People who tap into Facebook on smartphones will soon start landing on a ‘Home’ page featuring content recommended by artificial intelligence and a tab leading exclusively to posts by friends. – Copyright AFP Genya SAVILOV

The news that Facebook is building a customer service group is long overdue. I just had an experience I could have done without. It so happens this relates directly to an experience I had this morning…

(Scroll down to “The fix” paragraph if you’re in a hurry.)

Well, it was a bright and cheerful morning and my personal Facebook page had of course disappeared. Facebook notified me they’d upgraded another page. I had no visible access to my personal page. Couldn’t even search my own page.

I was halfway through my first cup of coffee. A 15-year-old page had vanished. I now had a “new” page, also without any of the original content. I lost track of all my contacts, news feed, etc. with this new page, which of course didn’t have any of them set up.

I assumed, wrongly, that this was all that was left of my FB account. I was in a very unfamiliar setting. What bliss. Tried Help and Support; nothing. Tried “contact Facebook”; nothing immediate. Tried looking up a How to Contact Facebook search, got some pretty dismal reviews of the process, and nothing useful.

Meanwhile, I’m contacting people to say I’ve lost the page. All so exciting. Exactly what you need first thing in the morning.

The fix

Simply log out and log back in with the right account password.

Nothing to lose, obviously.

Fixed.

It really was that easy.

This is literally a “turn it off and turn it back on again” fix.

It’s not an intuitive fix. Anyone in IT would think of it immediately. Not everyone works in IT. With hindsight, it also makes perfect sense. Unless your FB account is inoperable, it should work. The login is account-specific, so that’s where you’ll go when you log in.

Forgot your password?

I hadn’t needed to login to FB for years. I had to go and find the password. That’s likely to be an issue for many people, although “forgot password” usually solves it.

Ahh… Facebook…Why is this an issue?

Clearly, from what I saw in many miserable reviews online, it’s also not a fix that occurs much to people, hence this article. People were complaining about losing their FB pages and lack of support with good reason.

The Help system clearly doesn’t work well, if at all. It’s too complex. There are many Help issues that aren’t relevant to specific cases. It’s a labyrinth. There’s also nobody to talk to. All you need to do is add a “How to access your FB page” line or so to the Support pages.

This very straightforward fix should by now be Facebook folklore.  It should also be clearly visible. Users don’t “Instinctively” know the logic of access. They naturally think the problem is systemic. Facebook has deleted their page for some reason, etc.

This is an anything but transparent situation and stressed users may not be thinking straight.

They shouldn’t have to think about it at all. Everyone has to deal with multiple access issues all the time. Access to accounts should be easy and instant.

I’m surprised, though. With all the recent largely negative publicity for Facebook and the perception of hostility and arbitrary decisions against users, it’s a truly lousy look. My suggestion is that Facebook gets back in touch with users. It needs to be a friendly environment. The perception of evasive support hardly helps the image.

Anyway, I hope that helps anyone having problems with their Facebook pages. I’m now on my third cup of coffee and able to get nostalgic. Believe me when I say I could have done without that experience.