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Facebook Users Experiencing Timeout Issues

Posted by Nick O'Neill on September 9th, 2008 6:46 PM
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This afternoon a Facebook user sent me a copy of his interaction with Facebook regarding an issue that he experienced in which he was repeatedly timed out after logging in. While it isn’t clear why this is happening, there’s no doubt that he’s the only user experiencing the problem. A message from Facebook said that they were “aware of the problem” and working on a resolution.

The issue has been around for over a week and something makes me thing that it’s related to the new chat system as the first sign of something going wrong is a notification in the chat bar which says “Your session has timed out. Please log in.” For those that have experienced a timeout on Facebook there apparently isn’t much you can do at this point unfortunately.

The user that contacted me has had their session timeout repeatedly within 30 seconds of logging in. This means that Facebook has been rendered practically useless for a number of users thanks to this bug. Have you been experiencing this issue or is this an extremely small group of users with the problem?

 



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75 Comments »

  1. Facebook IM sporadically says the person I'm chatting to is offline or makes me offline, or shows a green dot, then I send an IM, and it turns to a red dot. I hate it's flaky behavior so much, but it can be such a useful tool to communicate with friends, so I hope Facebook fixes it for good soon. FBIM has been flaky since it was released!

    Comment by Nick Thorsch — September 9, 2008 @ 2:09 pm

  2. i've been having this problem for almost a week. If you check the box to remember you when you login, it doesn't happen.

    Comment by Travis — September 9, 2008 @ 2:49 pm

  3. I'm experiencing the same problem and Facebook technical support seems unavailable to help. It makes using Facebook practically impossible.

    Comment by Steve — September 10, 2008 @ 5:13 pm

  4. Im currently having the same issue. Facebook servers keep dropping my connection. Im still getting email notifications from Facebook so at least that's still working.

    Comment by Anthony — September 11, 2008 @ 1:03 am

  5. Yes and it's very annoying. Can't upload pictures or write long messages without going to the login page and losing all my work.

    Comment by Andy — September 23, 2008 @ 8:05 am

  6. I get the same problem…

    Comment by Mo — October 16, 2008 @ 5:54 am

  7. me as well

    Comment by suveen — October 19, 2008 @ 7:54 am

  8. I just started having that SAME problem today (Oct 19th). I log into my Facebook account and after 5-10 seconds it says "Your session has timed out. Please log in." I tried deleted all my cookies, as someone suggested but it made no difference. I'm using Safari but the same thing happened when I tried logging in with Firefox.What is going on????

    Comment by AnnoyedwithFACEBOOK — October 19, 2008 @ 8:31 am

  9. problem started for me today too (oct 19) – my wife is having no issuesi have the "remember me" box checked, all it means is you don't have to retype your password every time – (i believe that is a browser function though – not facebook)i sometimes have to log back in within 10 seconds of logging in

    Comment by john — October 19, 2008 @ 8:51 am

  10. same problem. Started this evening,It intervenes with the games and all other applications.

    Comment by izvarin — October 19, 2008 @ 9:42 am

  11. Same here. The problem just started today and I'm unable to use Facebook because it keeps timing me out.

    Comment by gioiapaine — October 19, 2008 @ 9:58 am

  12. I'm having the exact same problem as all the others, started today too 19th oct. Currently I log in, 1 sec later I get a time out… I live in Sweden, if some geographics can help the FB-team to fix this ASAP! I assume that such a global application as FB has the best of the best support team On-call 24/7…Or?

    Comment by Michael — October 19, 2008 @ 12:08 pm

  13. i sent a support request to facebookthey were working on it (my account was "unavailable for maintenance" for a whileworks fine now

    Comment by john — October 19, 2008 @ 5:08 pm

  14. Nov 3: I'm having the problem too and I can't stand it. Pic uploads fail, keep getting booted… Sometimes I can't even change my status! *shakes fists at sky* Please fix this problem!

    Comment by Lorraine — November 3, 2008 @ 7:23 pm

  15. i am having this problem now… remember me does not work… and I can't post or change screens without getting booted.

    Comment by Antoinette — November 7, 2008 @ 2:28 pm

  16. I can't upload pictures for 3 days now …Facebook justs boots me out when I try to add photos…Grrrrr..Very annoying !!!

    Comment by meg — November 10, 2008 @ 11:22 am

  17. I recently stumbled on this problem. After researching it seems the issue has to do with expired cookie settings. After looking at my calendar settings in the bottom right corner of my desktop I found my Date was off by a month. After changing that Facebook started working.

    Comment by Lori — November 18, 2008 @ 6:04 pm

  18. This has been happening to me for over a week now. It is driving me insane. I sent a Help note, so hopefully someone does something about it. Very annoying.

    Comment by Kurt — December 2, 2008 @ 10:19 am

  19. I have been having this problem for a week and it's driving me mad.I can't do anything without being logged out.I have sent messages to Facebook but with only 1 response which was no help at all.I really want to know what the problem is.

    Comment by Emma Hosking — December 2, 2008 @ 12:39 pm

  20. Yes this keeps happening to me. It's been going on for about six days now. It is extremely frustrating.

    Comment by Darcy — December 3, 2008 @ 11:37 am

  21. Facebook keeps kicking me out after 5-10 seconds because it says my session has timed out. Im really annoyed with this. I did not care for this site in the beginning, I only joined because all my family is on there. With myspace you dont have these issues. Im seriously thinking of deleting my account if this does not get fixed in a matter of a week!

    Comment by Gamar — December 4, 2008 @ 12:36 pm

  22. This has been happening to me all day long and it is driving me NUTS!

    Comment by MIke — December 6, 2008 @ 1:30 pm

  23. Just started happening to me yesterday (7th Dec) and it's driving me insane.

    Is there anything that can be done?

    Comment by Joe — December 8, 2008 @ 7:34 am

  24. FYI. I had changed my password right before this started happening. I changed it to something strong with lots of punctuation and what not. Today I changed it back to a simple alpha-numeric code and I haven't been kicked out once.

    Not sure if it means anything or not but if so that's pretty lame.

    ach

    Comment by Andy Huffer — December 10, 2008 @ 5:34 pm

  25. I started having the same problem today (11th of December). Sent an email to their support team. Lets see how long before it gets fixed. I have not found an explanation of what could be going on anywhere…

    Comment by Francisco — December 11, 2008 @ 5:20 am

  26. I am having the same problems too.. friends say they can not see my profile either… and logs out after 15 seconds… has anyone has any luck gettin it fixed yet???

    Comment by kerry — December 11, 2008 @ 7:03 am

  27. Has started happening to me today, does anybody know what is wrong yet? It's been like it all day whenever I've tried to log on I get the 'Your account is temporarily unavailable due to site maintenance. It should be available again within a few hours. We apologise for the inconvenience' Message, when it does finally let me in I get signed out after seconds. Hope ths is fixed by tomorrow

    Comment by Kenny — December 16, 2008 @ 8:57 am

  28. I'm having this problem also. Just started today. Tried to log in on different computers, but with same result. My buddy had no problem logging in on the same computers.

    I'm thinking it's a special application problem?

    Comment by plexuz — December 16, 2008 @ 11:39 am

  29. I've had this happen to me just recently. I've noticed it's isolated to Safari and Fluid though. Firefox stays logged in just fine.

    Comment by Michael — December 16, 2008 @ 10:55 pm

  30. Same thing happening to me for a week now. Sent message to support, nothing back yet. Thought it was cookies, so I reset Safari, no luck. Thought it was FB for Palm, so I reset that, nothing. Aaargh!!

    Comment by Michael — December 27, 2008 @ 8:32 am

  31. Has been happening to me for weeks. It is sporadic, however.

    Comment by Steve Elmore — January 9, 2009 @ 2:14 pm

  32. Just figured out that Adium (IM message client) is the culprit for me.

    Comment by Steve Elmore — January 9, 2009 @ 2:58 pm

  33. it was adium!!! thank you so much for that tip— i just googled the universe because i was having the same problem. disconnect facebook from adium or other chat software. all better!

    Comment by df — February 2, 2009 @ 10:29 pm

  34. i am being told that my session has timed out and getting sent back to the login page i am even thinking about completly deleting my account as i am getting rather annoyed with all the trouble its causing. what the hell can stop this problem occuring?

    Comment by paul chapman — April 28, 2009 @ 12:11 pm

  35. I had the same problem, with my FB session timing out in even less that 30 seconds. And yes, Adium was the cause! Thanks, Steve Elmore! (And thanks, Google, too ;)

    Comment by Sam — May 29, 2009 @ 5:03 am

  36. I had the same problem but it only occurred when someone else logged in to my account at the same time I was on.

    Comment by Josh — May 29, 2009 @ 12:16 pm

  37. pissed about this. thanks facebook!

    Comment by sham — June 12, 2009 @ 7:54 pm

  38. I'm having the timeout problem with FB and am not technical. Help! Please

    Comment by SD — June 26, 2009 @ 11:26 am

  39. I’m having the same trouble with timeouts on FB. Not technical, please help!

    Comment by SD — June 26, 2009 @ 3:28 pm

  40. I’m having the same darn problem.

    Comment by Melisa — June 27, 2009 @ 10:59 pm

  41. I am getting login timeouts and validation errors whenever I try to post anything. Anyone have any ideas as to how to fix this?? I read the above comment about Adium, however, I have no idea what that is…any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

    Comment by Jules — June 30, 2009 @ 7:19 am

  42. This last days I had annoying facebook problems. It had to do that my facebook account would drop me out after a view seconds and I would have to login every time I went to another page. After restating the browser, deleting all cookies, reseting the browser etc. I figured out that the problem came from the chat program in facebook. I use Adium, a chat program that connects the different chat accounts I have, like msn, ichat and facebook. It seems like if I have Adium and facebook open at the same time facebook logs me out after a view seconds. I guess some seriuos bugs in the facebook software or security issues with a third party software like Adium. To avoid this I cannot be loged into facebook and Adium at the same time.

    Comment by JB — August 1, 2009 @ 8:31 am

  43. I'm having this issue too.

    Comment by Omid — August 4, 2009 @ 9:34 pm

  44. I'm facing problems with fb for the last 2 days… when will this technical problem be resolved???

    Comment by Juliet — August 9, 2009 @ 5:40 am

  45. I’ve been having this problem for a couple of weeks now, I wonder if it is related to me having 2 FB sessions open?

    Comment by Irene — August 12, 2009 @ 4:02 am

  46. I have been getting the same thing, probably for about 2 1/2 weeks now. Its really annoying, but what can you do

    I guess ill just have to stay away for a while and hope that fix it. I personally have emailed them like 3 times. oh well. Tumblr is calling. ha

    M

    Comment by Martin — September 16, 2009 @ 12:19 am

  47. I have been having issues even getting the page to open for several days now, its so annoying

    Comment by Angie — September 19, 2009 @ 7:07 am

  48. Yes, I just switched to IE 8 and now I am getting timed out every time I go on Facebook. VERY ANNOYING! Any coincidence?

    Comment by Ron LaFave — September 24, 2009 @ 8:20 pm

  49. I was having the same problem but like it was previously stated mine was being caused by being logged in on another program/computer, in my case my android G1 is logged in to FB also and was causing the problem

    Comment by Phillip — September 25, 2009 @ 3:28 am

  50. I've been experiencing this problem for about a month now. How incredibly frustrating especially since my whole job revolves around social media marketing.

    This is a bug that needs to get fixed quickly.

    Comment by Joshua Davis — October 1, 2009 @ 6:48 pm

  51. I just started experiencing session time-outs yesterday. I don't know what the time spacing is, I do know it is measured in minutes rather than seconds. It is definitely annoying though.

    Comment by Jacob — October 7, 2009 @ 5:09 am

  52. Has been happening with me as well. I’ve been using Trillian Astra to stay logged-in to Facebook all day and I bet a lot of others are using other tools to do the same. I think Facebook Corp is probaby trying to mitigate the bandwidth of ever-incresing presence traffic.

    Comment by James — October 7, 2009 @ 12:27 pm

  53. hello everyone, i had recently experience this problem too. i am not too sure why the time out happens… but my log in session seemed to timeout pretty randomly… i hope facebook would help solve this problem…thanks in advance

    Comment by Adrian — October 30, 2009 @ 12:29 pm

  54. facebook sux – nothing works, timeout all the time, error messages non-stop.

    Comment by sdfsdf — November 3, 2009 @ 12:21 pm

  55. I was having the same problem as long as I had "tweetdeck" running with my facebook account on it. I closed the program and it stopped happening. I think the problem is that you can't have your facebook account running on two places at the same time.

    Comment by Doug — November 15, 2009 @ 4:38 am

  56. this TIMEOUT SESSION THING IS ERKING MY NERVES CN SOMEBODY FIX IT PLEASE…………..

    Comment by noik — November 25, 2009 @ 11:41 pm

  57. I've been having the problem for quite sometime now. So frustrating!

    Comment by Lucy — November 26, 2009 @ 1:41 am

  58. I am having the same problem very frustrating

    Comment by fred mashford — November 30, 2009 @ 4:40 am

  59. this really annoys me and it happens alot. i was trying to watch a video and i couldnt even watch the whole thing without it loggin me out

    Comment by Rose — December 5, 2009 @ 12:55 pm

  60. OMG this happens like every FIVE seconds to me! >< its sooo annoying!

    Comment by Jillian Harper — December 5, 2009 @ 1:38 pm

  61. I am seeing the same issue at random intervals. Sometimes the session timeout occurs within a minute or two and in other case it can be every 5 to 15 minutes. Keep Logged In is check but has not effect. I am accessing Facebook via the Flock browser and using Adium (Mac IM multi-client Chat) and I have noticed that the Facebook account are frequently going off-lime and them coming back on-line. SO Adium sees the Facebook link as resetting. Flock displays this as a session timeout.

    Comment by Facebook User — December 15, 2009 @ 4:43 pm

  62. The timeout issues seems to have occurred at roughly the same time that Facebook changed its' security policies last week.

    Coincidence?

    Comment by Facebook User — December 15, 2009 @ 4:46 pm

  63. This keeps happening to me as well. I can't do anything without it saying "Not logged in. You must be logged in to do that." Then I can click on home and it goes back to my homepage, but it just won't let me go anywhere else or like anything or make any comments. It's making it impossible for me to use Facebook and I have tried deleting my cookies, which solves it for about ten minutes and then the problem is back again! My browser is IE8.

    Comment by Facebook User — December 17, 2009 @ 6:11 pm

  64. OK, that's weird – I just went back to my account, which said that my session had times out, then I clicked on Privacy and it went back to normal! What the heck is going on?

    Comment by Facebook User — December 17, 2009 @ 6:16 pm

  65. Facebook must not be paying attention.I noticed this after the privacy setting change. It seems to happen to me every 5 minutes or so. Other fb friends are experienceing problems as well. They need to get on this……..it is really aggravating and people need to start being more vocal about it! Put it in your status update!

    Comment by Facebook User — December 21, 2009 @ 4:14 pm

  66. Why am I experiencing this "Session Timed Out"? For 3 days now and it's very annoying! I use Facebook as my homepage and this happens every few seconds up to about an hour. Yesterday, after just finishing a long message to a good friend this happened and the message was completely lost! What can I do to fix this problem?? Please, help!!

    Comment by Wendy — January 22, 2010 @ 7:45 pm

  67. Eveytime i click on sthing on my page my pages closes down and then restart then it says a problem with this webpage caused it to close and then restart. I can't load pictues send messages anything without is closing down

    Comment by tresa — January 30, 2010 @ 8:30 am

  68. I'm having soooo much trouble with f/b at the moment. Session timeouts, can't load any applications, comments not appearing on my home page….it just goes on and on….Any chance of a fix sometime soon???

    Comment by Talei — February 22, 2010 @ 12:41 am

  69. Feb. 23,2010

    Two days ago, the time out sessions started with me. Like everyone else I am annoyed. I had a friend try my account on her computer, she navigated around just fine. My son's account just fine. Mine not so good. Fix the problem FB!!! I hate to lose all my work on the games.

    Comment by Linda — February 23, 2010 @ 3:11 pm

  70. I heard it happens when someone it hacking your account when they are on your facebook the same time as u are logged in to it, i logged in to my daughters account the same time she was on and it said timed out please log in scary thought!

    Comment by emma — March 1, 2010 @ 2:23 pm

  71. how can you be loged into two facebook accounts at the same time?

    Comment by shelly — March 15, 2010 @ 11:38 am

  72. Same issue here! I get the "not logged in" message, repeatedly – very annoying!

    Comment by Linda Oriana Spratt — April 3, 2010 @ 2:42 pm

  73. i have been having the same problem since i switched from firefox to internet explorer 8.i would log on and in 30 seconds of being on i would get disconnected.if you ask me i think facebook has to many irons in the fire.lol.they need to clean up their site and fix the dang bugs.

    Comment by christine — April 24, 2010 @ 9:29 am

  74. I have this problem too.i don't know how i to log in on facebook and i hope u will help me with problem thanks

    Comment by kullananad — May 9, 2010 @ 7:43 am

  75. i dont know when exactly this problem happened to me because my laptop dont like connecting where i live but connects everywhere else but its been a week and the problem still hasnt been fixed i dont even get to log in though as soon as i hit the log in button the connection times out it is verry annoying and ive been searching google for a long time to figure out if so far i havent found a way to fix this problem but im gona keep looking if anyone knows how to fix this please help me out

    Comment by xarro — December 25, 2010 @ 5:36 pm

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