Mentioning friends in facebook statuses

By Niki, 21 June, 2019

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

So are we not able to mention people in our facebook statuses anymore since the last few facebook updates? I start typing in a name and nothing happens. I can mention them in my comments though but not in the status itself.

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Comments

By sockhopsinger on Wednesday, June 26, 2019 - 22:30

I assume when you want to mention a friend you put the At sign in front of their name and then leave the text input area to search for the appropriate name higher up on the screen? That is what I do and it still works for me.

Good luck.

By Julia on Wednesday, June 26, 2019 - 22:30

My solution for that is to insert „At” symbol before typing a name. Good luck.

By René Jaun on Wednesday, June 26, 2019 - 22:30

As already discussed over at Facebook‘s Entry in the directory, as of the latest app update mentioning friends in newly created posts is kind of broken for VoiceOver users in some cases.
Visually, it still does seem to work: You type in the @ sign, add some letters and names will appear.
However, VoiceOver does not seem to recognize them anymore.
User Chris R (I hope I quote his name correctly) pointed out that there is some kind of work around.
Basically, after the @ sign and typing letters (make sure you type enough of them), you can make facebook select / mention the first suggested name by clicking on the first item in the „Message Background“ options.
I hope, this made it clear. If not, check out the page in the App Directory, where you will find his original post.

By René Jaun on Wednesday, June 26, 2019 - 22:30

It‘s on the (currently) very last page of comments. Starts at #360 or similar. But I also noticed that you found it meanwhile, as you wrote a comment there yourself.
And no, you usually don‘t type a space after the @ Sign.
So if you want to mention Sarah, you type
@Sarah

By Niki on Wednesday, June 26, 2019 - 22:30

In reply to by René Jaun

It doesn't work, the @ and then the name does nothing. Who can I report this too?

By René Jaun on Wednesday, June 26, 2019 - 22:30

1) go to https://www.facebook.com/accessibility/
2) Browse the page and look for a button named „Contact Us“, „Get in touch“ or similar. Click it.
3) Fill out the form. It does have quite a few questions, but you‘ll manage.
4) When done, hit SEND at the bottom.

Thanks for doing this. I believe the more people report it to them the better...

By Niki on Wednesday, June 26, 2019 - 22:30

Will it eventually get fixed?

By René Jaun on Wednesday, June 26, 2019 - 22:30

From what I observe, Facebook does care about accessibility. Though it does not always treat it as their top priority.
But yes, bugs reported to the Accessibility Team have been known to get fixed eventually. I just don‘t know how long it‘ll take..

By Niki on Wednesday, June 26, 2019 - 22:30

So I guess we don't have a workaround for this issue until it gets fixed. I just reported it too.

By René Jaun on Wednesday, June 26, 2019 - 22:30

Just tried mentioning people posting my status at
Https://m.facebook.com
It‘s not the most accessible experience,
But it did work.
Tried that yet?

By Niki on Wednesday, June 26, 2019 - 22:30

Did you use safari or a computer?

By René Jaun on Wednesday, June 26, 2019 - 22:30

Using Safari on an iPhone, the process is pretty ok to do.
Using my computer and posting on the main site https://www.facebook.com felt more challenging to me.
But the computer version has the advantage that I could not only tag friends, but also Facebook Pages - something which, whatever I tried, I could just not achieve either in the IOS App nor on mobile Safari.

By chris R on Wednesday, June 26, 2019 - 22:30

Thanks René for the credit :-).
I can get the workaround to work most of the time but it's not ideal by any means , and of course will only work with the first result.
Hopefully they will get it fixed soon. Frustrating Facebook never mention what they've actually fixed in their updates but I guess that's commonplace annoyingly. If I hear the phrase “bug fixes and performance improvements” again I think I'll go mad.
Chris