How does Facebook update their chat services? (problems with facebook chat delays)

[bluestar_uk]

Hi guys,

This is my first time post here on the forum, and being a regular forum user on other sites, I have done the usual searches first of all. I've spent the last few hours searching, so my apologies if I have missed it and covering it again.

Now the reason why I am posting is becuase like many of you, I have recently (only in the last week) starting having problems with integrated Facebook chat on my phone. I have no apps in use and neither is Facebook logged on anywhere else. Be it on phone browser or PC. Plus I have logged out of the browser rather than just close the page down.

I understand that this issue is found out to be the way facebook changes there chat services and allows for offline messaging etc. which like most of you; quite disappointed and angry with MS because this renders the integration of Facebook chat useless. Agreed with others! This is a huge selling point of the phone, particularly with millions of users on Facebook.

However, I have had a HTC HD7 since day one and I never had any problems with chat delays on Facebook. When I got the Mango update, I still never had any delays. 2 months ago I upgraded to a Lumia 920 and never had any problems; all the time whilst this issue was being reported.

So... does Facebook update their chat service across different servers at different times? Similar to how they did the timeline update and home screen changes (some people had it whilst others didn't) because up until a week ago my Lumia 920 was working seamlessly with the integrated chat/SMS without any delays at all. Now every message takes a minimum of 60-70 minutes, if the message arrives at all.

I have been using the chat all this time, and I don?t believe 50+ of my Facebook contacts have all of a sudden started changing their phone status to offline, so to clash with the findings that have already been found.

I hope that kind of makes sense to you all; I?m not that good with my English. So apologies if it is a bit unclear.

 

[Huime]

Its probably MS is to blame. iOS and Android seems to be fine with FB chat. Unless they both have access to some advance api that MS is current locked out from.

 

[bluestar_uk]

I understand that this is a issue with MS and their OS and yes development is needed. This has been covered across many forums now. But what i don't understand is how the service was working perfectly fine up untill this last week. Also when the problems have been reported previously, there's still a number of people that say they have no problems. As i did too.

I have had no changes on the phone, no updates rolled out and no visible changes made with Facebook (usually Facebook changes are highlighted when you next log on) So if there is no change made on the phone, to me that points towards Facebook. And that's why i asked the original question of how the chat is updated.

 

[bluestar_uk]

Has anyone else got any views on this or suggestions? There's post all over the internet from people reporting that there Facebook chat has stopped working/delayed within the last few days or week. It seems strange that people are pointing the fault to MS and not being compatible with the Facebook chat system. But nobody has explained why it was working previously and then just stopped.

 

[Kellzea]

When something works fine and then just stops, all of a sudden, across all devises of a certain type, without any update or change to those devises, then it must be the other end.

My money is on facebook changing something at the back end that fundamentally screws chat on wp. It could of course have been a stealth update from ms that no one in the world has noticed with the sole intention of self destroying one of their main os advantages................im just saying its more likely Facebook.

 

[bluestar_uk]

Yes I think it's agreed that Facebook has changed something at the back end. But that still doesn't explain why the integrated chat has been working for some and not others. That's why I asked if anyone knows how Facebook roll out their updates.

 

[Florin Anghel]

You made a good supposition bluestar_uk, but partly is wrong.
MS has different servers for fb chat, so when FB pushes updates to their chat, MS has to take that updates and implement them on their servers. That's why you will see the service working for some but not for others. It just takes time..
In a perfect universe MS should fix all their servers at once, but since there are many teams with different nationalities in different places on earth it takes time.

 

[vichuhit]

Me too. im having this problem for two weeks now. But you can't blame Facebook at all for this error. Their API for chat is rarely changed and is described to everyone prior. it is the errors on MS servers. Now to be technical, our integrated chat system in mobile is not connected to the Facebook chat directly. It is connected to the "MSN messenger", if we linked our FB account to our outlook.com id, (I guess you know what i am saying by this), we can chat with our FB contacts via "messenger". secondly, when we setup "Integrated messenger system" in our phone "we are connecting our mobile to "Messenger" (which is already connected to FB account and has ability to chat with them from there).
from the image you can see how it works and where the problem is. the FB sends messages to messenger first, the "messenger" then pushes the message to our mobile.
the delayed receive of messages is not because of the problem from FB to Messenger link. If You login to messenger using same id you used in your WP, you'll see the messages delivered from Fb to Messenger almost instantly. you can test it. chat from you mobile, keeping messenger opened in PC. you'll see reply in messenger the next moment it received. But pushing by messenger to mobile is delayed (q.e.d: messages never reach you in time). this is the problem. fortunately i have a solution, Goto status.live.com and file a complaint under "messenger" service. i did. but Ms wont look until enough complaints is received. all have to do :-(

 

[bluestar_uk]

Thanks to the above two members for posting and clearing this up :smile:

Also the diagram makes sense to as I log in to live (messenger) and see the messages instantly. It has never been made clear on other post across forums as to why some have the issue and not others. I know people are soon quick to jump on the threads and say... +1, same here, come on MS sort it out. But I could never understand why.

@Florin Anghel
So with what you have said, I'm guessing that within the last week. My account was on one of the servers that MS must have just updated. I guess i have just been lucky up until all this time.

@Vichuhit
I'm guessing that you have the same problem. This kind of sucks and I believe was a huge selling point of the phone and integrating the biggest social network on the internet. kinda now thinking about chopping in for a android now. I'll head over to status.live.com and file a complaint and see what happens. Although I doubt much will happen on there. Previous issues I have had and even the general opinion from other peoples post; people are pretty disgusted with the level of support. (I mean I could copy and past all day long from word!)

Now given that this is a pretty big issue that MS have to deal with. Will that mean that they will only roll out a fix on their next update? 8.1

Thanks guys

 

[vichuhit]

Glad you filed a complaint over status.live.com, (I doubt they would take action within a week. They won't).
And for the final sentence of yours regarding update, you're wrong:
This delay or other issues has nothing to do with our mobile, as i stated before; messages are "pushed" and not "pulled"(Google 'push technology', if you don't know what that means) from central server to our mobiles. this pushing method completely relies on "push servers", if there is any bug in their servers, then we will meet up with a problem like this. Probably this happens most of the time and MS engineers rectify it after a week or so.
our mobile doesn't need any updates, their servers does.
Edit : Forgive my bad grammar. I am not from US or UK

 

[bluestar_uk]

I'm gona go and build my own server now lol :winktongue:

Thanks, I understand now. So just keep hitting it at MS and when they realise there is a problem, they might do something.

 

[vichuhit]

yep . MS is a big corporation with almost hundreds of this kind services ranging from OSs, cloud services, private servers, xbox services and has thousands of dedicated servers. It's practically very difficult to troubleshoot all of them to check for any kind of errors. thats why we have to report issues. i hope everyone reading this thread reports it.
(a different kind of problem arised two months ago with this messenger, and they solved it after two weeks. i reported 13 times with 13 different live id's. OMG!!!!!!!!)

 

[azdenn]

only thinkg missing in the diagram is the carrier... AT&T used to have a habit of delaying txt messages... wonder if their network algorithms similarly delay fb chat messages... hoping you'll be frustrated enough to buy a dedicated chat app...

 

[neo158]

The diagram clears this up for me and explains why the Facebook beta app was receiving messages but messaging wasn't. Thanks vichuhit :wink: