FacebookFilter

October 6, 2009 6:57 AM

Facebook has been telling me "Your account is temporarily unavailable due to site maintenance. It should be available again within a few hours. We apologize for the inconvenience" for 5 days. I'm getting no response from them.

Other people also cannot get on my page, and switching IP address or using a different network doesn't help. Anyone know why this happens? How do I get it back? Should I attempt to just delete my account (and how do I do that without being able to get on)? If I delete my account, will they let me start over with a new account?

Please no "FB is bullshit/for lamers anyway" answers. I'm concerned about hacking, plus I find FB useful.

posted by nax to Computers & Internet (11 answers total)

Response by poster: I've done everything I can find through Help on FB. A lot of the help suggestions for this problem (which is listed specifically) require you to log on, which I can't.
posted by nax at 6:59 AM on October 6, 2009

No advice here, but the same thing is happening to a friend of mine, so you aren't alone.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:14 AM on October 6, 2009

Have you tried signing on using different browsers? I get the "temporarily unavailable" message using Firefox sometimes, but then I try signing on with Internet Explorer and it goes right through. Or sometimes, I get the message and just try again on the same browser and it goes through so it doesn't seem like a Facebook issue, but like an issue on my end (like with my browser).
posted by That takes balls. at 7:24 AM on October 6, 2009

When this happens to me, I log in again immdiately. Second time's the charm, apparently.
posted by dortmunder at 7:31 AM on October 6, 2009

Maybe try Ctrl-F5 to see if the stuck page is stuck in your cache and not actually the real-time response from FB?
posted by sagwalla at 7:43 AM on October 6, 2009

I've been seeing unavailable notes on my friends' FB accounts lately. For instance, I'll comment to an item in their feed, and then when I get a notification that someone else has commented on the same wall post and click through, I'll get a "page unavailable" notice. Sometimes it goes away on a second click-through, and other times it takes a few minutes or even a couple of hours.

So this may just be a Facebook infrastructure issue.
posted by immlass at 7:57 AM on October 6, 2009

I've noticed that using Fluid or Safari results in my being logged out almost immediately after loading any FB page, but Opera and the iPhone client both work fine.
posted by Caviar at 5:35 PM on October 6, 2009

Best answer: It's not you: Facebook acknowledged on Tuesday afternoon the presence of an internal glitch that left some members with their accounts inaccessible.
posted by clearlydemon at 10:43 PM on October 6, 2009

Me too, been about a week now. Nothing seems to work for me but oddly enough the app on my iPhone still connects but I can not email anyone or leave comments. Mac 10.6.1, Safari 4.0.3. Let us know if you figure it out.
posted by bkeene12 at 8:39 PM on October 7, 2009

Thought I chime back in... my iPhone was still working until tonight. I tried to send an email from FB, it kicked me out, prompted me to log back in and ended with the "Sorry" bullshit. So, long story short, if you still have FB connectivity from your phone don't send any email from FB if your main box account doesn't work. ROT! FB you suck!
posted by bkeene12 at 8:34 PM on October 8, 2009

Response by poster: Can't remember whose response here clued me in to a search that netted me a whole bunch of contact emails at FB (if you ever need them, I saved them so MeMail), and I got 2 worthless form responses and one specific response confirming clearlydemon's answer. This morning, 7 days since the problem started, they finally posted a more specific response:

Sorry, due to site maintenance your account is unavailable at this time.

We are currently experiencing an extended site maintenance issue that is preventing some users from accessing their accounts or Pages they may administer. Rest assured that your account has not been deleted or compromised. Your original account will be restored as soon as possible so there is no need to create a new one. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience you've encountered while attempting to log in to Facebook during this time.

You can stay updated with the progress of this bug by visiting the Help Center.

Thanks for all the help here. I know a lot of people hate Facebook, but like I said, I find it useful and I've really been missing it.
posted by nax at 9:05 AM on October 9, 2009