My message is lost on Facebook

January 2, 2017 3:10 AM

I sent a message and a friend request at the same time. But once the friend accepted, my message was still in la la land as it was hidden under 'Message Requests.' Even subsequent messages continued to appear under the same filter. I tried deleting my conversation and sending a message but to no avail. I was able to confirm this with a separate account. It appears the only other option would be to write on their wall, but would rather find an alternative than to make the convo public. Any ideas, please?
posted by AngryTypingGuy to Technology (7 answers total)

Has the message request been accepted? Whenever I've accepted message requests from someone, they've ended up in my inbox with all my regular messages.
posted by kinddieserzeit at 3:32 AM on January 2, 2017

Write on their wall just to ask them to look for the message? Ask a mutual friend to give them a prod?

Something is wrong with your hypothesis here though, as otherwise nobody could ever receive FB messages in the normal fashion, which makes me wonder whether your contact is just ignoring the message.
posted by emilyw at 4:01 AM on January 2, 2017 [3 favorites]

"Whenever I've accepted message requests from someone, they've ended up in my inbox with all my regular messages" is how it works on my end, though this is relatively new -- you used to be able to 'friend' somebody and even upon acceptance your message would still languish in the idiot 'other' inbox. Perhaps if you sent the request a long time ago, it's still under the old way of doing things, and glitching horribly?

There is a way to read one's FB messages without having that dratted 'Read at 7:02' show up; to the other party it appears you've never gone near it. I'm not spilling my fun secret for how to do this, but, it's a possibility the message was read, received, ignored.

Agree that if it does need a response, 'hi -- please check your inbox when you have a moment -- cheers, ATG' on the wall is the easiest way to sort it, surely?
posted by kmennie at 4:20 AM on January 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

It's entirely possible that this person just never looks at their messages. Even more so if they access on a smartphone but don't have the messenger app.
posted by zennie at 6:59 AM on January 2, 2017 [4 favorites]

I would be willing to bet they don't have messenger. I've seen what you describe in that case.
posted by frumiousb at 8:15 AM on January 2, 2017 [2 favorites]

If you want to do it privately you could write on your wall and tag them and set the privacy of the post to only them and then direct their attention to the mysteriously lost messages.
posted by little onion at 9:22 AM on January 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

Write it on your own wall, set the privacy option so that only you can see it, and @TheirName.
posted by Mr. Big Business at 1:19 PM on January 3, 2017