Microsoft’s Belfiore: We’re working on Facebook notification issues; Windows Phone 7 app due “this month”

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The Windows Phone 8 Facebook Beta app was updated late last night and so far, it has been very well received by the user base. The update brings a lot of new features that consumers have been longing for and reinforces Microsoft’s commitment in making the Facebook app top notch on Windows Phone.

There are still at least two major issues though: there is no Windows Phone 7.x version, though it was promised back in May and Facebook users are having widespread problems with receiving notifications. The good news, as revealed by Windows Phone manager Joe Belfiore, is that both problems should be resolved very soon.

In two tweets posted today, Belfiore revealed that the Windows Phone 7 version of the Facebook app “should have a beta…this month”, noting that he just had a hands-on with an early build. That’s certainly something to look forward to because even though Windows Phone 7 users are now the minority with Windows Phone 8 surpassing its usage, it is still a sizeable audience.

The second topic was in regards to notifications and chat within Facebook. Many users have had complaints about notifications coming through and while it’s not Microsoft’s fault per se (it falls into Facebook’s system), the company is working with Facebook to get things back on track with Belfiore commenting “improvement coming”.

Windows Phone Central will of course keep you posted on both changes as they happen.

Source: Joe Belfiore (Twitter 1, 2); Thanks, Thomas F., for the tip!

Daniel Rubino
Daniel Rubino

Daniel Rubino is the Executive Editor of Windows Central, head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft here since 2007, back when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, Microsoft Surface, laptops, next-gen computing, and arguing with people on the internet.
110 Comments
  • Yes!! Because I'm getting notifications from weeks ago smh!
  • Ha! Me too...I also like the count of notifications on the tile then when you open the app there are no notifications.
    The other thing, albeit small, is when you go to tag someone the "recent" list isn't populated.
  • Yes me too. I need my Facebook hit immediately to satisfy my addiction. That's it, I'm #switching to webOS. /s
  • I miss webOS ):
  • Miss webOS too
  • I'm actually trying to figure out how to get my 920's microSIM into an HP Veer...
  • +Pre 3!
  • +Pixi Plus!
  • Ive removed the fb app until its all fixed as it trashes the fb chat in message hub too.
  • and maybe add notifications for messages too!! 
  • In some ways it's a good thing though, it kept wishing me a happy birthday everyday for a month. Lol... :D
  • Yessssssss
  • hope they just fix the messaging hub chat with facebook. its completely unreliable.
  • Theoretically, it should.
     
    It's a problem with facebooks service talking to theirs, which joe mentioned
  • It's not a Facebook problem. Something is wrong within MS.
    open outlook.com from your desktop browser and open chat. It works perfectly fine there.
    @Daniel Your review on this?
  • I think there's a bit more familiarity with the desktop and browsers than the less popular mobile platform, wouldn't you say? Not a fair comparison...things could be made to work properly if they were invested enough, but Facebook isn't really pushing that hard. Not to say that they aren't, just not as much... =[
  • huhhhhh.. may be yes. You are right.
    But MS is to be blamed here for not providing quality of people hub chat. This is basic WP feature. This should work perfectly. Don't you think so?
  • Its a two way connection.it takes two hands to clap. Both servers need to be configured to play nice with each other.
  • Sounds like they will soon.
    Its terrible when you miss messages in the middle of chat. Its like sending smoke signals in a tornado.
  • I think its a facebook problem and not a microsoft problem. I have this with other devices also. if you have facebook webpage open anywhere it will receive the message first and delay other devices from getting it. 
  • Can you tell which other devices? What OSes?
  • I've heard iPhone users having similar problems.
  • That's interesting, one coworker really liked WP but this made him switch to iOS. Even more he came from Android...
  • +920 I feel you..
  • though IM+ works but its way too slow to use when compared to messaging hub.
  • Mine worked for all of three hours today.  Pissed.
  • I hope they fix half of the posts not showing up. Makes the whole app kinda useless. Compare your Facebook wall on the app and the one on PC, you'll notice.
  • I haven't.
  • For me it shows twice as much my newfeed! All those annoying people I've filtered out from my news feed keep appearing on this app and People hub. It needs to respect my filters on all devices. Facebook, take note.
  • You're right. Graphics/HTML rich posts from like third party apps don't show up in the WP8 Facebook app and I doubt they ever will. Just something I got over long ago. But would be nice if my timeline on the phone mirrored what I'd see on the PC
  • Yeah I know its super annoying! I always miss out on peoples posts because only half the posts show up.
  • This. It doesn't show photos friends are tagged in, or comments friend's make on posts other than yours.
  • There was a time when I 'hated' Facebook more than Google, but at least FB seemed to have always been willing to work with MS on their platforms.
  • Because MS owns some of FB :)
  • That's a pretty small piece honestly, they don't hold that much weight in FB's decision making.
  • 1.6% to be exact, and it turned out to be a profitable investment, but yeah, 1.6% doesn't give you any pull...
  • Finally, Some love to WP7 users
  • Oh yeah!
  • belfiore... he better be sure about that. still glad there's little love left for 7.8 users... i'll only shift to WP8 when my contract ends. but for now i can suck it up. im fine with my lumia 710 because it still does its job. still satisfied with it! :)
  • +1
    Same here. :)
  • Until FB tells Microsoft to make the app using HTML5 only!
  • Hasn't this app been bad since WP first came out? Which will be 3 years this October? And they are just now "improving" it especially for us 7.x users?
  • Yes!
  • Although it is important to keep WP7 users updated, but I personally think it is consuming a lot of effort from MS dev. team. This drags the development speed for WP8 (which is the mainstream) down!
  • Yes its a double edged sword.. You try to support old dying platform, you loose resources. You don't you get heckled. But logically thinking Micrsoft should dedicate their time updating their latest OS so that they don't lag behind in updates.
  • I wish we could get a glance on how MS distributes the resources on WP8/WP7!
  • Eventually, WP7 will die. It's been a very slow death.
  • hope with the release of WP8.1, WP7 users can go for it easily...
  • The people that are still on WP7 are mostly waiting for the bugs to get worked out and the new updates to come before going to WP8. Others have no choice, some are still locked in on their 2 year contracts till the end the year. Im glad they are still supporting WP7!!!
  • Exactly. Its not really the consumers fault when we buy a phone with WP 7.5 and it doesn't get a single update. Thanks ATT/HTC... Only a few more months. I'm thankful their is still SOME WP 7 development going on.
  • Yes!!! finally reliable facebook notifications. Better late than never...
  • Yeah!
  • Good - while they are working on that, they should make the Messenger hub more reliable.  I run the hub and IM+ simultaneously sometimes just to see which receives Facebook chat messages best.  It is quite rare that I get it through the hub.  Does anyone else have this issue?
  • I do but thats because you need to re-open im+ contanstly to re-conect with Facebook
  • They should work on the FB chat in the messages hub too. It's been unusable since about two weeks in after me buying my phone.
  • Agree with this frustrating when I stop getting messages in the Facebook chat in the messaging, just to log onto Facebook and the person responded 3 hours ago.
  • I totly agree on this one. It is pretty much unusable, both the one in the messages hub and the fb app itself. The first one is totally unreliable (and the one in Win 8 is also unreliable) while the app needs to be refreshed manually, feels slow and doesn't supports many things. :/
  • Wp8 handsets are cheap and plentiful. Microsoft could help by offering some incentives for upgrading wp7 devices. Free Xbox music for 3 months. $50 app allowance maybe. Wp7 devices don't promote the brand. Microsoft should focus on making wp8 better, not fixing wp7. Imho
  • +920
  • Still waiting to upgrade due to contract restraints and waiting for the kinks to be worked out on WP8 before mu upgrade. Some people on WP7 are still on contracts till the end of the year.
  • I started with NL800, bought a NL920 at retail price when first released last Dec. For the past 3 months, I'm back on NL800 as my daily driver... I've most if not all the apps i need on wp7.8, love the way it's built (its size, its curves..).. Right now I'm using 920 only when taking photos of my kids. It has become a WiFi "tablet" for me!
  • Hope, that notifications' problem will be resolve soon!!!
  • Good efforts for update. BUt bit dissapointed, still can't do tagging friend's name in comment. 
  • Tell me about it... What's the deal with enabling this feature for the status update and not being able to do so in replies, comments, etc. Same goes for the pictures: enabled for chat but not for comments/relplies
  • Tagging does work in comments. I've just tried it. It works the same way, type @ and start typing the name and it comes up with suggestions...
  • This issue with notifications refers to the original version, right? Because I use the beta version I have no issues such as this - although, even when I've seen the notification already, it shows like it's unread/blue)
  • Its everything my toasts were perfect until an update a few weeks ago and now I get zero toasts from Facebook
  • It would also be nice to be able to sync a Facebook calendar with the WP8 calendar.
  • I thought it already did? Mine is anyway.
  • You can actually do that if you link your Facebook account to your Microsoft account and then visit calendar.live.com. I've got birthdays and events on both my Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 calendars.
  • I use Exchange and not Outlook.com. It does show in the calendar that you can select the Facebook calendar but it does not add items to the main WP8 calendar. I won't be using Outlook.com anytime soon so I guess I will have to wait or just manually add all of my Facebook birthdays and other items to my Exchange calendar. This feature works fine on my Android devices.
  • Irrespective of what calendar you choose, it links them on Microsoft account.
  • What do you mean by Microsoft account? Are you saying that I can login to my Microsoft account and link them or are you talking about changing my email service to Outlook.com (which used to be Live.com in order to sync Facebook calendars into my Exchange calendar). Thanks for the help.
  • Wow I don't really consider this positive news. This has been an issue for years literally since WP launched. Nothing has ever been fixed even though it was an obvious known issue. Facebook has never worked. Chat is always unreliable. Fail. I just dot trust or use it. I receive maybe an accurate notifxation once per week. I receive old months old notifications every other day or so. Usually receive nothing.
  • Thats why im using IM+ for facebook chat. It never fails me.
  • It works 99% of the time for me. It just doesn't sync up the chat stream if you go between the web site and IM+.
  • I also wish if the number of new updates coming into groups i am in, can be displayed. Now we have to manually check the groups if we want to see the updates.
  • How about that YouTube app???? ¬_¬
  • It's all in Google's side now, not on Microsoft's. It is its fault for revoking MS's API code, making its app entirely useless.
  • I'll just keep on using 3rd party apps and stop paying a penny to the bastards at google.  Seriously though, why doesn't any other company come up with a good youtube alternative?
  • Hmm. HTC 8X and I am NOT seeing this update. Only v5.0.3.0 is available to me???
     
  • really? mine gets updated... :/
  • I'm on Verizon, still only seeing 5.0.3.0 ???
     
  • Market delay I guess. 24 hours is the normal time before it hits all servers.
  • Meshing Hot mail...Live...Messenger to Outlook to your alias I sure could create problems. Think I'm try an alternative email to link Facebook to my phone!!!
  • About time my chat been play up for ages good to see wp7 getting it why can't they upgrade the intergrated Facebook?
  • They should have fixed this ages ago. Getting updates from weeks ago is pathetic.
  • The Me title gives me all the Facebook notifications I need EXCEPT messages, which is a big one. If Facebook messages are fixed and they push properly (and immediately) I'll be very happy.
  • Background tasks, notifications and multitasking are three major areas WP needs to work on. Notifications are a problem with many apps. I hope the next WP update fixes it
  • Agree. Background tasks, which power most live tiles, are still flaky causing live tiles not to update. The app gets the blame if course but, but it is WP that is the problem.
  • AMAZING.
  • I wish they would fix normal notifications. I can't remember them ever working reliably. Even with top tier apps like 6tag and Rowi, notifications don't push reliably.
  • exactly!!!!
  • Where can I find the beta app?
  • I wonder when would they release a fb chat so i wouldnt have to integrate my fb messages with my sms
  • It doesn't seem to be quite clear if he's talking about Facebook messages in the message app or if he's talking about notifications in the Facebook app. Both need serious improvements...
  • Thats a fantastic news.. (y)
  • Whatever spud. Facebook notification isn't exactly WP notification in my book.
  • Love for the paps....WP7. GLAD
  • GIve us emoticons and stickers at messages please :) 
  • Need that WP7 app. This FB app is way too old :)
  • Please vote for my idea! https://wpfacebook.uservoice.com/forums/204658-general/suggestions/43261...
  • Sirius? Sirius Black u.u hahaha
  • Searching the store and couldn't find this. Had to do web search for it.
  • And they've got to disable that auto refresh. Awful
  • Picture saving has some problem. If we open a picture from our wall, save it, swipe right or left for getting next picture from the same album, and try to save it, the same picture is saved again...
  • Today is 26 October and we still have issue with this. Joe, is a big lier.
  • It's now November 11th and still nothing. At this point one really can't recommend Windows Phone to any person who uses Facebook. Sad.
  • Three months after Belfiore's acknowledgement of the problem and GDR3, problem still isn't fixed. Ironic that Android and iOS, without any financial investment with Facebook, just work.
  • Dec 16th, 2013.  Brand new Lumia 1520.  Not getting Facebook Notifications.  This is embarrassingly bad.  Other than the random phone reboots that have happened 4 times in the last 3 days, I can't recommend the device to anyone.  It's overly complicated for a techie like me to get working.  Regular folk wouldn't stand a chance. Really need that 8.1 update out.  And need it to be significant.