Can't message on Facebook

Users and developers helping users with generic and technical Pale Moon issues on all operating systems.

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Nico2000
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Can't message on Facebook

Unread post by Nico2000 » 2022-04-13, 11:23

Hi,
I just got this browser and I ran into a little glitch.
On facebook I can't seem to type anything into facebook messages.
No text appears in the little text window.
Any idea how to fix this?
Thanx

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Sajadi
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Re: Can't message on Facebook

Unread post by Sajadi » 2022-04-13, 12:22

For Facebook, either use a Chromium based browser as backup or use in Pale Moon the mobile site:
https://m.facebook.com/

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Moonraker
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Re: Can't message on Facebook

Unread post by Moonraker » 2022-04-13, 16:25

Try the mobile version which runs just fine as mentioned above.
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Pale moon 29.4.1

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somdcomputerguy
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Re: Can't message on Facebook

Unread post by somdcomputerguy » 2022-04-13, 19:40

https://mbasic.facebook.com is also a decent work around for their failures.
:cool: -bruce /* somdcomputerguy.com */
'If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.'

BenFenner
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Re: Can't message on Facebook

Unread post by BenFenner » 2022-04-13, 21:27

There's a long-running thread about the issue in the Basalisk sub-forum: viewtopic.php?f=61&t=26963

I deal with this every minute of every day. I'm still making comments and sending messages by forcing some text into the box. Once you do that, you can get a message to type with some trouble. The easiest way I've found to force text into the box is to click on the text box and immediately paste some text into it. It can take many tries, but eventually it works. Then I type my message and make sure to be aware that pressing backspace will jump the cursor to the beginning of the line, and other nonsense can happen at any time.

Facebook is so awful.

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somdcomputerguy
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Re: Can't message on Facebook

Unread post by somdcomputerguy » 2022-04-13, 22:15

BenFenner wrote:
2022-04-13, 21:27
There's a long-running thread about the issue in the Basalisk sub-forum: viewtopic.php?f=61&t=26963

The easiest way I've found to force text into the box is to click on the text box and immediately paste some text into it. It can take many tries, but eventually it works. Then I type my message and make sure to be aware that pressing backspace will jump the cursor to the beginning of the line, and other nonsense can happen at any time.
I've noticed that when using the 'main' fb interface and the entry field is selected the cursor disappears after way less than 1/2 a second. So I've entertained the thought of trying to paste some text during that short window. That entertainment ends quickly. If I have something to say, or type in this case, and it's SO important to me that I decide to take the time to do it I'll just use the mbasic interface instead of typing the text somewhere else and then copy/paste into the mbasic interface anyway, rather than trying my luck at the Paste-in-a-Flash game.
:cool: -bruce /* somdcomputerguy.com */
'If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.'

BenFenner
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Re: Can't message on Facebook

Unread post by BenFenner » 2022-05-24, 18:59

I guess I'm bumping this thread instead of the much more comprehensive thread I linked earlier because this is for Pale Moon, and that other thread was for Basilisk.

Facebook comments deteriorated slowly every month or so until they were nearly impossible to make unless pasting into the textbox and even that got harder and harder.

Well, things have gotten slightly better recently, with some ability to type into the box directly returned, along with the occasional almost tolerable behavior. I have no idea what has caused this (maybe Facebook has finally gotten a clue as to how to write sane JS if there is such a thing) but I'm hoping things will continue in this improved direction.

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Moonraker
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Re: Can't message on Facebook

Unread post by Moonraker » 2022-05-24, 20:30

https://mbasic.facebook.com.

I use the above link for the basic version for the very few times i have to use facebook.Less resource intensive too.
user of multiple puppy linuxes..upup,fossapup.scpup,xenialpup..... :thumbup:

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newbie123pm
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Re: Can't message on Facebook

Unread post by newbie123pm » 2022-06-04, 18:10

It used to be that Facebook comments were broken.

Now posting is broken the same way.

So you just paste some text first (ideally just a word) and then you can type.
And you have to type on a line only after there is text on that line.

So at the end of a line, I type two periods, then go back one character and press Enter or Shift Enter
to start typing on the next line with the period there.

It's unfortunate that there isn't a decent work-around.

Maybe telling Facebook that your browser is some other kind of browser like has been done before.
I forget what that's called. Something in about:config.

I found it: user agent

I have a bunch of user agent overrides for various websites.
I guess those are included by default in the install.

I have one that is user set, for Twitter, which I suppose I did at some point:

general.useragent.override.twitter.com = Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:78.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/78.0

I just found one user set for Facebook:

general.useragent.override.facebook.com = Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; Win64; x64; rv:29.0) Goanna/4.5 PaleMoon/29.0.0a1

This might be Facebook, too?

general.useragent.override.fbcdn.net = Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; Win64; x64; rv:29.0) Goanna/4.5 PaleMoon/29.0.0a1

I don't know if these should be that way, or not.
Does anyone know??

I have Windows 10 Pro (64 bit)
and Pale Moon 31.0 (32 bit)
I forget why PM 32 bit, but I think it might have something to do with supporting certain extensions?
I can't remember, it was a long time ago.

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Sajadi
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Re: Can't message on Facebook

Unread post by Sajadi » 2022-06-04, 18:18

newbie123pm wrote:
2022-06-04, 18:10
It used to be that Facebook comments were broken.

Now posting is broken the same way.

Best is to use that user agent for both about:config entries here:
general.useragent.override.facebook.com
general.useragent.override.fbcdn.net

Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 15_5 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) EdgiOS/102.0.1245.30 Version/15.0 Mobile/15E148 Safari/604.1

Gives you the light version, but not the very light version, which is still pretty useful and works as i can see without problems.

The same useragent entry works also for this here:
general.useragent.override.youtube.com

Which gives the mobile Youtube page which is also less demanding than the normal one which requires like Facebook all the latest shinies and drafts to work properly :)

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newbie123pm
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Re: Can't message on Facebook

Unread post by newbie123pm » 2022-06-07, 06:16

Thank you, I'll try it.

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