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New Facebook Chat - I See No One Online!

K

kolax

macrumors G3
Original poster
Mar 20, 2007
9,181
115
I opted in for the video whatever for Facebook chat. Not sure if it is related to that. Anyhow, I got a message where my contacts would usually be listed, and it detailed how only contacts I speak to regularly will be listed, and if I want to speak to someone else, I just search for them.

Well, that whole system is stupid - I just want an online/offline system.. I don't want it to decide who is in my regular list or not!

My problem is my chat says I have 18 people online, yet it won't list any. I'm sure it's related to this new stupid system, and 4 of those 18 I was speaking to earlier!

Anyone else experiencing this?
 
I had the same problem until I clicked "help" on the bottom left of the homepage. It came up again and asked me to click "try it now"!
 
Yeah, it's not related to video chat, but rather to their new system of chatting.

It puts a floating pane on the right side with all your "frequent" contacts, and some online ones. (I have no idea how it chooses..). The others you have to search for.
 
I don't know because I don't talk to that many people on Facebook, but does hiding the sidebar solve the problem? It seems like it shows the online people on the left side of the page like it used to.
 
Threw me for a loop at first, too. Had to click on the "Try It" thingy on the right side of the FB page. Shows some of my friends (not all, and I don't how they determine which ones), and a blue dot for those currently online. Click on a name with a blue dot and the chat appears at the bottom of the page as before. To me, it is easier to read who is on rather than hovering over each icon to see who's there.
 
I can't stand it, and the way facebook has been going (practically every change seems like it's for the worse) I'm starting to search for a google+ invite.

It's really pretty worthless now, just because I don't talk to some of my friends frequently doesn't mean that I don't want to know if they're online :mad:.
 
Yeah, I hate that new design. I found you can see online people on the left sidebar if you hide the right one : Friends on Chat, but that thing doesn't always work properly for me.

It's such a bad design, why are they calling it chat if most of the people on it are offline? Also why does it move the whole webpage to the left when opening the sidebar?

This is actually really stupid, groups were working well if you had lots of people offline, heck they could have added they're magical AI group of people you should want to talk to as a group. Either way, hope they ditch it, bring back the older one or something better.
 
Yeah, I hate the new design. Facebook has been trying to follow the "you must constantly innovate and change to stay relevant" mantra of business. But the thing is, the vast majority of people I know wanted it to stay just like it was a couple of years ago. I know that I have not liked any new "feature" they have put on the site in a while. I long for the version about 18 months ago. It was so much easier to navigate...now it's just a pain. Note: you do not always have to change things to be relevant!
 
I just want everyone who's online, instead of people who are offline in one list that isn't scrollable!

If you resize your browser window (or zoom out) you'll get more contacts appearing in the list. Why can't it just be organised as online/offline with one long scrollable list!
 
The new chat is ****ING STUPID. It lists people who THEY THINK I talk to.. and they AREN'T EVEN ONLINE! What's the use of a chat feature if it only lists a bunch of people who AREN'T ONLINE? What a horrible idea.

I had it set up so all of my friends who I actually want to talk to are in lists, and I have chat set up so it shows me those lists. It was perfect. Now this ********. Guess I won't be using facebook chat anymore.
 
samiwas said:
Yeah, I hate the new design. Facebook has been trying to follow the "you must constantly innovate and change to stay relevant" mantra of business. But the thing is, the vast majority of people I know wanted it to stay just like it was a couple of years ago. I know that I have not liked any new "feature" they have put on the site in a while. I long for the version about 18 months ago. It was so much easier to navigate...now it's just a pain. Note: you do not always have to change things to be relevant!
Click to expand...

I personally preferred the design of the original facebook though I can understand the reasons for some of the changes. But I enjoyed using the early facebook the most.

But the most recent change is undoubtedly the worst. It's taken a useful feature and transformed it into something which is basically worthless.

I keep finding myself checking facebook and realizing that it's pointless because I cannot figure out who is on anyway...

really hope they change it back or alter this "new improved" version.
 
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