else seems to be perfectly able to write visitor posts, as they keep being written. It's somehow just me. I haven't got blocked, or otherwise I wouldn't be able to write posts on my iPhone. JIP | Talk 21:22, 1 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Were you trying to post to the same pages across your devices? Maybe you were blocked from writing visitor's post by the FB pages. Hofhof (talk) 15:08, 2 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The OP said "any Facebook page" which I assume means they tried multiple pages. To the OP, on the desktop site what are you actually seeing at the middle top above the highlighted page post where you normally write visitor posts? Is the highlighted post directly below the like, follow, recommend buttons? Note that AFAIK, there hasn't been a "write post" link nor have you written posts in the visitor posts section on the right for a long time on the desktop site, if ever. On the desktop site you write posts above the highlighed post of the page in the middle top of the page (just as you do with friend profiles etc although they don't have the right column for visitor posts) even if your visitor post will appear on the right. Nil Einne (talk) 05:12, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The problem has gone away by itself. I can now write visitor posts on Facebook pages like before. It was probably just a temporary bug. JIP | Talk 19:45, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]