Facebook’s Birthday Fail

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Facebook says I got 633 birthday greetings Friday. The problem was I didn’t see 633. That was troubling.

The way it seems to work is, Facebook only lets three or four similar posts sit on your wall at any given time. Once you’ve looked at them new posts will come through, but again only three of four.

What about the posts that come in-between? Under normal circumstances they’re hidden! Worse still, Facebook never mentions this (or it does it’s in the most obscure way).

I knew something was up when I looked at timestamps. Posts were clustered close together, then large gaps. How could three people send birthday notes over five minutes, then nothing for hours?

A little Google sleuthing revealed the trick to finding them all, but what a pain! Don’t ask me how I did it, because I don’t think I can replicate the steps!

Once the magic was unlocked, I went back and read (and “Liked”) each and every one.

Without Facebook I wouldn’t have gotten 633 greetings. That part is good. But it’s obviously a two edged sword.

7 thoughts on “Facebook’s Birthday Fail”

  1. My birthday was a couple of weeks ago, and Facebook clustered them all together in an item labeled “x friends posted on Joshua’s timeline for his birthday.” Not sure if this is standard across the board, but I was equally confused until I later found that. Days later I was finally able to thank everyone who did it.

    In any event, happy belated birthday!

  2. hi Geoff – I got kicked off facebook for some unknown reason more than a year ago. I haven’t been able to locate an 800 number for them to complain to. Do you have any ideas.

  3. I’m glad you found them all. There have been so many changes on Facebook, but at one time, I noticed that, as you said, two or three posts would show up. Along with that, there would be a separate window that contained a scroll bar on the right-hand side. The rest of the posts would be located in there.

  4. Happy belated birthday Geoff. I hope you’re unpacked and settling into your new home with all your new furniture and (damn, I’m jealous) all that beautiful California weather. Life is good out there, I know.

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