Wednesday, August 14, 2013

What to do when facebook only shows a few posts in your news feed

I have been having the problem for a while that facebook will sometimes only show a few posts in my newsfeed, and hardly show much of the rest of its interface.  I use Chrome, but tried it using Internet Explorer and have encountered the same problem.  The facebook forums are full of posts by users complaining about this.  Take this one for example:
My news feed isn’t scrolling anymore. It only shows 3 to 4 posts and won’t scroll any further down. I’ve logged into Google Chrome, IE9, Firefox and Safari and all 4 do the same thing. I’ve tested this on my other computers using Windows 7 and the...
At first I was thinking it was an intentional disabling feature to discourage the use of ad blocking software, but disabling that didn't help.  After performing various random tests including closing the browser, clearing the cache, reloading the browser, I finally found a reliable workaround for what seems to be a bug in facebook's browser-side code.

The issue manifests itself when loading fb in a window for the first time after having started the web browser (or in the case of Chrome, a new tab). Not only is it a problem that only just the first few posts load, but also when the browser window is maximized: the right activity/favorites bar also does not load.  Here are the steps I use to get it working:

1. MAXIMIZE the window.  This is helpful because in order to tell that all the fb code is working properly, the right activity/favorites bar must have an *opportunity* to load
2. Click on your name to view your timeline. (alternatively you can click on Messages or Browse)
3. Wait for the right activity/favorites bar to be completely displayed. (If you don't have the window maximized, seeing the years list completely shown is a good indication fb is now working)
4. Once the right bar is done loading, click on the [ f] icon or Home to show your news feed.

And voila! Facebook should be working now.  Hope this helps you if you've been frustrated by the same problem.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

That didn't fix it. I always view it maximized.

Anonymous said...

Didn't fix it for me either. Thought it was a problem just under Windows 10. So I restored win 8.1 from a backup. That didn't fix it either. Still working on trying to fix it.

Mires, Jimmie L. said...

This has No Effect on the problem described.
FaceBook loads only about 7 - 10 posts.

Ben Hochstedler said...

Keep in mind my post is 2 years old. It's likely a lot of the software is different now for both desktop and mobile versions of the website.

john.2ndchance said...

Fixed mine.

Anonymous said...

It happened to me yesterday, July 19, 2018. I tried a bunch of little things -- close and reopen the browser, reboot, etc. Deleting a weeks worth of cookies worked for a couple refreshes, but the problem came back. Then I cleared my cache, and that fixed it.

Anonymous said...

Happened to me August 10, 2018 Can't use see All to look at more items than the three that show up in search.

Anonymous said...

Clearing my cache didn't work either Had this problem for a few days. Useless to try to look at posts...can only see the first three of whichever FB wants me to see. Frustrating Was working fine a few days ago with no known changes to computer software.

Anonymous said...

This has been happening to me for about a month, on all platforms and anywhere I happen to be. I thought may be it was because FB erroneously logged my "not interest" comment on some ads as "violates our policy" and their algos thought I was a troublemaker. I can find no fix. So FB loses me as an almost constant user. That might not be a bad thing, for me.

Anonymous said...

Help anyone out there figured this out yet?

Anonymous said...

Also iPhone is fine it’s just my iPad which is weird.

Anonymous said...

None if this solved the problem for me. Someone else can log into their Facebook account on the my computer and have no issue with their news feed. Meanwhile, I have the issue no matter whether I use my laptop, PC, smart phone. I have the problem regardless of which web browser I use. I report the issue to Facebook and when they finally respond after at least three weeks, they do so by sending me the exact same form-letter response every time.

melissa said...

Im having the same problem. have looked and tried everything. did facebook change their algorithm? I only see about 7 posts, then its all blank

Anonymous said...

I have only been able to see posts made in the last 2-3 days for a couple of years. I have a friend list of 8 people and follow a couple of local organizations. I can only see their posts, older than a couple of days, if I click on each individual in notifications. I read one site that said the problem is if you don't click "like" or comment on the post, that FB takes it as you are not interested in future posts by that person, aka algorithm games by FB. Now that said, why would they stop your scrollbar from looking at last week's posts? I am posting to show the problem still exists.

Unknown said...

So much for FOLLOW-UP! SMH