Apple users who have updated Facebook to the latest version released today are experiencing a myriad of bugs and issues. We are recommending that you avoid updating Facebook for iOS to version 5.1 if you can, and if you already have, try not to use it until Facebook issues a fix. Some users are seeing everything working just fine, while others are finding that the app is unusable.
Update: These issues have been fixed, as per Facebook’s statement at the bottom of this post.
Reports are coming in that this update apparently does not display your Facebook friends and groups, which may or may not be the reason why it results in a completely broken News Feed as well as being unable to load Timelines. To make matters worse, if you decide to logout (which many users are trying in order to see if it fixes the problems), you won’t be able to log back in. Robert Scoble is reporting that he can’t post photos at the moment.
TNW has independently confirmed with two of our writers that logging out does indeed mean you can’t log back in. We are also looking into the other reported bugs. What we think is happening here is that nothing is actually being deleted or erased; the iOS app is simply having trouble getting certain information from Facebook’s servers.
This is a perfect example of what can happen when you accelerate your update cycle: quality control may suffer. Less than two months ago, Facebook promised to release a new version of Facebook for iOS, Facebook for Android, Facebook Messenger, and Facebook Camera every four to eight weeks as the company doubles down on mobile.
Facebook has kept up with this schedule, and this appears to be the first major problem so far. Today’s update was supposed to add three new features: the new Messages interface, multi-photo uploads, and Gifts. Unfortunately, Facebook for iOS users are getting much more than that.
We have contacted Facebook about this issue. We will update this article if and when we hear back.
An earlier version of this post used the term delete when referring to users and groups. It is more accurate to say that they are not being displayed, as the missing users and groups are only affecting the mobile app, not the desktop. The users and groups are therefore not deleted, just not being displayed.
Update at 7:30PM EST: “We found the issue and have addressed it server side,” a Facebook spokesperson told TNW in a statement. “The app should be working fine for all as of 30 minutes ago.”
Image credit: ralaenin
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.