No stable Facebook Chat connection via OS X Messages

Hi,

There are two possibles

1) Facebook haver an issue with their Chat server.

Check their web site for Details (if they post anything like server outages)

2) I have read that in your Account Setting there is a option called Security and in that an option about allowing "Unknown Browsers"

Seeing "Chat" would normally be in Browser it may not recognise you are using a Jabber capable app.

Try allowing this Setting.

9:11 PM Sunday; February 3, 2013

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.2)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

I have the exact same issue. It's been working fine until recently (past 2 weeks or so). The only issue seems to be to remove & reconfigure the Jabber setting for chat.facebook.com as AndreasfromCA points out.

Hi,

Re 2)

I should have been more clear.

Your Facebook Account setting at Facebook.

I would not be surprised that a company like Facebook stores data on the most common browser used by users and "blocks" others as an aid to "protection" from extra log in attempts.

The fact that this may not tie up with the actual apps that can log in to Facebook also does not surprise me, nor does the fact that they only mention Browsers rather than any app that can log in.

So there could be a situation where not only your name and password are needed but some information about your are logging in are also needed or needs allowing via some other setting.

I phrased it as "I have read" as I have read it here (Apple Support Communities) but cannot verify it as I don't use Facebook.

10:06 PM Saturday; February 16, 2013

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.2)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

hi,

It is not harsh if you go on to explain where you looked based on what you understood me to have said.

A message or communication is only as good as the receiver understands it.

Is there another option at those settings ?

I am wondering if even if a code is not needed that it still needs to be allowed ?

There are two possibles to eliminate the Mac end.

1) remove and then re-add the account in the Messages > Preferences > Accounts

2) Delete the .plist that deals with the Jabber Logins and their "State"

This is done by using the Finder as the "front" App

Use the Go Menu > Go to Folder and type ~/Library/Preferences into the dialogue box that appears

In the Preferences folder find com.apple.ichat.Jabber.plist (Yes Messages uses the same .plists as iChat and Facebook run a Jabber server)

Drag the file to the Trash.

Restart Messages which recreates the .plist and refreshes the login info in the .plist

Effectively it holds whether you are On line or not for any of your potential Jabber IDs (Google is another) as well as info about Available and Away.

If you have been dropped by the server the info at the server end may not match your .plist info and you may get "blocked" because of this.

It is more common though with AIM logins.

It is late where I am and it will be a while before I pick up on any replies (sig included local Post time)

10:51 PM Saturday; February 16, 2013

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.2)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

HI,

I can relate what a Buddy and myself found out about the GoogleTalk connection back in Leopard/iChat 4.

GoogleTalk is also a Jabber server so it is likely to be relevant.

In Messages > Preferences > Accounts > any Jabber Account > Chat Setting tab you will see there is a box for "Priority"

This is a recent Addition to the iChat/Messages settings.

In Leopard and iChat 4 it does not exist.

Other jabber app do have it.

Jabber servers allow Multiple Logins but are normally "ranked" as to who gets the Messages that are being sent.

You would normally set the home computer to the lowest priority so that logging in at work with a higher Priority would get the app there dealing with the messages.

You could of course set a Jabber Browser on you phone to have an even higher Priority to deal wit those occasions when you are out of the office.

As I said A Buddy of mine and I who both have Google Talk ID and use iChat were both logged in to iChat and our Google accounts.

We found that logging in to GoogleTalk again by logging in to our Google Mail web Pages made iChat sound if it had logged out.

Messages sent between us then only appeared on the Web Browser login.

However if one of us clicked on what had been the Chat window in iChat the messages moved to that window.

At one point we had two conversations apparently going on by clicking the relevant chat window either in the web Browser or in iChat. It appeared that messages sent via iChat only went to the iChat app on the other computer and Web browser chats stayed on the web browser.

Our conclusion was that the Web Browser Login and the iChat Login had the same Priority.

Now in Messages it seems the default for Jabber and GoogleTalk Account is now currently 0 (zero)

I presume that a Facebook login is the same.

I can't remember how we came to the figure but it seemed in iChat 4 to be 23.

I have no idea which is a high or low priority. (whether low or high numbers are more important).

This does not explain why Facebook logins used to work and are now having problems.

It maybe that Facebook have changed the Priority given to web logins and this now clashes with Messages.

So yes, I do think that two logins to Facebook may not provide the clearest picture of what is going on here.

8:32 PM Sunday; February 17, 2013

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.2)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

HELP!!!

My Facebook chat support in Apple Messages is now even more screwed up than before (I used to have this intermittent disconnection issue, but it resolved itself unexplicably after a while)!

Everything seems fine with the Jabber account (and with all the other IM services I have configured, too), except all my contacts (save for a random but recurrent few, and no more than one or two at any given time) are permanently offline… Even though I have more than 10 contacts online, according to the Chat panel on facebook.com. What the frack is this?

I can send them messages and they do get through, though, even to “offline contacts”. I haven't tried having them actually answer me, because I texted a friend of mine who never answers, and it's already very late here. I shall try that tomorrow.

Also, to properly troubleshoot this, I tried recreating my Jabber account on both a OS X 10.8.3 guest user on my main boot drive, and also on a clean installation of 10.8.3 booted via USB, so there's no way that it's my OS configuration's fault. Which leaves Facebook's servers, my FB privacy settings (which, by the way, I didn't change in any way whatsoever), some other random bug in Messages, or any combination thereof. To add insult to injury, my online contacts vanished just like that, with no prior warning (at most, this may have happened after one of the common — but now much less frequent — sudden disconnection events that still plague Facebook chat under Messages, but I digress).

Upon further inspection (that is, staring at both Messages and facebook.com for a while), I'd venture to say that maybe Messages isn't retrieving the current online contacts' list upon successfully connecting to the server, and is then showing up recently connected contacts just for a while (one minute or so), as if it was suffering of both anterograde *and* retrograde amnesia. It's basically “living in the moment”, thus rendering itself completely useless for chatting (honestly, I'm on the verge of picking Adium back, but since I'm using iMessage too that'll force me to use two different IM apps, which feels too redundant)!

What gives?

HI,

The only thing that I see that would cover this would be the answer I made on the 3rd Feb.

Although I don't have a Facebook account I understand that you can have a security setting that refers to "other Browsers".

This seems to be aimed at allowing possibly Mobile Device Browsers that may not match the one you use on a computer to also Login.

(Yes I realise this does suggest that the Security has been set to prevent too many Multiple Logins which you say you have not set)

What is not clear from the info I have gleaned is whether this is a Default setting at all.

My suggestion is that for "other Browsers" you should read as "Other Apps"

If there is an issue with the "Chat" server at Facebook constantly going down then I would have thought Facebook would have plenty of people complaining about it if it was effecting Web Browsers where most people would chat.

9:03 PM Wednesday; April 24, 2013

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.3)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Mainyehc....I am having the exact same problem (only 1 or two contacts show up online at a time) on two different Macs with two different FB accounts. This started over the last week or so. I wonder if this is a FB issue.

Well, I got fed up and tried to connect to Facebook Chat through Adium instead and, guess what? It suffers from the same issue!

So, Troubleshooting 101 ditactes that this *is* a FB issue… Now, to find if it's something wrong with my settings, or with their servers.

Btw, while on that subject, thanks for your help Ralph Johns, but I never found a “Other Apps” or “Other Browsers” section in my FB security settings… I do have an “Device kind: unknown” listed under the Active Sessions section which I believe it is Adium. But there doesn't seem to be any settings I can configure there. The same goes for the “Applications” page; there's nothing really useful I can do to Adium apart from maybe deleting it and re-authenticating afterwards.

Anyway, if you think this is an isolated issue, let me tell you, I believe it is either widespread, or spreading quickly. FB really dropped the ball on this one, as third-party chat support seems to be FUBAR'ed. Check this Adium bug ticket for more info (especially relevant are the most recent messages, which pertain to this very issue):

https://trac.adium.im/ticket/16343

There's this new one, even more specific, opened just 8 hours ago!

https://trac.adium.im/ticket/16374

HI,

This is one thread that lists what were the setting at the time of the post

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4771735?answerId=21264079022#21264079022

I understand that Facebook can have the appearance of changing option on a willy-nilly sort of manner.

At this time I cannot find the Post I read the information in the Apple Discussion areas I normally visit.

Looking at some of th other posts I have made referring to this setting.

It seems it is "Unknown Browsers" mentioned in "Security"

8:55 PM Friday; April 26, 2013

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.3)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously