Facebook App experiencing intermittent crashing

By Rich Edmonds
last updated

The official Facebook application, brought to you by Microsoft, is experiencing some odd crashing issues with some users. Checking the Marketplace for the application and reading some reviews featured on the app summary page displays a clear indication as to the scale of the problem.

We have attempted to reproduce the issue ourselves, and were only able to report one instance (Samsung Focus (opens in new tab) - another Focus worked however) that experienced crashes when running the Facebook app. It appears (at this early stage) to be randomly tripped with no apparent cause(s) being identified.

Reading the reviews back to the beginning of March, it seems as though it suddenly sprung on unsuspecting users, who are now understandably frustrated. Much like the Youtube offering from Microsoft being a complete flop, this is a serious concern that must be addressed soon to prevent further negativity clouding the WP7 experience and continuing the painful reminder of the pre-NoDo update (opens in new tab).

Are you familiar with these recent issues? There is a temporary workaround for posting statuses and commenting on friends updates via the built-in integration the Windows Phone 7 platform sports. At least we have some way of spying on people we dislike while the official gateway to social goodness is unreliable or simply not working.

Thanks mk for the tip!

Rich Edmonds
Rich Edmonds
Senior Editor, PC Build

Rich Edmonds was formerly a Senior Editor of PC hardware at Windows Central, covering everything related to PC components and NAS. He's been involved in technology for more than a decade and knows a thing or two about the magic inside a PC chassis. You can follow him on Twitter at @RichEdmonds.

29 Comments
  • I'm one of the folks who changed their app rating because of this crash. Perhaps its going through testing for an update?...because we need it (live tile)
  • Wtf? Whose to blame here... Someone has to step up and explain the problem.this is no good.
  • its always been laggy and slow, and always crashingat least it looks nice
  • MS's YouTube app is a complete flop? Maybe I'm the only one who would disagree, from the point of view that it plays videos quite well. I will grant that it doesn't offer any other YouTube features, but I haven't really missed them.
  • It isn't even an app, it's just a bookmark to the YouTube mobile website. Lol. It shouldn't have even been in the marketplace
  • But it does add video playback for YouTube videos in the browser, which I've found very handy.
  • That's true, but again it's not much of an 'app'. It wouldn't be so bad if IE had HTML5 so we could get the cool YouTube mobile site. But it doesn't so we're stuck with the dumbphone mobile site.
  • It's a plug-in for Youtube vids, it just bounces the vid calls out of MIE and over to the Zune software that actually does the playing. So ya, it's not an "app" but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be in the marketplace either.Besides I think media streaming sites like Youtube should plug into the music+video hub directly and not need their own app for the most part. Or at least if they do have an app for the most "advanced" options those with a Youtube account use it could be a 2nd option that you can get through the hub. 3rd party devs need to stop thinking of "apps" and try to integrate more with the hubs sorta like how the Flickr app has to some extent etc. This is why MS needs to open up more APIs and let devs extend hubs.
  • My Facebook integration with the People hub works fine.But the Facebook app has been freezing a lot lately. It just started happening the last week or two.Since there wasn't an app update, I'm inclined to believe that the problem lies on the Facebook side. Maybe they changed the way data is accessed or something.
  • its laggy,and for awhile when i would launch the app it would crash,not it doesnt do it as much
  • It works fine on my Focus. Toronto Canada...My first post, sup peeps.
  • It's only started for me today. I'm using an HD7 on T-mobile in Las Vegas. No problems before today. It just freezes and locks up making the app unusable. I either have to just go back to home or completely power off. It's making me think about popping my sim back in my Nexus one.Someone please get a fix on this.
  • I sometimes get the "Facebook could not be reached" or whatever it says error. It slow and choppy which is quite annoying but it does work. It's just not something I would show someone as an example of how nice the phone is
  • I have been getting HTTP connection resets from facebook.com on my PC browser (Firefox 4 RC) lately. I think that may be what's happening to the Facebook app in its attempts to GET and/or POST data, but the HTTP connectivity errors are being masked by a generic error from the app. That would mean the issue isn't the Facebook app, but it is Facebook. I'm guessing the integrated support in WP7 uses a different URL and some sort of REST or SOAP interface for interacting with the Facebook platform, and therefore isn't affected by this problem.
  • Yup mine is crashing. Samsung Focus, AT&T. Never updated
  • Hmm... I didn't even realize that and it actually stopped working AFTER I read this article lol. Luckily for me the people hub integration is good enough. Hopefully there's an update coming soon.
  • I tried to access it on my AT&T Focus this morning and it kept crashing every time. I just pulled a Windows Mobile 6x fix and uninstalled and reinstalled it and it is working just fine now.
  • It has nothing to do with the app or platform. I have been having issues with facebook all week on my WM6.5 TP2 using the XDA Facebook app, Opera mobile and mini, and IE, and on my Android powered Nook Color. It has been a problem for different apps/devices at somewhat different times all week. (Currently pics don't work on the Android FB app.)
  • The Facebook app isn't so great in general. Whenever I try to upload a pic I always get an error. Even if I go through the Pictures Hub and upload through that it will say it cannot reach the server when I know I'm connected and everything works. Then lately I haven't been able to actually use Facebook--every time I try to open the app it starts loading and then hangs and closes.Adding that headache with the lagginess and weak touch response and you can see why people are annoyed with the app. Either Microsoft or Facebook has to get a team on it and at least improve the stability!
  • If the app just starts to crash outta nowhere then I think it's safe to say it's due to some server side problem/bug that's sending it a bad chunk of data and making it crash.Otherwise if it was the app itself it'd go poof after a bad update, but there has been no update to it at all.
  • That's true. But then again, it doesn't help that the app was already considered to be 'unfinished' by some. No one can really tell if it's the app or a server issue because the app was really that bad lol.
  • Works fine for me, no crashes, Omnia 7
  • I have crashing issues with it on my Dell Venue Pro. Halo Waypoint also crashes. It seems that whenever there is a data-heavy operation going on (Waypoint always crashes when trying to get my character profile), something gets messed up and the app just closes.Hoping NoDo provides some fixes, but I might do a hardware reset on the device to see if that fixes some of the glitches.
  • I think it's a facebook issue, rather than an MS one. I was out with friends earlier this week and everyone who had an Android phone was having problems with their facebook apps crashing all night too; and I've encountered several times this week when the facebook website would time out, etc. in a normal desktop browser.
  • Mine started crashing last night. Can still get updates through the people hub. This is on top of the recent troubles with my foursquare app. Can no longer log in. Boo.Samsung Focus. No updates.
  • Mine started crashing yesterday. There is an option (if you can get past all of the crashing) to send an email about your crash to MS. I think it is under About. I was able to send an email to them which had some data about the crash.Be sure to do that so MS gets the notices about it not working well. I hope they fix it soon.
  • Now my people hub keeps asking me for my Facebook password. No updates on pictures hub, facebook keeps crashing. Anything new? Where can I complain about this?Samsung Focus.
  • Well, first, I hope everyone has thought to restart their WP7 phone when they find any app crashing repeatedly. Shut it down, boot it up again. I had some crashing with Facebook, but a reboot got rid of the problem.As far as any app crashing being a horrible problem for WP7, come on! I had an iPhone for two years prior to switching to my Focus. Apps crashed all the time, including multiple versions of the iPhone's Facebook app. Usually a restart corrected the problem there, too, for a while.On the whole, I've found that I need to restart my Focus far less often than my iPhone, so much less often that sometimes I forget it's something to try when I run into a problem!Not to mention that I've yet to have to hard reset and rebuild my Focus. I had to rebuild my iPhone four times in two years.
  • Yes already did that. Took out the battery and switched it bak on too. Same problem.